Navarre Bible Commentary:Saturday, 4th Week of Easter

John 14:7–14

7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him.”

8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves.

12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; 14 if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.  

Cited in the Catechism:  In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, St. John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium."  He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraphs 470, 516, 2614, 2633 and 2815.

Commentary

14:8–11. The apostles still find our Lord’s words very mysterious, because they cannot understand the oneness of Father and Son. Hence Philip’s persistence. Then Jesus “upbraids the apostle for not yet knowing him, even though his works are proper to God—walking on the water, controlling the wind, forgiving sins, raising the dead. This is why he reproves him: for not recognizing his divine condition through his human nature” (St Augustine, De Trinitate, book 7).

Obviously the sight of the Father which Jesus refers to in this passage is a vision through faith, for no one has ever seen God as he is (cf. Jn 1:18; 6:46). All manifestations of God, or “theophanies”, have been through some medium; they are only a reflexion of God’s greatness. The highest expression which we have of God our Father is in Christ Jesus, the Son of God sent among men. “He did this by the total fact of his presence and self-manifestation—by words and works, signs and miracles, but above all by his death and glorious resurrection from the dead, and finally by sending the Spirit of truth. He revealed that God was with us, to deliver us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to eternal life” (Vatican II, Dei Verbum, 4).

14:12–14. Before leaving this world, the Lord promises his apostles to make them sharers in his power so that God’s salvation may be manifested through them. These “works” are the miracles they will work in the name of Jesus Christ (cf. Acts 3:1–10; 5:15–16, etc.), and especially the conversion of people to the Christian faith and their sanctification by preaching and the ministry of the sacraments. They can be considered greater works than Jesus’ own insofar as, by the apostles’ ministry, the Gospel was not only preached in Palestine but was spread to the ends of the earth; but this extraordinary power of apostolic preaching proceeds from Christ, who has ascended to the Father: after undergoing the humiliation of the cross Jesus has been glorified and from heaven he manifests his power by acting through the apostles.

The apostles’ power, therefore, derives from Christ glorified. Christ our Lord says as much: “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it”. “It is not that he who believes in me will be greater than me, but only that I shall then do greater works than now; greater, by him who believes in me, than I now do by myself without him” (St Augustine, In Ioann. Evang., 72, 1).

Jesus Christ is our intercessor in heaven; therefore, he promises us that everything we ask for in his name, he will do. Asking in his name (cf. 15:7, 16; 16:23–24) means appealing to the power of the risen Christ, believing that he is all-powerful and merciful because he is true God; and it also means asking for what is conducive to our salvation, for Jesus is our Saviour. Thus, by “whatever you ask” we must understand what is for the good of the asker. When our Lord does not give what we ask for, the reason is that it would not make for our salvation. In this way we can see that he is our Saviour both when he refuses us what we ask and when he grants it.

Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.

"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome

Navarre Bible Commentary:Friday, 4th Week of Easter

Source: Slideshare

John 14:1–6

1 “Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.  

Cited in the Catechism:  In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, St. John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium."  He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraphs 74, 151, 459, 661, 1025,1698, 2466, 2614 and 2795.

Commentary

14:1–3. Apparently this prediction of Peter’s denial has saddened the disciples. Jesus cheers them up by telling them that he is going away to prepare a place for them in heaven, for heaven they will eventually attain, despite their shortcomings and dragging their feet. The return which Jesus refers to includes his second coming (Parousia) at the end of the world (cf. 1 Cor 4:5; 11:36; 1 Thess 4:16–17; 1 Jn 2:28) and his meeting with each soul after death: Christ has prepared a heavenly dwelling place through his work of redemption. Therefore, his words can be regarded as being addressed not only to the Twelve but also to everyone who believes in him over the course of the centuries. The Lord will bring with him into his glory all those who have believed in him and have stayed faithful to him.

14:4–7. The Apostles did not really understand what Jesus was telling them: hence Thomas’ question. The Lord explains that he is the way to the Father. “It was necessary for him to say ‘I am the Way’ to show them that they really knew what they thought they were ignorant of, because they knew him” (St Augustine, In Ioann. Evang., 66, 2).

