Judas, not the Iscariot, said to him,
“Master, then what happened that you will reveal yourself to us
and not to the world?”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Whoever loves me will keep my word,
and my Father will love him,
and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.
Whoever does not love me does not keep my words;
yet the word you hear is not mine
but that of the Father who sent me.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus often responds to a question and leaves us wondering if he answered it. Raised in the religion of the Baltimore Catechism and assuming with the sciences that all knowledge can be broken down into facts, we want to find those facts which, like a key, fit the question.
Surely the Teacher will give us those facts, which we can store in our pockets and purses with car keys, loose change and rosaries, and use when the occasion arises. The Gospel of John is rarely so simple, despite its many passages which read with the simplicity of a novel.
"...what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?"
Jesus answer speaks of contemplation, of keeping the word. If you ask how to get to the VA Hospital in Louisville almost any Louisvillian can tell you that. It will help if you listen closely to the answer and imagine making the trip. A careful answer will give you details, what to watch for, which lane to travel in, and how long it should take. That mental exercise of imagining the trip in advance is roughly similar to contemplation. However, after you have made the trip a few times you will do it without any thought at all.
Keeping the Word always requires much deliberate attention. We are told several times that Mary pondered these things in her heart. A few words of explanation were not enough for her. She had to think about them. She had to, in a sense, eat and drink them and make them a part of her very body -- precisely because they did take shape in her body.
As Saint Augustine says, "She conceived the Word of God in her mind before she conceived it in her womb."
"Whoever loves me will keep my word and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him."
Though the Gospel of Saint John says nothing of Jesus' conception in the womb of Mary, that sentence describes precisely her contemplation and the "Indwelling of the Holy Trinity" in her.
In another gospel, Jesus speaks of the many people who hear the Word of God, and fail to keep it. Some are like rocks and beaten paths; they are too hard to absorb any word. Some are too shallow; they cannot think deeply. And some are too anxious with the weeds of this world.
To receive the revelation one must stop, look, listen, ponder, contemplate, eat and drink God's word day and night, in season and out.
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I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.