May 2013
Pope's Intentions
Administrators of Justice. That administrators of justice may act always with integrity and right conscience.
Seminaries. That seminaries, especially those of mission churches, may form pastors after the Heart of Christ, fully dedicated to proclaiming the Gospel.
The way to the Father
Our Lord has allowed no doubt or uncertainty regarding so great a mystery... Hear him revealing to the apostles everything we need to know to believe: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me then you will also know my Father... Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say: 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”... Therefore he who is the way is not leading us along paths with no conclusion or in a desert without a way; he who is the truth has no desire to deceive us with lies; he who is the life will not abandon us in errors that end in death... “No one comes to the Father except through me”: the way to the Father passes through the Son...
“If you know me then you will also know the Father.” We see the man, Christ Jesus..., his outward aspect, namely his human nature...; so how is it that to know him is to know the Father also? In the mystery of the body he took, our Lord makes known the divinity that is in the Father, while keeping to a certain order...: “If you know me, you will know him and see him”... He makes a distinction between the moment of seeing and that of knowing; he says they must recognize the one who is speaking to them and they will see...; he has to teach them to recognize the divine nature within him.
These words, for which they were unprepared, trouble Philip. He sees a man and this man claims to be the Son of God... The Lord says to him that he has seen the Father and that therefore he knows him because he has seen him. The limitations of his humanness prevent Philip from understanding any such statement... That is why he answers that he has not seen the Father and asks the Lord to show him to him. Not that he wants to see him with his bodily eyes but he is asking to be enabled to understand who it is that he sees... Expressing a desire to understand rather than to see, he adds: “That will be enough for us”.