Wednesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s gospel ends with a very puzzling sentence: “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” If we break down what this sentence is saying, it suggests that nobody really knows Jesus the Son except God the Father. Likewise, nobody really knows God the Father except Jesus himself, as well as those persons to whom Jesus chooses to reveal the Father. How can this be? Especially since we feel like we do know Jesus, especially since the gospels are all about helping us to know him.
John 14: 9 helps us make sense of this. In this verse Jesus says to Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” So what we are really seeing when we see and know Jesus, is God the Father. This begins to make sense to us when we realize that Jesus came to reveal God to us. Jesus is completely transparent to God the Father, and so in a way we see through Jesus to God the Father. Yet here God is presented to us in human form, so we can understand and grasp God in this way. And by imitating what we see in Jesus we can be like God.
Finally, we should understand that Jesus wishes to reveal the Father to all who are open to this revelation. So anyone who truly wishes to know God through Jesus, will find him.
Reflection by Fr. Aquinas Keusenkothen, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections