Today Jesus explains that he has much more to tell his disciples—indeed, he wants to tell them everything that he has received from the Divine Father. This is no meager message: “Everything that the Father has is mine.” The Father holds nothing back from the Son. And the Son earnestly wishes to communicate what he has from the Father to his disciples. To us.
There is a problem, however. The problem is not that Our Lord wants to withhold the fullness of who he is and what he is about. No. Rather, the problem is on the part of the disciples themselves. They cannot “bear” all that Our Lord wishes to communicate to them. Thus, the holy teaching of Our Lord is, initially, “too much” for his disciples to receive. The sacred doctrine of Jesus suffers no imperfections. There is nothing improper in the divine message that Our Lord desires to communicate. Rather, the troubling limitations—the imperfections—reside in the recipients of the sacred doctrine. In us. In our limitations.
It is no surprise, then, that the Holy Spirit is so central in today’s Gospel. The Holy Spirit is the one who can open the minds and the hearts of human persons to the divine truth that resides beyond the native capacities of human nature. Only the Holy Spirit can open our hearts from within us to the fullness of who God is and what he wants to communicate to us. Our Lord’s holy teaching is a teaching so holy and so profound that we need divine assistance in order to receive it. In other words, the same God who gratuitously communicates himself to us, must prepare us to receive the fullness of his divine communication. We need God in order to receive God.
The God who is the end of the human person is also the same God who is the cause of the human person. Human creatures stand between God and God. He is our origin. He is our end. No one “self-creates.” He has created us. And he has created us for himself.
This is why the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity stands at the heart of the Christian faith. The essence of the Christian life—what we’re all about here in this life and in the life hereafter—is God. God’s creative wisdom and his redemptive mercy, certainly, touch creaturely matters. Human persons, human actions, human virtues, and human redemption are significant elements within God’s saving message. Nonetheless, the essence of God’s divine revelation of himself is nothing other than God himself.
Yes, Jesus did come to save us. But we are not the culmination of the story of redemption. Jesus is Emmanuel—“God with us.” But it is all too easy for our gaze to focus on the “us” and to lose sight of the God who is with. The saints of the Church never lose sight of God. They rejoice in the fact that God is the gospel. He is the good news. We are saved by him and for him. He is the center of all of reality. And we only find true and lasting happiness when he—the infinitely good God—is at the center of our reality.
One of the hallmarks of the Christian faith is the dignity of the human person. Human life is certainly precious. But the reason for the preciousness of human life is this: human life is made for something more than human life. It is ordered to divine life. We humans are profoundly significant because God has endowed human life with a share in his significance. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, we are made in the image and likeness of God (no. 1701). And as creatures made in his image and likeness, we can only find the happiness—the beatitude—for which all human persons yearn in union with our wise and loving God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
To his disciples—to us!—Jesus always wants to communicate more. Why? He is his own message. He is God incarnate. And Jesus wishes to give us a full and unmitigated share in his divine life. Thus, Our Lord always wants to give us more of himself.
And this is truly good news. The more of Jesus that we have—the more he tells us of himself—the happier we are.
