News & Events
Fifth Sunday of Easter
Posted in News
3rd. May 2026
Gospel: John 14:1-12
Jesus said to his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God still, and trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s house; if there were not, I should have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you with me; so that where I am you may be too. You know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said, “Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus said: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me.
If you know me, you know my Father too. From this moment you know him and have seen him.” Philip said, “Lord, let us see the Father and then we shall be satisfied.” “Have I been with you all this time, Philip,” said Jesus to him “and you still do not know me? To have seen me is to have seen the Father, so how can you say, ‘Let us see the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak as from myself: it is the Father, living in me, who is doing this work.
You must believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; believe it on the evidence of this work, if for no other reason. I tell you most solemnly, whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself, he will perform even greater works, because I am going to the Father.”
Homily
The Great Brazilian Bishop Helder Camara, while speaking to a group of Brazilian lay Catholics said to them “Be careful of the life that you live, because your life is the only Bible many people will ever read.”
The Gospel of the Mass for this fifth Sunday of Easter, sees Jesus reminding his disciples that in looking at him, they were in fact seeing the Father, not of course that the Father has a physical appearance but in seeing Jesus’ way of acting and of relating with people, they were in fact seeing the Father’s love, care and concern for the people of his time. Jesus’ vocation was to be Emmanuel, “God with us”. Emmanuel was not a God concerned with accumulating human power. The primary concern of Emmanuel “God with us” was the building of a community in which everyone knew that they were loved and cared for. I suppose these words have been uttered so often, that we no longer hear them. We no longer trust people who use them.
The words of the great Pope Paul VI begin to make sense, when he says “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and, if it listens to a teacher, it is because that teacher is also a witness.” So that you and I are now called to witness to the truth of what we say by the integrity of our lives and that we must do in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. What an important message for members of the Missionaries of the Poor, and other religious congregations
In the gospel passage, Jesus tells Philip, “To have seen me is to have seen the Father”. Today we are called to say “To have seen me is to have seen the Christ”. Just as the vocation of Jesus was to be Emmanuel “God with us”, so today the vocation of each Christian is to be another Christ present in this world, and in this century, making Christ’s concerns present for all who surround us. These days my dear brothers, we are building a very beautiful Way of the Cross around our property in Rome where the Generalate is situated but unless this becomes a sign for the brothers who live there it will all be in vain because it should say that we have dedicated our lives to sacrificing ourselves for the good of others.
While the vocation of priests and religious is to be engaged with cult and official worship, the vocation of the laity is to make the Gospel present and alive in the secular, in the world of business, sports, politics and I dare say NGO’S dedicated to looking after the poor.
One of the tragedies of our age is precisely the too frequent absence of gospel values from both the religious and the secular spheres. We no longer make Christ’s love, which we celebrate at Easter, present.
Today when we think of persons who have made and continue to make God present to others, we naturally think of the Mother Teresas of our world. While we remember them and their work with gratitude, let us not forget that we must also make God’s love present in the boardrooms of the corporate world, in our sports stadiums, in our government ministries, in our political parties. Yes, it is true, that task is enormous, but we are called to trust “, “Jesus tells his disciples, Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God still, and trust in me.” The words of St. John Paul 11 ring loudly again; “Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of States, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development. Do not be afraid. Christ knows “what is in man”. He alone knows it.
As we look at our world, let us trust the Gospel again, let us trust Jesus Christ. Let us open our hearts to Christ in every aspect of our own lives, so that when we propose this to others, our lives will validate what we say.
In living like that we will join that long line of heroes of our faith who kept the love of God for the world before the eyes of so many.
Prayer
All powerful and ever-loving God, the world does not know You but we know you because we are disciples of your son Jesus who told Philip “To have seen me is to have seen the Father” Give us the grace Lord, wherever we find ourselves, be it in the Boardroom of our businesses, be it in our classrooms, be it in our offices and playing fields to open the doors wide for Christ so that all may come to know You Father as they encounter Jesus your Son. We ask this grace, Father through the pleading of Mary, your Mother and the intercession of Jesus your Son. Amen
