Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter
May 9, 2020
Today, in Mercy, Paul and Barnabas make a final grand effort to speak to the hearts of the Jews in Antioch. The outcome is both bad news and good news.
The Jewish community resists the Word. But the Gentiles receive it with an open heart and the Gospel ignites “through the whole region”. The catechesis was so successful that resisters mounted the persecution and expulsion of the disciples from the neighborhood.
Then reminiscent of Jesus’s advice in Matthew 10:14:
So they shook the dust from their feet
in protest against them
and went to Iconium.
The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.
In our Gospel, Jesus instructs his disciples that He and the Father are one:
“If you know me, then you will also know my Father.
From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip, like Thomas in yesterday’s Gospel, says he needs a little more to go on than that simple statement:
“Master, show us the Father,
and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus once again patiently reminds Philip and the others that all that they have experienced in Him is a revelation of the Father. He further tells them that they themselves are to be that ongoing revelation for the world:
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes in me will do the works that I do,
and will do greater ones than these,
because I am going to the Father.
And whatever you ask in my name, I will do,
so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”
As Christians, we believe that we too are commissioned in the Name of Christ to be his Presence in the world. Jesus tells us that whatever we ask in his Name will be accomplished.
That doesn’t mean that the name of Jesus is a magic formula to get what we want.
Instead, within the Holy Name, we come to trust the mercy, love, and abiding accompaniment of God. Such trust allows us to see the slow working of God’s loving Will in all things – just as Jesus did through his faithful life, heartbreaking death, and ultimately triumphant Resurrection.
Let us gently repeat that beloved Name in our prayer, asking that its sweet grace enlighten and transform us.
Music: In the Name of the Lord – Gloria Gaithersburg, Phil McHugh, and Sandi Patti
