In John’s Gospel, Chapter 14 is a special chapter. We have the phrases of Jesus ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places’; ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’ and also the phrase that really struck home to me on the feast of the Apostles, Saints Philip and James, last Tuesday 3rd May: 

Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied.’

Jesus said to him,

‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me?’ 

St. Philip, Apostle

Philip must have known Jesus for about 2½ to 3 years. I have known him for at least sixty years, and yet I felt that those words might have been: ‘Have you been with me all this time, Jonathan, and you still do not know me?’ Without wanting to exaggerate any deficiency, it does strike me that, knowing Jesus and knowing God the Father – both intimately connected – is the interest of my life, but there is always more to learn, and a sense that, when you learn more, I at least, understand that, what I knew before was not really enough. 

This ‘knowing’ is not the same as the ‘knowledge’ that one learns at school. It is much more to do with being so sure of another that, you can always, and without any hesitation, trust that person. Furthermore, it is to do with knowing the one with whom you are completely ‘in love’ – to the exclusion of anyone else. 

My own reflections, on this, centre on two things:

In the first place, we should try to remain in the presence of God in every moment of life. This is where that phrase of Jesus, to the Apostle Philip, and to me, makes sense. It is so easy for me, at least to drift along in life, and often to forget God – to my own harm and the harm of others! St. Benedict must have reflected on this, because our Abbot quoted him on this very point, quite recently.

St. Benedict and Abbot Cuthbert Madden

It occurred to me that it was interesting that a monk’s life ought always to be Lenten in character because elsewhere Benedict says, ‘You should recognise with awe that there will be a day of judgment for all of us, which should make us fear the doom of an evil life. Above all, however, you should cultivate a longing for eternal life with a desire of great spiritual intensity. Keep the reality of death always before your eyes. Have a care about how you act every hour of your life’ (RB 4.44-48). A similar idea is to be found in a number of places in the Prologue which suggests to me that this is a central part of Benedict’s understanding of the monastic life.

In the second place, God is an interesting ‘conundrum’, because God exists in everything around us, and, in particular, in the people around us. Therefore, we need to love the people around us, in order to love God, to the ultimate. There is a proviso, however. This love for others needs to be love with a detachment, and that is a long and hard lesson to learn. Most of us have a temptation to put all our love into a person, or an ambition, or an enterprise, or things of this earth (say money), rather than in the immortal, and all embracing person, who loves us more than any other; he alone is really worthy of all the love in a human heart, to the exclusion of all else. Once again this is where Jesus’ comment to St. Philip, the Apostle – in a secondary sense – comes nearer the truth of things. I wonder if it is God, himself, who is at the heart of things in my life, rather than created things, whether they be people, circumstances, or ideas….. 

St. Catherine of Siena

St. Catherine of Sienna throws light on this matter. It would have been her feast day, during the Octave of Easter, but the feast of Easter meant we did not read these beautiful lines. 

O Eternal Trinity, eternal godhead! This godhead, your divine nature, made immensely precious the blood of the only-begotten Son. Eternal Trinity, you are like a deep sea, in which the more I seek, the more I find; and the more I find, the more I seek you. You fill the soul, yet somehow without satisfying it: in the abyss which you are you so fill the soul that it ever continues to hunger and thirst for you, desiring you, eager in your light to see you, who are the light…… 

Eternal Trinity, you are the Creator, I the creature. I have come to know, in the new creation you made of me in the blood of your Son, that you are in love with beauty of your creature. 

God is in love with Catherine, and with me, and with you dear reader. This may be mind-boggling – but it is really true. The end-results, for you, and me, are to do with our behaviour. 

‘Have you been with me all this time, Jonathan, and you still do not know me?’

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