Apr 22: Many Dwelling Places

Irving Amen (b. 1918): In My Father's House are Many Mansions
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter

Gospel: Jn 14:1-6

“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places (NRSV, Jn 14:2a).”

Father, the life that is yours is infinite. You share it with everyone who is ready to accept it. In truth, it is your life, always, in every situation, even from our mother’s womb, offered to us by your Word, now made flesh, that constitutes us as human beings. It is your life, Father, freely offered in the Holy Spirit to all of us that sets us aside from the rest of creation. There is no end, Father, to the number whom you embrace and with whom you share your very being.

Father, in offering us your life, you speak your one Word to everyone called to be a human being, once and for all, in ever time and place. Because of the sin of the world, our own personal sin, and the limitations of created time and space, the one Word is understood differently in different situations. Hopefully all of us, as a human family, and as individuals, grow in that understanding as we are challenged in every moment to grow, Father, in your life.

As each of us understands your truth from a different and inevitably limited perspective, Father, may we all share with one another and learn from one another as, hopefully, we all grow together in your life.

Keep us from being discouraged, Father, by the limitations that our humanity places upon us because it is that very humanity that launches us on the way towards you, our only true future, and enables us, through your gift, to share in that future even in this world.

Father, we believe that the fullness of your revelation is made manifest in the Word made flesh in Jesus Christ. As we move forward, emerging from darkness in light, may he always be for us the way, the truth and the life.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.