列印＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊
Acts 13:26-33
Brothers, children and descendants of Abraham,
and you also who fear God, it is to you that this message of salvation has been sent. It is a fact that the inhabitants of Jerusalem and their leaders did not recognize Jesus. Yet in condemning him, they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath but not understood. Even though they found no charge against him that deserved death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. And after they had carried out all that had been written concerning him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb.
But God raised him from the dead, 1 and for many days thereafter he showed himself to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They have now become his witnesses before the people. We ourselves announce to you this Good News: All that God promised our ancestors, he has fulfilled for us, their descendants, by raising Jesus, according to what is written in the second psalm: You are my Son, today I have begotten you.
Ps 2:6-7,8-9, 10-11ab
you are my Son; this day I have begotten you.
＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊
John 14:1-6
“Do not be troubled; trust in God and trust in me. In my Father’s house there are many rooms. Otherwise I would not have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. After I have gone and prepared a place for you, I shall come again and take you to me, so that where I am, you also may be. Yet you know the way where I am going.”
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.
Gospel Reflection
The first reading from Acts unequivocally states what the “Good News” is all about, namely, that God has fulfilled in Jesus, the promise he made to Israel. They may have rejected him, but the promise was nonetheless fulfilled. And in the Gospel, we find a clear and undeniable proof of this fulfillment: Jesus proclaiming himself to be the only way to the Father.
Scripture reminds us that God never goes back on his word. He fulfills all his promises. We human beings may not recognize it when it happens, we may even refuse to acknowledge it – as did Israel in Jesus’ time. We may be unfaithful. But God never is. His word is true and it never wavers.
In another part of Scripture we are told that the word God speaks never returns to him empty – handed, it always fulfills what it has set out to accomplish. (Is. 55:11) And so even when humanity sinned and fell short of his glory, he himself sent his only Begotten Son to save us and to show us the way back. It was an action that was born out of immense love, one that – like his word – “never fails”. (1 Cor. 13:8)