27 April 2017
Thursday of the Second Week of Easter
Jackie is a 2016 drama about Jackie Kennedy during the days immediately following the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy. Seeing the sorrow that Jackie had to endure, her brother-in-law, Bobby Kennedy, recommended her to speak to a priest. In one of the dialogues between Jackie and the unknown priest, Jackie says, “If there’s a heaven, then there’s your God with all of his empty promises. What kind of God that takes a father from his two little children?” The priest answers, “Our Lord sacrificed His only son.”
Is that true that God really gives us empty promises? In today’s Gospel we hear that the Father wants “whoever who believes in the Son to have eternal life.” Indeed, the reward for faith is beyond our comprehension because it is eternal life. St. Thomas Aquinas says, “For if the Father has given everything he has to the Son, and the Father has eternal life, then he has given to the Son to be eternal life…Whoever believes in the Son has that toward which he tends, that is, the Son, in whom he believes. But the Son is eternal life; therefore, whoever believes in him has eternal life” (Commentaries on the Gospel of John).
At the end of today’s Gospel we hear that “God does not ration his gift of the Spirit.” So, spend some time now in prayer. Ask for help from the Holy Spirit to understand more clearly the love that allows God to sacrifice His Son. Speak to God now about that love. Do you feel the love of God? Are you grateful for that love?