Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter
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May 9, 2020Some people have children that look and act so much like them it is amazing. You can see it in their mannerisms, likes and dislikes, joking, and other expressions. Although my dad died when I was eight, many people tell me I am so much like him. I joke around like him and I look a lot like him.
When we see this, we see the family resemblance. Not always the resemblance in looks but in action, morality and values, and characteristics.
Today Jesus is speaking of these characteristics but in spiritual and moral ways, expressed physically and in action. He says if you see me you see the Father. God the Father does not “look” like Jesus, He has no physical characteristics like humans that we know of. Jesus’ human characteristics of looks and mannerisms are from His Mother Mary, but everything He is about is a resemblance of the Father in Heaven: His actions, His spiritual life, His care, concern, and love. His self giving, and all the characteristics He taught us are a resemblance of the Father.
We are asked to be a family with Jesus. We have the same Father. We are asked to be one with Jesus. This means we should resemble Him. When we do, we resemble the Father.
This refers back to the end of the Gospel when He says anything you ask in my name I will do. He says this because when we ask something in Jesus' name we are asking that the prayer we want to be answered is a reflection of the Father, of something the Father would agree with, of something Jesus would do or be ok with us doing as his brother or sister.
When we ask in Jesus’ Name we are not just asking with Jesus in mind, referring to Him, but asking that it be something Jesus would agree that would be the reflection of the Father.
This can end us to ask, why aren’t all our prayers answered? The answer is simple. We have to first ask in this manner, as to it being something Jesus agrees with as a reflection of the Father.
Second, sometimes what we think are unanswered prayers would be us not living like or resembling Jesus. Sometimes it is something not good for us, God can see the whole picture. Maybe it is something the Father wants us to endure in order to offer it up with Jesus’ suffering and resemble Jesus that way.
Today let us set out to be the true brothers and sisters of Jesus, the sons, and daughters of the Father and resemble Jesus in all we do and all we pray for.
