Reflection for Fifth Sunday of Easter Year A 2023

A Message from Father Wilmer Chirino

Reflection of the
V Sunday of Easter
“I am the way, the truth and the
life. No one goes to the Father if it
is not through me”.

The Lord says to his disciples: “Believe in God and believe also in me”. Thus begins the Gospel of this fifth Sunday of Easter that proposes a double commandment about faith: believing in God and believing in Jesus are not two separate acts, but a single act of faith, That is full adherence to salvation carried out by God the Father through his only begotten Son. God showed his face, as in Jesus’ answer to the Apostle Philip: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” The Son of God, with his incarnation, death, and resurrection, freed us from the slavery of sin to give us the freedom of the children of God. Christ made known to us the face of God who is love: God can be seen, is visible in Christ. Truly, how many times in the passing of days, do we allow the lethargy of our faith to lead us to a heaviness of spirit? By doing that, the eyes of our mind become blind to the “works” that the Lord accomplishes in everyone’s life. This is how we also miss the important invitation of Jesus: “Believe me: I am in the Father and the Father is in me. At least, believe in My works.”

God acts discreetly and becomes man, but in such a way that he can be ignored by his contemporaries. He suffers and dies and, as the Risen One, wants to reach humanity only through the faith of his own, those to whom he is manifest.

For each one of us, the way to the Father is to let ourselves be guided by Jesus, by his word of Truth, and by accepting his gift of Life. We Christians often say we want to follow the Lord, and we mean it; but our follow-up could only be on an intellectual level. This is because we do not allow his Word to settle in us.

We do not allow it to germinate through prayer, but, above all, we do not make ourselves available to be regenerated by the sacraments, Christ makes himself present through our humanity.

    Thus, the Risen Lord, defeating death, offered us an example and opened the gates of paradise for us. Thus,   Christ shows us not only that He is the way that leads to the Father, but also the Truth and Life: “Who has seen me has seen the Father.”

And let us not forget that, for the first disciples, as we read in the second reading: “You are a chosen lineage, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.” We must appropriate this awareness, so that, experiencing new life in Christ, we can sing with the psalmist: “Acclaim with joy, righteous ones, to the Lord, that praise is proper to upright men!” Let us therefore ask the Father to always give us his Spirit. Then it may be clearer to us that only through Christ is it possible to know the good design that Providence planned for our lives. In that we find our hope and our actions only in Him. In this way it will be easier for us to realize that the Lord is always with us. in fact, we can be effective instruments for Him to manifest Himself to the whole worl

May God Bless you all!!!