As we move towards the Solemnity of the Ascension, the Church places before us for our meditation, this extract from John's Gospel, John 14: 1-12. It is taken from one of the lengthy “farewell discourses” of Jesus. As we do our meditation, our eyes linger on the famous phrase:

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life,

No one can come to the Father except through me.

If you know me, you know my Father too.

“If you know me, you know my father too … ” I am sure that many, perhaps most of us have had the experience of visiting an old aunt or some other senior relative. She grips you by the hand, her eyes filling up and says to you or to others present: “He/she looks just like his/her father/mother!”

Another experience, which stands out in my mind is that of a friend who always wanted to meet his paternal grandfather who died long before he was born.

Said my friend: “I'd always imagined what he must have been like” yet, the only traces left of his long-dead grandfather were the fragments of memory of people who knew him while he was alive. They would say: “Your grandfather was like…”

Then one of his uncles died and at the funeral he saw the whole family united for the first time, many of them descended from his grandfather, all bearing a striking resemblance. Said he: ‘”I felt my grandfather's presence in a powerful way and as I talked with and greeted my relatives from near and far, I discovered that in a real way, because of them, I already knew him.”

Each of us carries within himself/herself the trace of our ancestors before us. Indeed, there is a human way in which we can say: “ if you know me you know my Father too ” .

Moreover, from time to time we encounter men and women who, in their greatness remind us of what God the Father is like. It is these great people who say to us, like Jesus , If you know me you know my father too .

The Gospel reading from John helps us to celebrate the wonderful fact that we do not need to know the risen Christ “in the flesh” as it were. Jesus is known and encountered in and through other human beings like ourselves.

A basic part of Catholic spirituality is this belief that God can be encountered in and through the human – human beings and human experiences. All of this gives us a certain optimism towards the world and its future.

In spite of all that has happened and all that will happen, this is still the world created and loved by God. God loved the world so much that through his Son, he willed to enter into and participate in human history.

So as I read the words of this Gospel reading again I think of the many agencies that continue to mediate the presence of God in our world.

I think for example of the work of the United Nations, embattled yes, but struggling for peace. They can say: “ If you know me you know my Father too ” and “ To have seen me is to have seen the Father ”. I think also of organisations such as Catholic Relief Services, Oxfam and CARITAS working towards relief of hunger and poverty in debt- stricken countries. God is present through the work that they do.

They are the presence of God for so many who are desperately poor. They can say with Jesus in this reading:

It is the Father, living in me, who is doing this work. I remember the many, many priests and nuns in Haiti working in distant mountain villages, impossibly hard to reach who have built schools and health centres for the rural poor of that nation.

They too do the Father's work. Like Jesus himself, they too make God alive and present in our world. I celebrate the work of the many people in Trinidad who work with the rural poor. I think especially of Catholic teachers in little country schools. They find themselves in places where no one wants to go. They provide an education to children who live in difficult physical and social circumstances.

These professionals often have to go far beyond the call of duty and enter into matters such as incest, drug abuse, domestic violence or other family problems.

They continue to be the presence of God for many of us in the countryside. They too can say: The words I say to you I do not speak as from myself; it is the Father living in me who is doing this work.

GOSPEL PRAYER

Lord, we thank you for all the people who show us what you are like. Lord, we know you because we know them. We think of people who love with faithfulness even when it seems that their love is not being returned. We thank you for those who pour out their lives in service to others.

We praise you for those who maintain their integrity even when faced with great temptation. We thank you for all those who continue to proclaim a message of hope for our world, even when others have given in to negativity and despair.

All these people Lord, reveal something of what you are like. We know that Jesus, though risen and seated at your right hand is still present among us through all these people.

Gospel Meditations for April are by Spiritan Fr Dexter Brereton, parish priest of Toco/Matelot.