Meditation

Faith and prayer go together. Saint Augustine tells us “if faith is lacking, prayer is impossible. So, when we pray, let us believe and pray so faith is not lacking us. Faith produces prayer, and prayer, in turn, produces the strengthening of the faith.” If our intentions are good, and we turn to Jesus, we shall discover who is 
 

There are people that almost never pray and, when they do it, it is with the hope God will solve problems they do not know how to handle themselves. And they justify it with the words from Jesus we have just heard: “Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours” (Mk 11, 24). 
 

Today, Christ comes out to meet us. We are all just like Bartimaeus: the blind beggar, by whose side Jesus passed by, and who started to call him out until the Lord stopped and called him. We may have a more advantaged name... but our human weaknesses (moral) resemble the beggar's blindness. 

The salutation of the Mother of God prompted the infant Elizabeth carried in her womb to leap with joy. God's Mother, who also carried Jesus in her womb, is a cause for joy. Families are happy when the arrival of a new life is announced. Christ's birth is certainly “good news of great joy” (Lk 2, 10).
 

The Lord's promise is very generous: “you will receive a hundred times more now in this present age (…) and eternal life in the age to come” (cf Mk 10, 30). He cannot be surpassed as far as generosity. But He adds: “with persecutions.” Jesus is very realistic and He does not want to deceive anybody.
 

The Second Vatican Council adds that Mary is "truly the mother of the members of Christ for having cooperated with her love for the faithful, who are members of that Head (Jesus), to be born into the Church." Furthermore, while remaining in the midst of the Apostles in the Upper Room, Mary —Mother of the Church— recalls the presence, gift and action of the Holy Spirit...
 

The Holy Spirit is the intimate and personal Master who guides the disciple towards the truth, who motivates him to do good, who consoles him in the pain, who transforms him intimately, while giving him a new strength and capacity.
 

The figure of the beloved disciple is central in this fragment and even in the totality of St. John's Gospel. It may refer to a concrete person —the disciple John— or, it can be a figure, behind which, any disciple loved by the Master can be placed. Whatever its meaning, the text helps to give an element of continuity to the Apostles' experience. 
 

Today, Gospel tells us another story of Jesus’ appearance to His disciples. Intensely, the dialogue between Jesus and Peter illustrates God's mercy as a great love for the disciples and the world. This is not a common dialog between Jesus and His disciple, Peter. Both Jesus and Peter talk about love according to their perspectives.

Today, we find a solid basis for trust in the Gospel: “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word...” (Jn 17, 20). It is Jesus' heart, which, in the intimacy of Jesus with his disciples, opens up the inexhaustible treasures of His Love. He wants to strengthen their hearts overwhelmed by the sense of farewell that, during the Last Supper,...

Today, we live in a world which does not know how to be truly happy with the happiness of Jesus, a world which seeks the happiness of Jesus in all the wrong places and in the wrong ways. Seeking happiness without Jesus only leads to deeper unhappiness. Just look at the soaps on TV, there is always somebody in trouble. The soaps on TV show us the misery of a godless life.
 

Today, St. John's Gospel —that we have been reading for days now— begins by speaking of “the hour”: "Father, the hour has come" (Jn 17, 1). The crowning moment, the clarification of everything, the utmost donation of Christ who delivers himself to all... But “the hour” still is a hidden reality to men; it will be revealed as the scheme of Jesus' life will open the perspective of the Cross.
 

Jesus' words inspire confidence: “Take courage, I have conquered the world.” (Jn 16, 33), that is, through his Passion, Death and Resurrection, He has attained the eternal life, life with nothing to stop it, a limitless life because it has overcome all limits and all difficulties.
 

Today we contemplate hands that bless - the Lord's final earthly gesture (cf. Luke 24, 51). Or footprints marked on a mount - the last visible sign of God's passage through our land. At times, that mount is depicted as a rock, and the imprint of His steps is not engraved on the earth but on the rock.

For those who claim to know everything about God, but question Jesus' Divine filiations, today's Gospel has an important thing they should remember: “He, who” the Jews name God is who sent Jesus to us; He is, therefore, the Father to those who believe. With this we are clearly told that God can only and truly be known by those who accept Jesus' Father is God.
 

