From the responsorial psalm: “If only my people would hear me, and Israel walk in my ways, I would feed them with the best of wheat, and with honey from the rock I would fill them. I am the Lord your God: hear my voice.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John (Jn 7:1-2, 10, 25-30)
So Jesus cried out in the temple area as he was teaching and said, “You know me and also know where I am from. Yet I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.” So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand upon him, because his hour had not yet come.
Jesus is in Jerusalem around the time of the feast of tabernacles. As John tells us, he “went up, not openly but as it were in secret.” Inhabitants of Jerusalem recognize him as the one some of the Jews are trying to kill. They know who Jesus is and where he is from. Yet, they are puzzled because they believe that no one will know where the Messiah comes from. At this, Jesus openly announces his divine Sonship with the Father and thus that he is the Christ. Through Christ, as beloved sons and daughters of the Father, we know from his love where we are from and where we are going.
God, give me the grace to recall throughout the day your love for me as an adopted son. An expression of the gift of relationship with you is enough to comprehend in itself. Yet, even more, your love brings into being what you will; in it, you make me new and offer the gift of eternal life. No wonder Jesus cried out to anyone who would hear his true identity in you: “I know him,” Jesus says of you, “because I am from him, and he sent me.” Send me, Lord, on a way made clear, and strengthen me to do your will.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.