John 17:1-11
My wife and I were recently at a
social occasion where we sat with some other people at supper. A
young lady sat across from me. I noticed a mole on her neck and
didn't like the looks of it. Finally I couldn't stand it any more
and told her that she should have it checked out. She told me that I
wasn't the first one to tell her that, but the mole had been there
when she was born and hadn't changed in all that time. Now I realize
that having a perfect stranger go up to you and tell you you should
have something checked out does not generally happen in polite
circles, but my point is that seeing a mole sets a whole lot of
things in motion in my brain – because during my career I learned
all about melanoma, benign moles, and how to tell the difference, and
there were many times when the difference required more than just
looking – a biopsy perhaps. My brain associates a long list of
things with the word mole – because I'm a physician and cancer was
my specialty. If you have a profession or a trade, you know that
there are two types of learning – one has to do with how you do
things, and the other has to do with learning the special vocabulary
of that profession. When I hear my daughter who is a lawyer talk
about torts, I have only the vaguest idea of what that means. But
you mention mole to me, and I could talk about how they happen, how
to tell if the mole is risky or not, how to manage moles change – I
could go on and on.. And my daughter could do the same thing talking
about torts. We'd probably bore each other silly, too.
The next three Sundays take up the
mysteries at the center of our Christian lives – the gift of the
Holy Spirit, the nature of God, and the mystery of the Eucharist.
And today we hear Jesus tell us why we need to become specialists in
what these things mean, insofar as possible.
Jesus is praying his so-called high
priestly prayer at the last supper. He is praying aloud. And he
talks about giving eternal life to all those the Father has given
him. And then he clarifies – “This is eternal life, that they
know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
When most of us hear the words
“eternal life” we get a picture in our heads of white robes and
harps, or maybe eating at a banquet that never runs out of good
things and we never put on weight. But Jesus, who specializes in
eternal life, tells us that that's not it. Eternal life is knowing
God, whom we know through knowing Jesus Christ. Jesus is using the
word “knowing” differently than we generally use it in English.
When Adam and Eve knew each other, the result was their son Cain.
When someone knows pain, it doesn't mean he has an intellectual
understanding of pain. It means he is in a situation where he
experiences pain. When we think about knowing in this sense it's
more like the word Jesus used. Not only do we intellectually grasp
the object of what we know, but we also have a relationship with the
object.
So Jesus tells us what eternal life is
– it's having a relationship with God through Jesus. And that
relationship like any knowing, requires two things – just like
becoming a member of a profession or a practioner of a skilled trade
or a musician or you name it. There is learning how you do it and
learning the vocabulary of the profession – what the special words
mean.
What we are supposed to do to know God
and His Son is pretty clear from scripture and tradition – to
deepen our relationship with God we need to pray, to serve others,
and to discipline ourselves – prayer, almsgiving, and fasting, to
use old terms. Our Moslem friends are about to enter Ramadan, a
month when they fast, even from water, from dawn till dusk. They do
this with the intention of becoming more conscious of God and their
utter dependence on him. If they can't fast for some reason, they
are obliged to provide food for the poor. We Christians need to
revive the practice of fasting in some way in order to be more
conscious of God in our lives.
The other part of knowing is indeed
deepening our spiritual vocabulary. Our Catholic church has a rich
tradition of exploring the mysteries of our faith. We have brilliant
thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, Eloquent preachers like Bishop Fulton
Sheen, and relatively uneducated souls like Sister Faustina, all of
whom were given special graces to shine their own light on the
scriptures and traditions of the Church. Time spent in learning more
about what we believe and why we believe it ultimately helps us know
more about Jesus Christ and more importantly, deepens our
relationship with Him.
In today's gospel selection Jesus
tells us that he came to give us eternal life, and eternal life is to
be in a relationship with God. If we were to read the rest of Jesus'
prayer we would see that what Jesus wants for us is not wings and a
harp, or even a a great banquet in heaven. What he wants is that we
are drawn into the heart of the Trinity so that we participate in
that same Love that he and the Father share, the Love which is the
Holy Spirit. In that relationship there is no end, and while we
can't even conceive of what it is all about, we do know that in that
relationship is all that really matters, because it's what God wants
for us, it's what we were made for. Jesus has already done the heavy
lifting – he's made it possible, he's given us everything we need
to get there. But a relationship cannot be one-way and that's why
Jesus tells us that eternal life is knowing God and the one He sent
into the world.
So as we travel through Pentecost,
Trinity Sunday and the Feast of Corpus Christi, let us make a
resolution that we will try to deepen and clarify what we know about
these mysteries, and in doing so, enter more deeply into that
relationship to which we are called.
And one last thing, I'm retired from
medicine, so don't show me any of your moles.
