Jesus, the Word made flesh, wants us to experience God as he does.  He thus makes him known as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

For Jesus to experience God as his Father means, in part, to pray to him.  He thus, as a high priest, prays to him (Jn 17).  And he says, at one point, that eternal life means to know the Father and the one the Father sent.

But experts say the words in verse 3 cannot be those of Jesus.  They point out that, for one thing, nowhere else does Jesus calls himself Jesus Christ.  Yet be these words Jesus’ or John’s or someone else’, they are still true.

To know, though, does not just mean to understand with the mind. For experts say also that to know, in John, has to do with faith.  And to have faith is to line up, too, with the Father and with Jesus, to be on their wavelength. To be one with them, so that one who believes cannot but be, live, say and do as they.

In other words, to know the Father and Jesus is to share God’s eternal life.  Hence, it is to experience God.  No, those who truly believe do not just know God.  They also taste him.  That is to say, wisdom is theirs, by his grace, as they live with him when they stay with Jesus.  For to stay with Jesus is to get to experience God as he does. 

To say “yes” to Jesus’ “Come and see” is to experience God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Jesus shares with those who stay with him his own experience of God.  He shows them that he, the Son of God made flesh, puts his full trust in him as his Father.  Besides, he lets them see that the Holy Spirit leads, drives, him to preach the Good News to the poor.

And as the Father has sent Jesus, so he sends his disciples.  That is why he breathes on them the Holy Spirit.  Yes, the Spirit must drive them as they go on a mission to preach the Good News to the poor. With like trust in the Father as Jesus’. 

Also, they will know and live all truth, the full truth, by the light and power of the Spirit.  Thus, with God’s love poured out into their hearts, they will get to bear what they cannot now bear.  Even the hard truth that only self-emptying love like Jesus’ leads to true and eternal life.  They will, then, also give up their bodies and shed their blood.

Lord Jesus, grant us the grace to experience God and not to dread preaching him as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  And make us live by your death, and die by your life, and to go to you and stay with you, so that we live and die like you (SV.EN I:276).

15 June 2025
Most Holy Trinity (C)
Prov 8, 22-32; Rom 5, 1-5; Jn 16, 12-15