Jesus said to his disciples:
“If you know me, then you will also know my Father.
From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Jesus told his disciples that they were close enough to him that through him they could truly say they knew and saw his Father as well. But the Trinity was never conceptually easy to grasp, even when the relational reality was right in front of people. Hence Philip, although he in some sense beheld the Father already in Jesus, did not recognize him.
Philip said to Jesus,
“Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
Philip seemed to take Jesus words about what was in fact the case as rather to imply a future contingent possibility. Perhaps he wanted to see the Father as Moses was permitted to see the back of God as he passed him in the cleft of a rock (see Exodus 33:18-23). Maybe Philip was expecting something more manifestly glorious. But, whatever the case, Philip's incorrect expectations and his confusion caused him to miss what was already in front of him.
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time
and you still do not know me, Philip?
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
Similarly, we tend as Catholics to miss what is right in front of us because it is too close and has therefore become too ordinary. We hear promises and assume this must be found in distant glorious manifestations because we have become so good at ignoring that which we encounter so frequently. And yet the Son, present in his Church through the Holy Spirit, is constantly about the business of revealing the Father. There are a variety of works that he brings about in order to reveal his love for the Father and the Father's love for him, a love which, in both directions, now implicates everyone united to Christ as well. Yet, rather than that which can sometimes be too close for comfort, we prefer to look off in the distance to a more abstract and static and therefore less dangerous vision of glory. Looking at what is too close necessarily involves and invites us deeper whereas what is at a distance remains safe and unthreatening. But there is a reason why Jesus desires to reveal the Father to us and why the Father in turn will grant any prayer asked in the name of Jesus. It is all about their mutual glorification of one another. And all things they accomplish on earth are invitations for us to participate and share in that glory. The works Jesus and his disciples bring accomplish are not ultimately about their proximate ends, good as those ends may be. They are all meant to help us to know Jesus, and through him the Father. For this is eternal life.
And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (see John 17:3).
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