Jesus is the way to the Father—through what he teaches, for by keeping to his teaching we will reach heaven; through faith, which he inspires, because he came to this world so “that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (Jn 3:15); through his example, since no one can go to the Father without imitating the Son; through his merits, which make it possible for us to enter our heavenly home; and above all he is the way because he reveals the Father, with whom he is one because of his divine nature.

“Just as children by listening to their mothers, and prattling with them, learn to speak their language, so we, by keeping close to the Saviour in mediation, and observing his words, his actions, and his affections, shall learn, with the help of his grace, to speak, to act, and to will like him.

“We must pause here …; we can reach God the Father by no other route …; the Divinity could not well be contemplated by us in this world below if it were not united to the sacred humanity of the Saviour, whose life and death are the most appropriate, sweet, delicious and profitable subject which we can choose for our ordinary meditations” (St Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, part 2, chaps. 1, 2).

“I am the way”: he is the only path linking heaven and earth. “He is speaking to all men, but in a special way he is thinking of people who, like you and me, are determined to take our Christian vocation seriously: he wants God to be forever in our thoughts, on our lips and in everything we do, including our most ordinary and routine actions.

“Jesus is the way. Behind him on this earth of ours he has left the clear outlines of his footprints. They are indelible signs which neither the erosion of time nor the treachery of the evil one have been able to erase” (St J. Escrivá, Friends of God, 127). Jesus’ words do much more than provide an answer to Thomas’ question; he tells us, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life”. Being the Truth and the Life is something proper to the Son of God become man, who St John says in the prologue of his Gospel is “full of truth and grace” (1:14). He is the Truth because by coming to this world he shows that God is faithful to his promises, and because he teaches the truth about who God is and tells us that true worship must be “in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:23). He is the Life because from all eternity he has divine life with his Father (cf. Jn 1:4), and because he makes us, through grace, sharers in that divine life. This is why the Gospel says: “This is eternal life, that they know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent” (Jn 17:3).

By his reply Jesus is, “as it were, saying, By which route do you want to go? I am the Way. To where do you want to go? I am the Truth. Where do you want to remain? I am the Life. Every man can attain an understanding of the Truth and the Life; but not all find the Way. The wise of this world realize that God is eternal life and knowable truth; but the Word of God, who is Truth and Life joined to the Father, has become the Way by taking a human nature. Make your way contemplating his humility and you will reach God” (St Augustine, De verbis Domini sermones, 54).

Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.

"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome

Navarre Bible Commentary:Thursday, 4th Week of Easter

Judas Dips His Hand in Dish by James Tissot

John 13:16–20

16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. 18 I am not speaking of you all; I know whom I have chosen; it is that the scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’ 19 I tell you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. 20 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives any one whom I send receives me; and he who receives me receives him who sent me.”  

Cited in the Catechism:  In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, St. John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium."  He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraphs 60, 574, 595, 596, 606, 609, 614 and 649.

Commentary

13:15–17. Jesus’ whole life was an example of service towards men, fulfilling his Father’s will to the point of dying on the cross. Here our Lord promises us that if we imitate him, our Teacher, in disinterested service (which always implies sacrifice), we will find true happiness which no one can wrest from us (cf. 16:22; 17:13). “ ‘I have given you an example’, he tells his disciples after washing their feet, on the night of the Last Supper. Let us reject from our hearts any pride, any ambition, any desire to dominate; and peace and joy will reign around us and within us, as a consequence of our personal sacrifice” (St Josemaría Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, 94).

13:18. Lifting one’s heel against someone means hitting him brutally; metaphorically, therefore, it means violent enmity. Judas’ treachery fulfils the words of Psalm 41:9 where the psalmist complains bitterly of a friend’s treachery. Once again the Old Testament prefigures events which find their full expression in the New.

Through Baptism, the Christian has become a son of God and is called to share in God’s good things, not only in heaven but also on earth: he has received grace, he shares in the eucharistic banquet, he shares with his brethren, other Christians, the friendship of Jesus. Therefore, if a person sins who has been born again through Baptism, in some sense his is a sort of treachery similar to that of Judas’. However, we have the recourse of repentance: if we trust in God’s mercy we can set about recovering our friendship with God.

“Wake up! Listen to what the Holy Spirit tells you: ‘Si inimicus meus maledixisset mihi, sustinuissem utique—If it were an enemy who insulted me, I could put up with that.’ But you … ‘tu vero homo unanimis, dux meus, et notus meus, qui simul mecum dulces capiebas cibos—you, my friend, my apostle, who sit at my table and take sweet food with me!’ ” (St J. Escrivá, The Way, 244).

