Tìm Kiếm

14 tháng 5, 2017

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year A (May 14, 2017)



He Is The Way The Truth And The Life
(see Jn 14:6)

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

In today’s Gospel, Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior, introduces Himself to us and to humanity as The Way The Truth and The Life.

First, Jesus Christ does not say that He is a way, any way that people may or may not take to reach a given destination.  He says that He is “The Way” in the superlative, the highest, the absolute and exclusive degree. 

In fact, Christ was declared by God the Father the Beloved Son, with Whom God is well pleased.[1] 

Christ is the only one Mediator between God and man.[2]

Jesus Christ was decreed by God the Father Lord and Master and Supreme Judge of the universe and of all creation:

God greatly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.[3]   

No name under heaven other than the Holy Name of Jesus should the human race call upon to be saved.[4]  

So, there is The Only, The Unique Way, The Way of Jesus Christ, The Way that is Jesus Christ, through Which humanity surely reaches salvation.  No alternative way could be found in God’s plan for the everlasting happiness given to all peoples, at all times and in all places.

Second, Jesus Christ also tells us that He is The Truth.  He is not any truth but The Truth.  He is The Truth about God’s merciful love toward all of us sinners.  He is The Truth that we, created by God in His image, and given a dignity much higher than that of other creatures, have to live up to our noble standing.  This dignity should not be violated by anyone and in anyway.

Besides, we, the chosen People of God, saved with the precious Blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, should lead others by our good example,[5] in particular by the total trust in God and by unwavering faith in Jesus Christ.

Finally, Jesus Christ is The Life, the Only Life that is so meaningful and so essential for all humanity that without Him born into the world, suffering and dying on the Cross, and rising from death, we would have remained forever most miserable slaves to the power of sin and victims of the forces of evil.

To the urgent message of the Gospel for this Fifth Sunday of Easter that Jesus Christ is The Way The Truth and The Life, let us do our best to respond, seriously keeping in mind the very words of Saint Paul:

For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.[6]  
          


[1] See Mt 3:17.
[2] See 1 Tim 2:5.
[3] Phil 2:9-11.
[4] See Acts 4:12.
[5]See 1Pr 1:18-19; 2:9.
[6] Rom 10:10.
       
Fr. Francis Nguyen, O.P.