Feast of Saint Philip and Saint James, Apostles

Ceiling of Santi Apostoli Basilica
in Rome
(click for larger  picture)

Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”

Santi Apostoli, the Roman basilica originally dedicated to the Apostles Philip and James, is under the care of the Conventual Franciscans. Our Minister General and his definitory live in the friary next door. Father Peter Damien Massengill, former provincial of Our Lady of Consolation Province, is the guardian of this very important house. I had the privilege of staying there several years ago, and concelebrating Mass in the basilica.

In today’s gospel we hear Saint Philip ask Jesus to explain himself more clearly. What does he mean when he says, “I am the way, the truth and the life?” Jesus’ explanations are never as simple as the questions because he must draw his disciples into a deeper level of reality. We want to hear and understand his mystery in our own way but that is impossible. Can a blind man understand a silent film? Can a deaf man understand Beethoven? To understand Jesus we must develop a sensitivity to God’s presence and holiness that, before his appearance, was unattainable.

First we must begin to understand this Jesus of Nazareth, this child of Mary. If he is a man he is unlike any other human we have ever met. To begin with he hears God’s voice and is completely at one with the will of God, whom he knows as Abba or Father.

Even when he tells us of his God and teaches us to pray the Our Father, he never says “our father” with us. You heard that last week when he told Mary Magdalene, “I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” They are the same God but the relationship is most certainly not the same. A husband can call his wife Honey but their children cannot; the relationship is very different. When Jesus speaks to his Father he does not use the same words we use.

And yet the disciples of Jesus enjoy extraordinary privileges, unlike any the world has ever seen:

Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes in me will do the works that I do,
and will do greater ones than these,
because I am going to the Father.
And whatever you ask in my name, I will do,
so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”

If we cannot speak with the same intimacy to God the Father as Jesus does, we can speak in his name and they will answer. Jesus draws us into the Trinity of God as we pray in his name. His Holy Spirit is our spirit; his words are ours.

Saint Philip’s prayer (“Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”) echoes the prayer of Moses: "Do let me see your glory!" (Exodus 33:18). As important as that is, it’s not enough. Jesus will give us “greater things than these.” Because we have seen the Father in Jesus, he will do whatever we ask, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.