Today’s Gospel is very rich in insights. While answering his disciples’ questions, Jesus takes the opportunity to explain very important realities. First of all, Jesus tells us that there is a place for all of us in heaven. Our destiny is not condemnation, but the full communion with God and our brothers and sisters. It is a message of hope. Second, Jesus tells us that we can start living in this communion because he is “the way, the truth, the life.” By following Jesus, we know the way for getting closer to God, and at the same time, we are already in communion with Him, because Jesus himself is God.

Finally, Jesus is teaching us another important reality. Philip wants to know better God, the Father, but Jesus replies: “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.” Probably Philip was imagining Jesus and the Father in two different ways. The Father was God, the Almighty, the big King, while the Son had a different character, different desires, different plans, different ideas... This can be also our understanding too. Some can think, for instance, that Jesus is merciful, gentle, forgetful, willing to save us, while we imagine the Father more like a judge, who asks for obedience, for the fulfillment of his commandments, etc. Some can even think that Jesus was willing to die for us on the cross, while his Father was more prone to punishment for our sins. In a word, if it is easy to acknowledge that Jesus is good and merciful, it is more difficult to think the same way about his Father.

But the Gospel of today helps us getting the right image of the Father. Jesus affirms most clearly that He and the Father are one, with the same desires, ideas, plans, feelings, will... What Jesus does, feels, desires is exactly what his Father wants. When Jesus loves, heals, suffers, forgives, it is His Father too who loves, heals, suffers, forgives. Jesus is the best image of the Father available on earth. Normally we think that “Jesus is like God”, but, according to the theologian Juan Luis Segundo, we should reverse the statement and say that “God is like Jesus.” We are grateful for this Gospel because it helps us fix a possible wrong image of God.

In this time of the pandemic, I would like to extend this reflection to the church. Jesus show who his Father is, and so the church, as far as possible, can show who God is. The COVID-19 has put most of us in isolation due to the community quarantine. At the same time, many people have been put in the front row in fighting the virus. Doctors, nurses, workers in the hospitals, the police, administrators and politicians, cashiers in the supermarket, etc. have put at disposal of their neighbors their professionality and skills, often by putting at risk their own lives, for loving all of us. Governmental and non-Governmental organizations are also trying to provide the basic needs of the poor. Other people cannot do concrete works but are praying every day for the end of the pandemic, or express their closeness to people who lost their loved ones. Family members have reconnected and are now more united even from distance... Most of these people are members of the church, and through their care, love, and dedication, they are bearing witness to the Gospel within society.

It seems to me that the pandemic has compelled the church and society to unexpectedly take out a lot of positive energies. It seems to me that the world has never felt to be as interconnected as it is now. For the moment is still not possible to celebrate the sacraments together, but this does not mean that the church has disappeared. On the opposite, she is very much alive in the concrete love of her members, especially laypeople, within society. Who sees Jesus sees the Father: to a certain extent, who sees this church can see Jesus.