see
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Who Do You See?

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke tell a more or less chronological account of the public life of Jesus. But John, well, John is different. It’s mystical and full of symbols. It’s a beautiful and astounding look at the Lord.

Today, Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees, and they are having a really hard time understanding Him, seeing from His point of view.

He said to them, “You belong to what is below,
I belong to what is above.
You belong to this world,
but I do not belong to this world.
That is why I told you that you will die in your sins.
For if you do not believe that I AM,
you will die in your sins.”
So they said to him, “Who are you?”
Jesus said to them, “What I told you from the beginning.
I have much to say about you in condemnation.
But the one who sent me is true,
and what I heard from him I tell the world.”
They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father. – Jn 8:23-17

Since we know who Jesus is (the Son of the God, the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity), we have an advantage over the Pharisees here. They are only able to think in earthy terms. They have a narrow notion of who and what the Messiah will be, and Jesus isn’t it. They cannot see what is right in front of them.

It’s easy to scoff at them  (“Dumb bunnies! How could they miss that this was the Messiah??”) But we do exactly the same thing. We miss what is right in front of us.

I have a friend who is an amazing nature photographer. She sends me pictures of flowers waiting to burst open, birds posed in flight, a tiny insect making its way through a vast bed of greenery. Her vision of nature is detailed and artistic. While I know how to work a camera, I completely miss what she sees. It’s like she has another dimension of sight that I don’t have.

How often do we, like the Pharisees, ignore what is in front of us? Usually it’s because of pride; we think we already know everything. We are “better than.” We don’t speak that language. God the Father puts exactly the same thing in front of us that He has put in front of every saint in history … and we are still profoundly confused, proud, blind to the Truth.

Jesus has a singular vision: the will of the Father. He is focused only on that, despite all that goes on around Him as He carries out the Father’s will. We cannot see we exactly as he sees, but He invites us to try. Pope Benedict XVI (writing as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger):

Yes, you can see God. Whoever sees Christ sees him…

For the next question is now (for all of post-apostolic Christianity, at least): How can you see Christ and see him in such a way that you see the Father at the same time? …

The seeing occurs in following after, Following Christ as his disciple is a life lived at the place where Jesus stands, and this place is the Passion. In it, and nowhere else, is his glory present.

What does this demonstrate? The concept of seeing has acquired an unexpected dynamic. Seeing happens through a manner of living that we call following after. Seeing occurs by entering into the Passion of Jesus. There we see, and in him we see the Father also. From this perspective the words of the prophet quoted at the end of the Passion narrative of John attain their full greatness: “They shall look on him whom they have pierced” (Jn 19:37)

When we “follow after” Christ, when we become His disciples, when we pick up our Cross and pursue Him: we shall see. We need to stop questioning, interrogating Jesus like the Pharisees in today’s Gospel. Today, Jesus answers the question, “Who are you?” Let us see Him clearly, with eyes of faith.

 

EH headshotElise Hilton is an author, blogger and speaker. Her role at Diocesan Publications is Editor & Writer with the Marketing Team. She has worked in parish faith formation and Catholic education for over 25 years. A passionate student of theology, Elise enjoys sharing her thoughts on parish communication, the role of social media in the Church, Franciscan spirituality and Catholic parenting. To enquire about booking her as a speaker, please contact her at ehilton@diocesan.com.

Trinity
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The Trinity: Three Persons, One Substance

Yesterday was the celebration of the Holy Trinity. What an immense blessing it is for Catholics who are able to recognized our bodies as a “home” for the Trinity when we sign ourselves: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Our baptism has indelibly marked our souls in the name of the Triune God.

