Friday, May 16, 2014


Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter

(Acts 13:26-33; John 14:1-6)

A university co-ed tells her roommates in the middle of a blizzard that her father is coming to pick her up.  “How can you be so sure he will get here?” the roommates ask.  “Because I am his favorite daughter,” the young woman replies.  In the gospel today Jesus means to instill such confidence in his disciples.    

The passage is taken from the beginning of the second part of John’s gospel, the so-called Book of Glory.  Jesus is giving a farewell speech to his disciples.  He does not want them to worry because he is leaving and so assures them that they will be all right.  Thomas expresses the uncertainty that they all feel.  Jesus answers that there is no need for fright since he is “the way and the truth and the life.”  That is, he is the way to the Father because he is the truth sent from the Father to give the supernatural life of the Father.

We sometimes find ourselves in bleak situations.  Perhaps we face job termination, mortgage foreclosure, or even terminal disease.  We are not to cower but to hope.  Jesus is one with the Father who called the Israelites out of slavery into a new marvelous land and raised the crucified to new life.  He will save us, his followers, from distress.