SEEING GOD FACE TO FACE
May 3, 2011
Feast of Saint Philip and Saint James, Apostles
Father John Bullock, LC

John 14: 6-14
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No
one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will
know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."
Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be
satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time,
Philip, and you still do not know me? 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? The words
that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who
dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and
the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of
the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in
me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater
works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do
whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in
the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.
Introductory Prayer: Christ, I thank you for the gift of faith. You
know that I believe, but I want my faith to grow. In knowing you I
find meaning, rest and strength. I need you, Lord. I trust in your
loving mercy. You know what I need the most today. All I ask is that
you remain at my side throughout this day. That is enough for me. I
want to spend this day making you happy, pleasing you with my every
thought, word and action.
Petition: Christ, help me to know you and love you more each day.
1. I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life: "I am the way, the truth
and the life." Christ is the answer to our problems. Since he is
fully God and fully man, his very reality unites humanity to God in
a way never before hoped. It is in following Christ that we find our
way. It is in believing in Christ that we discover truth. It is in
accepting Christ that we gain life. Christians don't simply follow a
set of rules or believe in some doctrines, we follow a person:
Christ. As Archbishop Fulton Sheen wrote, Christ's "doctrine was
himself" (Life of Christ, p. 153).
2. Show Us the Father: "Seeing is believing", the saying goes. Yet
this seems to go contrary to the faith. Didn't Christ tell "doubting"
Thomas, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to
believe" (John 20:29)? Here again, Christ seems to be chiding Philip
for wanting to see. However, Christ isn't correcting Philip for
wanting to see; rather, he didn't see in Christ what he was supposed
to: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." At the core of the
doctrine of the Incarnation is that now the "face" of God is made
visible in the person of Christ. Answering the man born blind whom he
had just healed when asked who the Son of Man is, Christ said, "You
have seen him" (John 9:37). The Second Council of Nicaea, in the year
787, reaffirmed against the iconoclasts the validity of using sacred
images, linking religious pictures and art to the Incarnation (cf.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 476). Man has a need to see God,
and the Incarnation was God's response.
3. Believe Because of the Works: Christ helps Philip's faith by
pointing to the works he has done. The faith cannot be proven in an
empirical sense, but there can be many signs which assist our reason
in that act of faith. Christ's miracles, his moral stature, his
words and ultimately his resurrection are strong arguments in favor
of the faith. Nevertheless we must still decide to believe. Once we
decide, then even greater works than Christ performed in his earthly
life can be worked through us. Don't wait to understand everything to
believe, rather believe and you will begin to understand.
Conversation with Christ: Lord, let me see your face in prayer, in
the Eucharist and in my neighbor. Be my way, my truth and my life. Be
my model, my point of reference and my strength. Without you I can
do nothing; with you I can do all things.
Resolution: I will do a conscious act of charity for my neighbor,
making an effort to see Christ in others.
meditation.regnumchristi.org

May 3 THE FINDING of the HOLY CROSS (326)
When God restored peace to His Church by exalting Constantine the Great to the imperial throne, that pious prince, who had triumphed over his enemies by the miraculous power of the Cross of Christ, was very desirous of expressing his veneration for the holy places which had been honored and sanctified by the presence and sufferings of our blessed Redeemer on earth. He accordingly resolved to build a magnificent church in the city of Jerusalem.
Saint Helen, the Emperor’s mother, desiring to visit the holy places there, made a journey into Palestine in 326, though she was at that time near eighty years of age. On her arrival at Jerusalem she was inspired with a great desire to find the identical cross on which Christ had suffered for our sins, in order to build the proposed church on the site of Calvary. But there was no mark or tradition, even among the Christians, to show where it might lie. Saint Helen consulted everyone in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas, whom she thought likely to assist her in discovering the cross. She was credibly informed that, if she could find the holy sepulchre, she would also find the instruments of the punishment, since it was the custom among the Jews to dig a pit near the place where the body of a criminal was buried, and to throw into it whatever had contributed to his execution.
The Roman pagans who were dominated by an aversion to Christianity had done what they could to conceal the place where our Saviour was buried by heaping on it a great quantity of stone and rubbish, and building there a temple to Venus. They had also erected a statue of Jupiter in the place where Our Lord rose from the dead. The pious Empress therefore ordered the profane buildings to be pulled down, the statue broken in pieces, and the rubbish removed. And then, upon digging to a great depth, the holy sepulchre was uncovered.
Near it were found three crosses and the nails which had pierced Our Saviour’s body, with the title which had been fixed to His cross. By this discovery they knew that one of those three crosses was the one they sought, and that the others belonged to the two criminals between whom Our Saviour had been crucified. But because the title was found separate from the cross, it was difficult to distinguish which of the three crosses was the one on which our Redeemer consummated His sacrifice for the salvation of the world. In this perplexity the holy Bishop of Jerusalem Macarius, knowing that one of the principal ladies of the city lay ill and at the point of death, suggested to the Empress to have the three crosses carried to the sick person, not doubting that God would reveal which one was the cross they sought. Saint Macarius prayed that God would have regard to their faith, and then he applied the crosses, one after another, to the patient. She was immediately and perfectly cured by the touch of the True Cross, after the others had been tried without effect.
Saint Helen, full of joy at having found the treasure which she had so earnestly sought and so highly esteemed, built a church on the site and placed the cross there with great veneration, after providing for it an extraordinarily rich silver reliquary. She afterwards carried part of it to her son Constantine at Constantinople, who received it with great veneration; and another part she took to Rome, to be placed in the church which she built there, called Church of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem, where it remains to this day.
The title was sent by Saint Helen to that church in Rome, and placed on the top of an arch, where it was found in a case of lead in 1492. The inscription in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin is in red letters, and the wood was whitened. So it was in 1492; but these colors have since faded, and the words Jesus and Judaeorum are eaten away. The board is nine inches long, but is considered to have measured about twelve originally.
The reliquary of Jerusalem was committed to the care of Saint Macarius and kept with singular care and respect in the magnificent church which Saint Helen and her son built there. Saint Paulinus relates that, though chips were almost daily cut off from it and given to devout persons, yet the sacred wood suffered thereby no diminution. It is affirmed by Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, twenty-five years after the discovery, that pieces of the cross were spread all over the earth; he compares this wonder to the miraculous feeding of five thousand men, as recorded in the Gospel. The discovery of the cross would have happened in the spring, after navigation began on the Mediterranean Sea, for Saint Helen went the same year to Constantinople and from there to Rome, where she died in the arms of her son on the 18th of August of the same year, 326.
www.magnificat.ca/cal/engl/05-03.htm