Sunday Gospel Reflections
May 11, 2025 Cycle CJN
10:27-30
Eternal Life
by
Fr. Joseph M. Rampino
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“The Father and I are
one.” While these
words might not be the first that draw our attention in this
weekend’s Gospel —
the image of sheep and shepherd might feel far more relatable
and practical for
our spiritual lives — they nevertheless represent the heart of
the text and
teach us precisely what lies at stake for us in the Scriptures.
Far from being
a simple expression of closeness between Jesus and his heavenly
Father, they
reveal to us the mystery behind everything we believe and do in
our Christian faith,
and are thus more “practical” than any concrete advice or
resolution we might
receive or make._So then, what is Christ telling us here? First,
that he has
come from the eternal Father, and is the expression of his
nature, will, and
way of being toward us. Elsewhere, Christ will say, “I only do
what I see the
Father doing,” and “he who has seen me has seen the Father.”
This does not mean
that Christ the Son is simply the avatar of the Father or the
Father appearing
under the name of Son — the Father and Son are different persons
even as one
God. This does mean that we must never oppose Father and Son,
imagining that
one is different from the other in will or love for us.
It can sometimes happen
that Christians
see in Jesus the loving and merciful God of the New Testament,
and in the
Father the strict and demanding God of the Old Testament. Such a
characterization distorts both Father and Son, as well as both
Testaments. There
is one God only, who acts in both the Old and New Testaments,
and the love
expressed in the words, deeds, and suffering of Jesus is the
same as the love
for us in the heart of the Father.
Similarly, Christians
can sometimes see
the Father as demanding that sin be punished, the Son wishing to
have mercy,
and the Father decreeing that the Son must therefore die on the
cross for our
sake, though the Son does not wish to do this. Christ’s own
words forbid us to
think this way. He and the Father have one will toward our
salvation, one
desire together in the Holy Spirit to restore us to life from
our death in sin.
In the face of Jesus, we see the eternal love of the Father
himself, both just
and merciful, overflowing and conquering, forgiving and healing.
Of course, there is even
more to this
brief passage. The truth that the Father and Son are one does
not just teach us
how to see and understand Jesus, but also tells us what we
receive from him
through our faith and life in the sacraments.
Jesus says in this
Gospel, “I give
them,” that is, us who are his sheep, “eternal life.” He is not
just talking
about giving us a pleasant and unending time of rest after our
earthly deaths,
but something far greater. Later in the Gospel of John, Jesus
will pray to the
Father saying, “this is eternal life, that they know you, the
one true God, and
Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
He will also pray “that
all of them
may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May
they also be in
us.” The eternal life that Christ gives us is a share in his own
relationship
to the Father as Son in the Holy Spirit. Christ is not just
giving us a
beautiful second life in heaven, an upgraded and perfected
version of our life
on earth but actually lets us participate in his own life as the
eternal Son,
in the life of God in himself.
This offer, as much as
it exceeds our
expectations or our ability to imagine, determines everything
for us as
Christians. We are not called simply to better lives here in
time, but to new
lives, where everything earthly that was ours is transfigured,
and we begin to
live as the Son lives, with the Father in the Holy Spirit. If we
take even one
step further toward desiring this gift, it will have been a
fruitful Easter.