Everything that the Father gives me will come to me,
and I will not reject anyone who comes to me,
The Father himself desires all to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth (see First Timothy 2:4). We can see him accomplish this in the confession of faith made by Peter, about which Jesus said, "flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven" (see Matthew 16:-17). It was the same God who created all things and declared them to be good who now desired to redeem them in Christ. Unlike in the Garden of Eden, no one need be thrown out or permanently excluded. This was only possible because of Jesus was free of the sinful self-will that caused the inevitably boundaries between peoples and nations to form as they sought their own self interest at the detriment of their neighbors. Jesus was completely transparent to the will of his Father and so didn't need to include only those who met a limited set of personal preferences or to exclude those whom he found distasteful. He was so committed to the will of his Father that the rigid boundaries instituted between people by the law was not necessary for him to maintain his purity or holiness. He could fellowship with sinners and cleanse lepers with his touch. He was therefore, in himself, the basis of what the Father wanted to accomplish.
For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility (see Ephesians 2:14-16).
The trouble for us is that it is hard for us to enter or to desire to enter into this union and this peace because it involves, not only for Jesus, but especially for us, renunciation of our own will insofar as it is opposed to the will of God. This is not to say that we are forbidden to have any preferences or individuality of our own. But any time we prefer these to the will of God they become something more and worse than mere preferences. The Father is always trying to draw us and everyone closer to the heart of Jesus. But, as with the crowds who saw but did not believe, we too often prefer ourselves, the mirage of our preferences and predilections, to the true happiness that only God can provide.
And this is the will of the one who sent me,
that I should not lose anything of what he gave me,
but that I should raise it on the last day.
We sometimes feel as if the Christian life of holiness is a struggle where we ourselves are our own last resort. It is as though if we don't grit our teeth and strive, if we allow any measure of failure, there will be nothing left to catch us when we fall. Of course we might go to confession after, but that too seems to us to be a matter of our will. But Jesus is telling us that even when we fail and fall and forget about him he is still at work, willing that we not be lost, giving us the grace to rise up again. We don't ever fall back on ourselves alone. The hands of God always wait to catch us.
For this is the will of my Father,
that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him
may have eternal life,
and I shall raise him on the last day.
The Father desires that we learn to look upon the Son, not with interest or curiosity, but with faith. It is faith that makes the gaze transformative, helping us to become more and more what we behold, as John described:
Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is (see First John 3:2).
This kind of attention is what allowed the crowd to receive the message of Philip in todays first reading. Let us too pay attention with one accord to what we hear and see of the mighty deeds of the Lord. May the whole world receive this grace of faith from the Father.
Let all on earth worship and sing praise to you,
sing praise to your name!
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