for the Father is greater than I. I have told you this now before it takes place, so that when it does happen you may believe.
There is very little left for me to tell you, for the prince of this world is at hand, although there is nothing in me that he can claim.
But see, the world must know that I love the Father, and that I do what the Father has taught me to do. Come now, let us go.
REFLECTION:
We see more serious organizing happening in the early Church in the first reading.
As the gospel continued to spread and more people were baptized and entered into the community,
structures needed to be created, and so “elders” were appointed to oversee the communities but also to serve as guides to the young flock.
In the gospel, Jesus speaks of a kind of peace that only he can give, a kind of peace that is different from the peace that the world gives.
It is a peace that is rooted in the accomplishment of God’s
constant and unchanging will rather than the will and whim of men that is ever changing like the wind.
But because of this – because of this kind of peace being anchored in the constant will of the Father –
it will inevitably encounter not only resistance from the world but at times
(and the experience of the early church and in fact the church of every age bears this out) downright persecution.
And yet, because it is firmly rooted in the Father and in the work that Jesus had accomplished,
this peace is ultimately indestructible and has a staying power that the world will never know.
© Copyright Bible Diary 2020