Today we begin the Decade of the Holy Spirit. Reliving the memory of the Cenacle, we see the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, Mother of Good Counsel, talking with the Apostles. What a warm and abounding conversation! Recalling all the joys they shared with their Master: The Paschal days, the Ascension and Jesus' promises. 

We, Christians of the 21st century, feel the same urge as those of the 1st century. We also want to see Jesus, to experience his presence amongst us, to reinforce the virtues of faith, hope and charity. This is why we feel sad if we think He is not among us, or if we may not feel and detect his presence, or hear and listen to his words.
 

Today is a special day! Imagine the typical day when you are with your family or friends, and you have many things to tell them. Maybe you haven't seen them for a long time or you've come from a great trip or, simply, you've had a day full of experiences. You want to explain everything, but you don't have enough time. Well, this is what happened to Jesus.
 

Today, we are presented with a deeper understanding of the reality of the Ascension of the Lord. In the reading from the Gospel of John on Easter Sunday, Mary of Magdala is told not to cling to the Lord because “I have not yet ascended to the Father” (Jn 20, 17). In today's Gospel Jesus notes that the disciples are overcome: “because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts.
 

Today in the Gospel, Jesus announces and promises the coming of the Holy Spirit: "When the Paraclete comes…that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me" (Jn 15, 26). "Paraclete" literally means "the one who is called near to one", and is usually translated as "Comforter". 
 

Today, Jesus —as He previously did with his disciples— is leaving us. He is going back to the Father to be glorified. This seemed to sadden his disciples who were always looking at him with that physical, human gaze, that only believes in, accepts and clings to whatever can be seen and touched.
 

This is why Jesus is the light of men, the light that illuminates the world's darkness. Saint John Paul II exhorted us: “so that this light makes us strong and capable to accept and love the entire Truth of Christ, and love it even more when opposed by our world.”
 

Today, our Lord exhorts us to fraternal love: “love one another as I love you.” (Jn 15, 12), that is to say, as you have seen me loving and you will still see me love. Jesus speaks to you as a friend, for He has told you that his Father calls you, that He wants you to become an apostle, and that He expects you to bear fruit, a fruit that is manifested through love. 

Today, we hear again the intimate confidence Jesus made last Holy Thursday: “As the Father loves me, so I also love you” (Jn 15, 9). The Father's love for the Son is immense, tender, dear. We can read it in the Book of Proverbs, when He affirms that long before initiating his deeds “then was I beside him as artisan; I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while” (Pr 8, 30). 
 

Today, once more, we may see Jesus surrounded by the Apostles in an atmosphere of special intimacy. He is giving them what we could consider as his final recommendations: what is normally said in the last moment, in the last farewell; that which has an special force, as if it would be the last will.
 

Today, Jesus speaks to us indirectly of the cross: He will give us the peace, but at the cost of his painful “departure” of this world. Today, we read those words He said before the sacrifice on the Cross but that were written after his Resurrection. With his death on the Cross, He defeats both death and fear. 
 

Jesus assures us He will be present in us in the divine intimacy of the soul through grace. Thus, we Christians are no longer orphans. He loves us so much that, though He does not need us, He does not want to be without us.
 

In this invitation that Jesus makes to us, to go to the Father through Him, with Him, and in Him, His most intimate desire and His deepest mission are revealed: " He who for our sake became like us in order to make us his brothers, now presents to his true Father his own humanity in order to draw all his kindred up after him " (St. Gregory of Nyssa).
 

—The humble and faithful faith in Jesus, our choice to follow and obey Him, day after day, connects us mysteriously but truly with the very mystery of God, while making us recipients of all the riches of His kindness and mercy. This faith lets the Father execute, through us, the work of grace He began in His Son: “Whoever believes in me will do the works that I do” (Jn 14, 12).
 

Today, on this Friday 4th of Easter, Jesus invites us to stay calm. Serenity and joy flow smoothly like a river of peace from his resurrected Heart towards ours, dazed and restless, so often shaken by an activity as hectic as it is futile.