My Dear People,

Today Jesus tells the Apostles that He is going to prepare a place for them. In Judaism the word “place” has a special connotation. It often meant “the holy place,” that is, the “sanctuary” (see John 11:48). In departing, Jesus tells them He is going to prepare a “Temple” for the Apostles to live in.

Where is this Temple that Jesus will prepare? In one sense, it is the Church, also identified as the Temple of God. The Disciples will live and abide within the church, the Body of Christ, and there they will experience communion with the Father, the Son, and each other. Jesus’s words also apply to ascension into heaven, which is nothing other than the Church triumphant. 

The Disciples want to know “the way” so they can make a pilgrimage to the Temple.  Jesus tells them: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” 

No other major religious figure in human history has taught that God is a Father. Mohammed denied the fatherhood of God.  Buddha taught no specific doctrine of God. Neither Mohammed nor Buddha therefore ever claimed to be the way to the divine “Father.” They claim to show you a path to Allah or Nirvana. Neither do the lesser-known religious founders of human history (Zoroaster, Guru Nanak) claim to show the way to the Father. 

Only Jesus proposes that God is “a Father.” Jesus teaches to all: “The only way to the father, the only viable path to knowing God, is this way.” 

After emphasizing His own unity with the Father (“Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father,”) Jesus promises “whoever believes in Me will do the works I do and will do even greater ones than these.” What? Is everyone who believes in Jesus going to raise the dead and perform even greater miracles than Jesus himself? How can this be? 

Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus wants people “not” to be overly impressed with the physical miracles, but to look deeper into spiritual realities (for example John 4:48; 20:29). Seen from a spiritual perspective, the interior effects of the sacraments –like forgiveness of sins--are much greater miracles than the physical transformations effected by Jesus’s signs.  Some of the Church’s greatest theologians have insisted that the resurrection of Lazarus pales in comparison to the powers of the confessional.  

But even the raising of the dead to life, the miracle by which a corpse is reanimated with its natural life, is almost nothing in comparison with the resurrection of the soul, which has been lying spiritually dead in sin and has now been raised to the essentially supernatural life of grace. St Augustine teaches: “the justification of the ungodly is something greater than the creation of heaven and earth, greater than the creation of angels.” 

The “greater things” the Apostles will do after Jesus ascends into heaven include the administration of the sacraments, and having the power to forgive sins (John 20:22-23). I’m convinced that the sacraments are a partial solution to what Jesus means by the “greater works” to be done by the Apostles. The miraculous “signs” of the Gospel of John have been told in such a way that we can see their resemblance to the Church’s sacraments. With respect to the Eucharist this is especially true in changing Water to Wine (John 2); the Feeding of the Five Thousand (John 6). With respect to Baptism, consider the healing of the man born blind (John 9).   The signs and miracles Jesus performed have some connection with the sacraments. 
To sum up: all the readings point to the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the Body of Christ, which is the true Dwelling Place and temple of God. By extension, we who participate in the Eucharist are also incorporated into God’s Temple.  When the priest receives Holy Orders, he brings to us the Eucharist and other sacraments, which is “key” to the structure of this human temple.                                                         

[Parts taken from Dr. John Bergsma: The Word of the Lord: Sunday readings  year A].

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Vincent Clemente