Pope-Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote and spoke extensively regarding the Trinity. In 2009, he said this:

Today we contemplate the Most Holy Trinity as Jesus introduced us to it. He revealed to us that God is love “not in the oneness of a single Person, but in the Trinity of one substance.” He is the Creator and merciful Father; he is the Only-Begotten Son, eternal Wisdom incarnate, who died and rose for us; he is the Holy Spirit who moves all things, cosmos and history, toward their final, full recapitulation. Three Persons who are one God because the Father is love, the Son is love, the Spirit is love. God is wholly and only love, the purest, infinite and eternal love. He does not live in splendid solitude but rather is an inexhaustible source of life that is ceaselessly given and communicated. To a certain extent we can perceive this by observing both the macro-universe: our earth, the planets, the stars, the galaxies; and the micro-universe: cells, atoms, elementary particles. The “name” of the Blessed Trinity is, in a certain sense, imprinted upon all things because all that exists, down to the last particle, is in relation; in this way we catch a glimpse of God as relationship and ultimately, Creator Love. [emphasis added.]

It is amazing to contemplate the endless and “inexhaustible” life that is the Trinity, yet even more astounding that this life dwells in us! Indeed, the only way for this life to be “deadened” in us is through mortal sin. Not only that, but as Pope Benedict pointed out, the entire world is imprinted with this life. Imagine how radically different our world would be if each and every person recognized this and lived accordingly. Imagine how different your world would be if you recognized this and lived accordingly!

Pope Benedict also stated that we have clear evidence of the Trinity:

The strongest proof that we are made in the image of the Trinity is this: love alone makes us happy because we live in a relationship, and we live to love and to be loved. Borrowing an analogy from biology, we could say that imprinted upon his “genome”, the human being bears a profound mark of the Trinity, of God as Love.

One could say (although only as analogy) that our baptism “tattoos” the Trinity onto our souls. We are for all eternity marked, claimed for God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And this imprinting is pure love. Again, what a gift and blessing this is. God the Almighty – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – has claimed us and marked us for love for life, for eternity.

Holy Week
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10 Quotes For Holy Week

With the celebration of Palm Sunday, we enter Holy Week. Hopefully, this will be a time of peace, reflection, penance and prayer for all Christians. Here are 10 quotes for you to ponder as we prepare for the Passion of Christ.

  1. We give glory to You, Lord, who raised up Your cross to span the jaws of death like a bridge by which souls might pass from the region of the dead to the land of the living. We give glory to You who put on the body of a single mortal man and made it the source of life for every other mortal man. – St. Ephrem of Edessa
  2. Ultimately, in the battle against lies and violence, truth and love have no other weapon than the witness of suffering. – Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
  3. Do you realize that Jesus is there in the tabernacle expressly for you – for you alone? He burns with the desire to come into your heart. – St. Therese’ of Lisieux
  4. Be assured of God’s love for you. Seek by his grace to heal the damage of sin. Seek communion with him and with those who make up his Church and those who are not yet within. His love for all of us is unconditional. His joy is infinite. His mercy overflows. – Deacon Michael Bickerstaff
  5. The washing of the feet and the sacrament of the Eucharist: two expressions of one and the same mystery of love entrusted to the disciples, so that, Jesus says, “as I have done… so also must you do” (Jn 13: 15).  – St. John Paul II
  6. “We adore you and we bless you, Lord Jesus Christ, here and in all the churches which are in the whole world, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.” – Stations of the Cross
  7. Through the stark and solemn Liturgy of the Friday we call “Good”, we stand at the Altar of the Cross where heaven is rejoined to earth and earth to heaven, along with the Mother of the Lord. We enter into the moment that forever changed – and still changes – all human History, the great self gift of the Son of God who did for us what we could never do for ourselves by in the words of the ancient Exultet, “trampling on death by death”. We wait at the tomb and witness the Glory of the Resurrection and the beginning of the New Creation. – Deacon Keith Fournier
  8. The Cross is the word through which God has responded to evil in the world. Sometimes it may seem as though God does not react to evil, as if he is silent. And yet, God has spoken, he has replied, and his answer is the Cross of Christ: a word which is love, mercy, forgiveness. It is also reveals a judgment, namely that God, in judging us, loves us. Remember this: God, in judging us, loves us. If I embrace his love then I am saved, if I refuse it, then I am condemned, not by him, but my own self, because God never condemns, he only loves and saves. – Pope Francis
  9. No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown. – William Penn
  10. Awake, thou wintry earth – Fling off thy sadness! Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth Your ancient gladness! – Thomas Blackburn, “An Easter Hymn”