Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter – Option 1 – Jn 14:1-6

Jesus offers some very comforting words in today’s Gospel, as He tells us not to be troubled, that He will prepare a dwelling place for us in heaven, and that He will even come back for us. It calls our attention that Jesus tells His Apostles, “I will come back again and take you to myself,” and yet that “where I am going you know the way.” It seems that if they knew the way, He wouldn’t have to come back for them, or, if He has to come back for them, it means they really don’t know the way. When Thomas clamors that the Apostles don’t know the way, Jesus replies with the well-known answer, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”

If we look closely, this beautiful reply sheds light on what was said before, and shows how deeply Christ loves and cares for us. The word that Jesus uses for “dwelling place,” or, more literally, “an individual, abiding abode,” μονή, is used only twice in the entire New Testament: here, and a few verses later, when Jesus says, “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” (v. 23). In other words, Jesus is preparing an eternal home for us in heaven, but, in the meantime, He comes with the Father and Holy Spirit to set up their dwelling in our hearts. They come back to us, and dwell in our souls, making their abode there and giving us everything we need to continue on the way to holiness and to heaven.

This is because simply having the path or the way isn’t enough; we need the light of the Eternal Truth to know it, and we need the Life of the Spirit within us to move our wills to follow it. Christ is the Way, the Model we need to follow, but also the one who makes it possible to follow that model. On this journey, Christ never abandons us and provides everything we need. As Saint Theophane Vénard wrote his little sister, “Courage! God asks of us only our good will; His grace does the rest.”[1] We can ask ourselves if we really give our entire good will to God. Do we really mediate on how Christ is the Way, and how we must follow Him in everything? Today, let us ask for the grace, through the intercession of Mary, to give ourselves entirely to Christ so as to follow Him to our eternal dwelling to heaven. 

[1] Théophane Vénard, A Modern Martyr, Theophane Vénard (Blessed), 29.