GOD'S MESSENGERS

Homily for April 30^th, 2015: John 13:16-20.

          How does God come to us? Through others. This is what Jesus tells us in today’s gospel reading. Prefacing his assurance with the double Amen, a form of special emphasis, Jesus speaks first of those he sends as his messengers: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me.” Here are two examples.

        A woman rings the rectory doorbell and asks if she can go into the church to pray. The priest who opens the door sees that she is deeply troubled. In answer to his enquiry, she tells him that her husband has just told her that he no longer believes in God and is leaving her. The priest assures her that despite this terrible blow, the Lord Jesus is still with her, loving her with a love that will remain with her, no matter what. In accepting this assurance, and taking it into the church with her as she prays, she is accepting the One who sent her to this priest, Jesus’ personal representative to her in her grief.  

          Here's a second example. A member of the parish St. Vincent de Paul Society listens to an equally desperate message on the Society’s answering machine. It is from a young man whose life is in a complete mess. When the two meet, the Vincent de Paul representative is able to tell the caller where he can receive help to get his life in order and, with God’s help, begin to stand on his own feet. In accepting and acting on this offer of help, the caller is in touch with Jesus himself.

          Today’s gospel contains a further assurance from Jesus: “Whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.” This assurance is fulfilled when, with trusting faith, we receive Holy Communion, when we receive the forgiveness of our sins in the sacrament of reconciliation, or experience the healing touch of Jesus, the Good Physician, in the anointing of the sick. In each of these cases, in receiving the human messenger whom the Father sends to us, we are receiving the Father himself: all his love, his power, his purity, his goodness, his peace. And when we have Him, we have everything.