13:19. Jesus tells the Apostles in advance about Judas’ treachery, so that when they see Christ’s predictions come true, they will realize he has divine knowledge and that in him are fullfilled the Scriptures of the Old Testament (cf. Jn 2:22). On the words “I am”, cf. the note on Jn 8:21–24.

Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.

"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome

Navarre Bible Commentary:Wednesday, 4th Week of Easter

By James Tissot

John 15:9–17

9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 This I command you, to love one another.”  

Cited in the Catechism:  In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, St. John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium."  He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraphs 363, 434, 459, 609, 614, 737, 1823, 1824, 1970, 1972, 2074, 2347, 2615, 2745 and 2815.

Commentary

The law of love (15:9–17)

15:9–11. Christ’s love for Christians is a reflection of the love the three divine Persons have for one another and for all men: “We love, because he first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19).

The certainty that God loves us is the source of Christian joy (v. 11), but it is also something which calls for a fruitful response on our part, which should take the form of a fervent desire to do God’s will in everything, that is, to keep his commandments, in imitation of Jesus Christ, who did the will of his Father (cf. Jn 4:34).

15:12–15. Jesus insists on the “new commandment”, which he himself keeps by giving his life for us. See the note on Jn 13:34–35.

Christ’s friendship with the Christian, which our Lord expresses in a very special way in this passage, is something very evident in St Josemaría Escrivá’s preaching: “The life of the Christian who decides to behave in accordance with the greatness of his vocation is so to speak a prolonged echo of those words of our Lord, ‘No longer do I call you my servants; a servant is one who does not understand what his master is about, whereas I have made known to you all that my Father has told me; and so I have called you my friends’ (Jn 15:15). When we decide to be docile and follow the will of God, hitherto unimagined horizons open up before us […]. There is nothing better than, recognizing that Love has made us slaves of God. From the moment we recognize this we cease being slaves and become friends, sons” (St Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, 35].

“Sons of God, Friends of God. […] Jesus Christ is truly God and truly Man, he is our Brother and our Friend. If we make an effort to get to know him well, ‘we will share in the joy of being God’s friends’ [ibid., 300]. If we do all we can to keep him company, from Bethlehem to Calvary, sharing his joys and sufferings, we will become worthy of entering into loving conversation with him. As the Liturgy of the Hours sings, calicem Domini biberunt, et amici Dei facti sunt, they drank the chalice of the Lord and so became friends of God.

“Being his children and being his friends are two inseparable realities for those who love God. We go to him as children, carrying on a trusting dialogue that should fill the whole of our lives; and we go to him as friends. […] In the same way our divine sonship urges us to translate the overflow of our interior life into apostolic activity, just as our friendship with God leads us to place ourselves at ‘the service of all men. We are called to use the gifts God has given us as instruments to help others discover Christ’ [ibid., 258]” (Monsignor A. del Portillo in the foreword to Escrivá, Friends of God).

15:16. There are three ideas contained in these words of our Lord. One, that the calling which the apostles received and which every Christian also receives does not originate in the individual’s good desires but in Christ’s free choice. It was not the apostles who chose the Lord as Master, in the way someone would go about choosing a rabbi: it was Christ who chose them. The second idea is that the apostles’ mission and the mission of every Christian is to follow Christ, to seek holiness and contribute to the spread of the Gospel. The third teaching refers to the effectiveness of prayer done in the name of Christ; which is why the Church usually ends the prayers of the liturgy with the invocation “Through Jesus Christ our Lord …”.

The three ideas are all interconnected: prayer is necessary if the Christian life is to prove fruitful, for it is “God who gives the growth” (1 Cor 3:7); and the obligation to seek holiness and to be apostolic derives from the fact that it is Christ himself who has given us this mission. “Bear in mind, son, that you are not just a soul who has joined other souls in order to do a good thing. That is a lot, but it’s still little. You are the apostle who is carrying out an imperative command from Christ” (St Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, 941–942).

Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.

"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome

Navarre Bible Commentary:Tuesday, 4th Week of Easter

Jesus in the Portico by James Tissot

John 10:22–30

22 It was the feast of the Dedication at Jerusalem; 23 it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. 24 So the Jews gathered round him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness to me; 26 but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; 28 and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”  

Cited in the Catechism:  In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, St. John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium."  He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraphs 548, 582, 583 and 590.

