Don’t be afraid. I AM here.

Reflection 1 Source: Sacred Place, Irish Jesuits

John 14:1-6 NRSVue

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

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVUE)

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One of the big identity statements of Jesus is in these words of the gospel. Without any ifs or buts, he declares himself as the way, truth and life. God is accessible through him because he is God. These words are a gift: that with him we have the deepest personal security in life, knowing that all can be found in him.

Jesus brings inner peace. Even in face of his impending death and what they will have to endure in the world, he does not want their hearts to be troubled. He wants them to be at peace because he will not abandon them. He does not abandon us.

He is the way: where he goes, we follow. He is the truth: all other claims to truth are measured by him. He is the life: we have true life in us, the spring of water welling up into everlasting life, through him.

Reflection 2 Source: Carmelites Lectio Divina

These five chapters (Jn 13-17) are a beautiful example of how the communities of the Beloved Disciple at the end of the first century in Asia Minor, which today is Turkey, carried on the catechesis. For example, in chapter 14, the questions of the three disciples, Thomas (Jn 14:5), Philip (Jn 14:8) and Judas Thaddeus (Jn 14:22) were also the questions and problems within the communities. The answers of Jesus to the three of them are like a mirror in which the communities found a response to their doubts and difficulties. To better understand the environment in which the catechesis was carried out, it is possible to do the following. During and after the reading of the text, it is good to close the eyes and pretend that we are in the room in the midst of the disciples, participating in the encounter with Jesus. While we listen, it is necessary to pay attention to the way which Jesus prepares His friends to separate themselves and reveals to them His friendship, communicating to them security and support.

• John 14:1-2: Do not let your hearts be troubled. The text begins with an exhortation: “Do not let your hearts be troubled!” And immediately He adds: “In my Father’s house there are many places to live in!” The insistence on continuing to use encouraging words to overcome troubles and differences is a sign that there were many disagreements among the communities. One would say to the other: “Our way of living the faith is better than yours. We are saved! You live in error: If you want to go to heaven, you have to convert yourselves and live like we do!” Jesus says: “In My Father’s house there are many places!” It is not necessary that everybody thinks the same way. The important thing is that all accept Jesus, the revelation of the Father, and that out of love for Him, they have attitudes of understanding, service and love. Love and service are the basis which unite the bricks and help the diverse communities to become a Church of brothers and sisters.

• John 14:3-4: The farewell of Jesus. Jesus says that He is going to prepare a place and that afterwards He will return to take us with Him to the Father’s house. He wants us to be with Him forever. The return which Jesus speaks about is the coming of the Spirit that He sends and who acts in us, in such a way that we can live as He lived (Jn 14:16-17.26; 16:13-14). John’s community feared a delay in His future return and his Gospel is filled with reminders of the Spirit. Jesus ends by saying: “You know the way to the place where I am going!” Anyone who knows Jesus knows the way, because the way is the life that He lived and which led Him through death together to the Father.

• John 14:5-6: Thomas asks which is the way. Thomas says: “Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answers: “I am the Way, I am Truth and Life! No one can come to the Father except through Me”. Three important words. Without the way we cannot go. Without the truth one cannot make a good choice. Without life, there is only death! Jesus explains the sense. He is the Way, because “No one can come to the Father except through Me”. And He is the gate through which the sheep enter and go out (Jn 10:9). Jesus is the truth, because looking at Him, we see the image of the Father. “Anyone who knows Me knows the Father!” Jesus is the life, because walking like Jesus, we will be united to the Father and we will have life in us!

Reflection 3, Source: Catholic Link

When someone we are very close with leaves us we may feel like the cord that held us up has snapped and that we are falling through a void. We shout hoping that someone hears us and can retie the knot.

The separation from those that we love is accompanied by emotions that make us feel absence. It is as if we now carry within ourselves a void that no one else can fill. Trying to fill it is useless: the emptiness is there to stay.

In times of separation we show what we are truly made of. It is then that we show what that bond truly meant to us. It is then that we show how much we loved. It is then that our deepest fears emerge, that up until now, we had been able to hide.

Our last words are only the essential ones. There’s no more time, for we will likely never have another chance to say what we hold in our hearts.

Today’s Gospel tells us the final words of Jesus to his disciples. Supper ended not long ago, their last. It is time to say what matters most. It is also the time when the deepest fears come to light.

The first is the fear of being left utterly alone. We need reassurance.

It was common in the ancient world to split an object in half, each person receiving part, until the day came that they could be reunited (syn-ballo: I put together, from which we get the word symbol).

Knowing perhaps our forgetfulness and our disorder, Jesus does not leave us with a piece but with his whole self. He leaves us the bread and wine in which we can recognize his true presence, his body and blood. In the Last Supper in fact, Jesus gives himself over so that he may be found again, precisely when the disciples feared losing him.

Jesus’ words are reassuring: “I will take you to myself”; “so that where I am you also may be.” They are words of someone who sees fear in the eyes of the one being left behind.

There is no image more reassuring than the home, in fact, it is there that Jesus awaits us: in my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. The house is an intimate place, the home of our relationships. Jesus speaks of a house where there is room, a house that is welcoming. We know well that the house is a representation of our own selves. As children, among the first things we learn to draw is the house. A child represents himself indirectly through the image of the house.

In the house of the Father, Jesus says, there is always room. That is, in the life of the Father (and in that of Jesus, who is life itself) there is always room. His life is welcoming – a life lived for others. Jesus is telling his friends that there will always be room in his life for them.

The feeling of abandonment is accompanied by the sensation of losing oneself. The absence of the other makes us lose our point of reference. The other is a direction. Their absence throws us into a state of confusion: what will I do now?

Jesus too saw the confusion of his disciples. Thomas asks which way to go because he already felt lost. But sometimes when we are lost the only thing we can do is wait for someone to find us.

Thomas is the voice of autonomy and self-sufficiency: he would like to find the way by himself, he wants to be the protagonist of his path, he wants to show that he’s capable of doing it on his own. Jesus invites him to wait and to recognize that “no one comes to the Father except through me.”Jesus is the way. We must let ourselves be found by the shepherd that seeks out his sheep.

When we feel abandoned, we feel like orphans.

Philip wants to see the Father because he needs to rediscover his origin, his roots, his story. Seeking the Father means seeking out who I am, my identity, where I come from. The Father is the one that gives us our inheritance and allows us to build a future for ourselves.

Feeling abandoned means no longer hoping for tomorrow. Feeling abandoned means feeling deprived, not only of the past, but also of the future.

Perhaps this is why Jesus uses such fatherly words: “whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these.” These are the same words that every son wishes to hear from his father.

Just like the disciples, we too are wounded with this fear.

Life continually requires us to leave, to say goodbye, or to turn the page. But in every one of these moments we are not alone, even if we are tempted to think that we have been abandoned, lost, orphaned.

Questions for Personal Meditation:

• What are the angers I chose to hold on to?
• What are the resentments I kept?
• What are the fears that I experience at this point in my life?
• How do I hold on to Jesus about how to follow His Ways, the Truth of the matter, and the Life He constantly offer?
• Do I believe His Words, follow His Ways, have a Life in His consolation, or do I just want to wallow in my anger, resentment, and fear, to escape and run away from Him in my guilt?