04/25/2005: "Reflections on Sunday's readings"

For the first time in a long time, my wife and I were able to sit in the santuary for all of Mass. Grandma was able to babysit the baby and the toddler went to daycare at Church. That left us free to participate in Mass without the fears of children crying out or without suffering through the 'Cry Room' (of which I've always believed that the crying is in reference to the parents).

I don't know why I shared that, because it doesn't have anything to do with my reflections. I guess I just wanted to share.

As for my reflections, I just want to repeat what I have said for all the previous weeks, I love the readings from Easter! They are just so straight forward.

This week we hear two important statements of Jesus:

1. We can only get to the Father through Jesus.
2. When we see Jesus we see the Father.

We usually associate these two statements with the following theological principles:

1. We will only get to heaven through the grace Jesus gives us.
2. Jesus and the Father are two parts of one God.

But what struck me this week was how tightly coupled these two statements are. These aren't two statements in two different Gospels or even in separate chapters of the same Gospel. These two statements are part of one conversation that Jesus has with his disciples about the nature of God. Because if Jesus and the Father are two parts of the same God, doesn't the first statement just say the 'the only way to get to God is through God' and doesn't the second statement just say, 'when you see God you see God'?

That's what struck me this week, just how much insight can be given by in our minds substituting the word God for each of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. While it of course makes no sense to change the translations to make all three references the same because we would loose all our ability to comprehend the Trinity in scripture. But sometimes I forget to see Christ as God when He is speaking in the Gospels and this mental exercise seems to give me new insight into His words, often insight into the beautiful simplicity of what seems more complex.