Jesus the Way the Truth the Life Fifth Sunday of Easter Year A
Acts 6:1-7; Psalm 33; 1 Peter 2:4-9; John 14:1-12
As Jesus says in today’s Gospel, he is the way, the truth, and the life. How is Jesus the way, the truth and the life?
Jesus is the way as the path to eternal life.
Jesus is the truth as the fullness of truth.
Jesus is the life since not only is Jesus the way to eternal life but also is eternal life, is heaven.
As Benedict XVI wrote: “Jesus himself is what we call ‘heaven’; heaven is not a place, but a person, the person of him in whom God and man are forever and inseparably one. And we go to heaven and enter into heaven to the extent that we go to Jesus Christ and enter into him.”[1]
To better understand a reality, it is sometimes helpful to contrast it with its opposite. The opposite of heaven is hell. So, what is hell? Hell is the absence of Jesus that happens when someone chooses to be enclosed “in one’s own being alone.” Completely curved inward, barricaded “up in himself” one experiences hell as “the untouchable, the solitary, the reject.” In contrast with heaven, which can only be given and received by someone as a gift, hell, he continues, “is the loneliness of the man who will not accept [heaven], who declines the status of beggar and withdraws into himself.” [2]
Similarly, the Holy Spirit through Pope Leo, teaches us that: “Salvation does not lie in ‘autonomy, but in humbly recognizing one’s own need and in being able to express it freely,’ … For Jesus, “asking is not unworthy, but liberating;” indeed, “we are creatures made to give and receive love.”[3]
May all that we encounter in this life serve as multiple stepping stones on the way to eternal salvation. How do we discern whether someone or something is not leading us to heaven, is not leading us to Jesus? A distinction from Bishop Lopes helps to answer this question. He makes a distinction between an icon and an idol. An icon is to serve as a window into heavenly reality. An idol serves as a wall that prevents one from going beyond it.[4]
If ever a person or created reality becomes an idol to us, a wall that prevents us from going beyond it to Jesus and to others, may we reject the idol, for we were not created for any created reality of this world. Rather, we were created for God and through God to order all our relationships to God.
As Saint Catherine of Siena stated, only in heaven will we “find life without death, satiety [fullness] without boredom, and hunger without pain.”[5]
May God Bless You All – Father Peter
[1] Benedict XVI, Dogma and Preaching: Applying Christian Doctrine to Daily Life, trans. Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 321.
[2] Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity (Revised Edition), trans. J.R. Foster (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 312-313.
[3] Vatican City (AsiaNews), “Leo XIV, ‘our fragility is a bridge towards heaven’,” asianews.it, https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Leo-XIV:-‘our-fragility-is-a-bridge-towards-heaven’-63789.html.
[4] Bishop Steven J. Lopes, “Diocese of Norwich 40th Presbyteral Convocation”.
[5] Sr. Miriam James Heidland SOLT, Loved as I Am: An Invitation to Conversion, Healing, and Freedom through Jesus, 86. Sr. Miriam cites, The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena.
Catholic Evangelization 