Commentary

Jesus and the Father are one (10:22–30)

10:22. This feast commemorates an episode in Jewish history (cf. 1 Mac 4:36–59; 2 Mac 1–2, 19; 10:1–8) when Judas Maccabeus, in the year 165 bc, after liberating Jerusalem from the control of the Seleucid kings of Syria, cleansed the temple of the profanations of Antiochus Epiphanes (1 Mac 1:54). From then onwards, on the twenty-fifth day of the month of Kisleu (November–December) and throughout the following week, all Judea celebrated the anniversary of the dedication of the new altar. It was also known as the “festival of lights” because it was customary to light lamps, a symbol of the Law, and put them in the windows of the houses (cf. 2 Mac 1:18).

10:24–25. When these Jews ask Jesus if he is the Messiah, “they speak in this way”, St Augustine comments, “not because they desire truth, but to prepare the way for calumny” (In Ioann. Evang., 48, 3). We have already seen Jesus reveal, by his words and deeds, that he is the only Son of God (5:19ff; 7:16ff; 8:25ff). In view of their good dispositions, he explicitly told the Samaritan woman (4:26) and the man born blind (9:37) that he was the Messiah and Saviour. Now he reproaches his listeners for refusing to recognize the works he does in his Father’s name (cf. 5:36; 10:38). On other occasions he referred to works as a way to distinguish true prophets from false ones: “You will know them by their fruits” (Mt 7:16; cf. Mt 12:33).

10:26–29. Certainly faith and eternal life cannot be merited by man’s own efforts: they are a gift of God. But the Lord does not deny anyone grace to believe and be saved, because he “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). If someone tries to avoid receiving the gift of faith, his unbelief is blameworthy. On this point St Thomas Aquinas teaches: “I can see, thanks to the light of the sun; but if I close my eyes, I cannot see: this is no fault of the sun, it is my own fault, because by closing my eyes, I prevent the sunlight from reaching me” (Comm. on St John, ad loc.).

But those who do not oppose divine grace do come to believe in Jesus. They are known to and loved by him, enter under his protection and remain faithful with the help of his grace, which is a pledge of the eternal life which the Good Shepherd will eventually give them. It is true that in this world they will have to strive and in the course of striving they will sustain wounds; but if they stay united to the Good Shepherd nothing and no one will snatch Christ’s sheep from him, because our Father, God, is stronger than the Evil One. Our hope that God will grant us final perseverance is not based on our strength but on God’s mercy: this hope should always motivate us to strive to respond to grace and to be ever more faithful to the demands of our faith.

10:30. Jesus reveals that he and the Father are one in substance. Earlier he proclaimed that God was his Father, “making himself equal with God”—which is why a number of times the Jewish authorities think of putting him to death (cf. 5:18; 8:59). Now he speaks about the mystery of God, which is something we can know about only through Revelation. Later on he will reveal more about this mystery, particularly at the Last Supper (14:10; 17:21–22). It is something the evangelist reflects on at the very beginning of the Gospel, in the prologue (cf. Jn 1:1 and note).

“Listen to the Son himself”, St Augustine invites us. “ ‘I and the Father are one.’ He did not say, ‘I am the Father’ or ‘I and the Father are one [Person].’ But when he says ‘I and the Father are one,’ notice the two words ‘[we are]’ and ‘one’ … For if they are one, then they are not diverse; if ‘[we] are’, then there is both a Father and a Son” (In Ioann. Evang., 36, 9). Jesus reveals that he is one in substance with the Father as far as divine essence or nature is concerned, but he also reveals that the Father and the Son are distinct Persons: “We believe then in the Father who eternally begets the Son; in the Son, the Word of God, who is eternally begotten; in the Holy Spirit, the uncreated Person who proceeds from the Father and the Son as their eternal Love. Thus in the three divine Persons, coaeternae sibi et coaequales, the life and beatitude of God perfectly One superabound and are consummated in the supreme excellence and glory proper to uncreated Being, and always ‘there should be venerated Unity in the Trinity and Trinity in the Unity’ ” (Paul VI, Creed of the People of God, 10).

Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.

"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome