Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him, "If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How can you say, 'You will become free’?" Jesus answered them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. A slave does not remain in a household forever, but a son always remains. So if the Son frees you, then you will truly be free. I know that you are descendants of Abraham. But you are trying to kill me, because my word has no room among you. I tell you what I have seen in the Father's presence; then do what you have heard from the Father."
They answered and said to him, "Our father is Abraham." Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works of Abraham. But now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God; Abraham did not do this. You are doing the works of your father!” So they said to him, "We were not born of fornication. We have one Father, God." Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and am here; I did not come on my own, but he sent me.”
Reflection
"If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Our discussion of this Gospel reading began with a question. If Jesus was speaking to those Jews who believed in Him, why were they trying to kill Him?
So as we were talking, we looked at who Jesus was talking to in this Gospel reading. It says, He was talking to the Jews, so we can dismiss this and not look at ourselves in this; or we can ask, “was He actually talking to us?” And, “are we the ones trying to Kill Him?”
My daughter and my husband said that they felt that the Jews who believed, only believed when it was convenient for them. This can be said about us today. There are times when we are looking for the easy way out of situations.
For example, we have done a lot of club volleyball in the past twelve years. We have traveled all over the United States to allow our girls the opportunity to play in these huge qualifier tournaments. The tournaments are on weekends (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) most times, and some tournaments would have games back to back during all the hours that Masses were offered. We found ourselves confronted with making the decision of either letting our daughters play with their team the whole weekend, or teaching them what is most important. We always made sure that the girls knew going into a tournament, that we were not going to miss Mass, and it was her choice when we would go. This was our way of teaching the girls that God comes first, which was good. We would do the research as to when Masses were offered around the various cities we would be staying. Emotions would run very hot during these tournaments. Some of the girls would get more playing time than others and if we lost, well… let us just say there were parents that were not very happy.
Praying and remaining in the Word of God helps us find that love and peace that Jesus wants us to have.
"If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
We can see how true these words are for us. There were a lot of life lessons through out those years of volleyball. One of them being that, God is most important… not us, and surely not volleyball. The truth does set us free, and for everyone it is different.
We pray that all priests will have that courage to challenge the people to remain in the Word of God and truly work toward being disciples of Christ.
May God bless us all.
Mary Queen of Apostles, make your Priests holy. (3X)
St. Alphonsus, pray for us.
St. John Vianney, pray for us.
