REFLECTION FOR TODAY
May 15, 2021
By Fr. Andrew Ibegbulem, OSA
“I have told you this in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but I will tell you clearly about the Father.” Jn. 16:25
At the last supper with His disciples, Jesus wanted to make some fundamental things known and very clear. He revealed the nature of His relationship with the Father as well as speaks about the “hour”. Why was it important to speak about the hour and His relationship with the Father to His disciples?
Jesus did this because He wanted to encourage them to turn to God, remain peacefully in His presence and know their Father’s love. He wanted them to understand that they could have a relationship with God that would steer them through stormy days. He wanted them to learn to cry out to God as a Father and experience the Father’s love.
Now when it comes to the “hour”, this can be understood to be the time after His death, Resurrection and Ascension to Heaven. It is then when the Holy Spirit will come upon them at Pentecost to open their minds to understand all that He has taught with much greater insight and clarity. The “hour” is also a reference to His death on the Cross. It is His hour of glory, in which the Son of Man saves us through His holy passion.
When we consider this “hour” to be the passion and death of Jesus on the Cross, we should know His act of dying is not only a saving act of redemption, but also one of the clearest ways in which He speaks about His Father in Heaven. Jesus’ suffering and death does, in fact, reveal the Father to the disciples in ways that His “hidden messages” could not reveal.
The message of the Cross is a true teaching about the love of the Father. It’s a teaching that took place through an act of the most pure and sacrificial love imaginable. The Cross was Jesus speaking “clearly about the Father” insofar as it reveals the depth of the Father’s love for all humanity.
If you find this difficult to understand, then you are not alone. The disciples themselves struggled with this. That is why they ultimately needed the Holy Spirit to come upon them to open their minds. We too need the Holy Spirit if the veil is to be lifted and we are to comprehend this most powerful message of God’s infinite love.
Reflect, today, upon Jesus’ burning desire to lift the veil of His teaching and to reveal to you, clearly, the depth of the Father’s love for you. Allow the Holy Spirit to open your mind to this revelation as it is given through the Crucifixion. Pray for that gift. Listen to Jesus tell you He desires to give you this understanding and then await the grace you need to see and understand the very heart of the Father and His divine love for you.
My Jesus, Your hour of glory upon the Cross is the clearest and fullest revelation of the Father’s love. On the Cross, You show us all how deeply we are loved by You and Your Father in Heaven. Please do open my mind, dear Lord, to all You wish to reveal to me, so that as I come to know You, I will also come to know Your Father in Heaven. Jesus, I trust in You.