“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. »

 V Easter sunday (John 14, 1-12)

 “Don’t let your heart be troubled!You believe in God,believe in me too…

Today’s gospel is set in the context of Jesus saying goodbye to his disciples. Faced with His farewell, the disciples are worried. Jesus whom they follow, in whom they have put their trust, will disappear from their eyes. They do not understand. They do not want to separate themselves from Him. They find it difficult to walk towards His passion. Jesus, before His death, makes them enter into the experience of His resurrection; He encourages them, and asks them to trust Him, to trust in the life that is coming; since He is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

This time of confinement causes, us worry and anguish. Indeed, Covid-19 affects the physical and emotional security of humanity. We had to experience the departure for heaven of some of our sisters. We think of the many people who have died throughout the world, of the families who have lost a loved one. It is a particularly difficult situation to welcome. The work of mourning is more complicated when we cannot see our loved ones to say goodbye. It can be a real trauma.

In this way, we are close to the feelings that the disciples had. Then Jesus comes to tell us,

“Do not let your heart be troubled! You believe in God, believe also in me.”

The Greek word “trouble” is “tarasso” which means to be agitated, afraid, and anxious. Jesus is sensitive and He is aware of the difficulties of the disciples, and of those of humanity, in pronouncing this word. We can hear it as an encouragement, a request:

“Do not withdraw into your anguish,do not let your emotions overwhelm you. Believe in me”.To believe is to put one’s faith in someone, it is to trust Him, it is to cling to Him,and it is to adhere to Him.

With these words, Jesus invites us to dwell in Him, to unload our fears on Him. Was Jesus not troubled, did He not tremble and weep at the death of his friend Lazarus? (Jn. 11, 33) Jesus knows, then, the pain of mourning, of death like that of parents who lose a child, of a husband who loses his wife, of a child who loses his parents, of those who lose a sister or a brother…

Certainly, we cannot give life back to our loved ones as Jesus did for Lazarus. But we can bring them back to life by thinking about them, by talking about them and by living in Hope. Let us allow ourselves to be consoled by Jesus! He is there in the midst of our sufferings, He suffers with us and He will give us back the joy of Salvation.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus Christ never stops just at Himself, He leads us to the Father, and He invites us to have faith in his Father. The term “Father” is mentioned explicitly at least ten times in this passage.

Jesus speaks to us of the Father beginning with this promise: “In my Father’s house there are many mansions” (John 14, 2). By believing that our Father is Love, the Father’s house becomes for us a place of security, tenderness and peace. This house is open to everyone; it is not reserved for a few. Everyone has his or her own place in the house of the Father. In the Bible, the house of God is the Temple in the midst of His people or it is heaven, the place of God’s presence. In the letter to the Hebrews, Saint Paul goes further, he tells us that the place of God’s presence is a house, and that this house is ourselves:

“While Christ Himself was as a son, at the head of His house. And we are His house” (Heb. 3, 6) What a beautiful affirmation this is!

Each one of us is the house of God; we bear His presence within us. This means that each one of us lives in a personal way in this place, each one has a singular way of relating to God. God reaches each one in her personal story, just as she is. We are inhabited by God, let us be God’s “dwelling place” for ourselves and for others! In this way we will be more sensitive to the difficulties of those around us and we can, by grace become a safe home for all; a home where we can be welcomed without fear.

The lives of Etienne Pernet and Antoinette Fage were not exempt from suffering. But out of their suffering came life, they became sources where many people could quench their thirst. Thus, in spite of our pain, we are called to bear witness to the Father’s love, to encourage and comfort those we meet.

‘I have seen the affliction of my people…I have heard their cry. Go, I send you’…Called in this way, we are sent to the poor. With travel with them on a journey of exodus and liberation, the path of the covenant. (Rule of Life)

What a marvel to know that on these paths of exodus, and of liberation, Jesus walks beside us “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Moreover, we know that deceit, the unspoken, the untruth lead us into confusion. If we are truthful, we will make liberation flow. When Jesus reveals the truth to the two disciples at Emmaus, are not their hearts burning with joy, with life?

Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, let Jesus be part of our intimacy, our joys, our questioning, our wounds, our rebellions, our losses, and our share of the truth. Our hearts will be illuminated with life, will be set free. “Choose life, therefore, that you and your descendants may live” (Deut. 30, 19)

“We follow you, Lord Jesus; and to this end call us, for without you no one ascends. You are the Way, the Truth, the Life, the opportunity, the faith, the reward.O Way, receive us! O Truth, strengthen us! O Life, give us life. »(Saint Ambrose)

Marie Thi Hoai PHAN . Little Sister of the Assumption -Vietnam