“I am the way the truth and life Jesus says to us today. A great message that it is through him that we receive the Father and that if we see him then we see the Father. The way, the truth and the life, these three things in our life; the life and the truth is something that we all know. We yearn for a life. We have it. We see it, but we yearn for life, don’t we? We yearn for a healthy life. We yearn for a free and happy life, so life is something that we see in our life, that we yearn for. Truth. Truth is something we search for, don’t we? We go through our educational background searching for truth. We think if we only knew the truth our lives would be complete. So we know what truth and life is and I think we can all agree on what truth and life can be, but we don’t always know that way. There are times in people’s lives when they say they ‘lost their way’, their ‘trying to find their way’, but here in the Gospel gives us great hope that we don’t have to search any longer. We know what is the way and the way is through Jesus Christ. Imagine this: the word of God, the word of God which is truth and life with the Father, he takes on our human nature and becomes visible for us in the incarnation and he shows us the way. Something that we’ve never known before in our lives is the way to God. We’ve always speculated, but it’s through Jesus that he makes the invisible visible for us. He makes visible the way to God. He makes visible the way to life and the truth. Imagine that, the one thing we yearn for in our life, the truth that we always search for, there is a way to it and it’s through Jesus Christ.
Now in the Gospel, the first thing that Jesus says is, ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.’ Often times in our lives our hearts are troubled, but in the Gospel he says that because he’s talked about his death that he has to go to his death and it is to give us hope to the future that we don’t need to let our hearts be troubled. In our other readings today we’re shown why. You see, the Acts of the Apostles that we read about, hear about throughout this Easter season shows us what Christ is talking about why we don’t need our hearts to be troubled because he sent the Paraclete, he sent the Holy Spirit to be with us to guide us to show us the way to Him and it’s shown in the scriptures of the Acts of the Apostles. It’s really the history of the Church of how we’re being guided by Christ even today and I’d like to say that in some ways it’s related to this celebration that we celebrate of Mother’s day that mothers are kind of like a glimpse of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The Holy Spirit is with us always. It’s through the Holy Spirit that we’re baptized into the life of the Church. Our mothers give life to us in this world. The Holy Spirit continues to guide us, to teach us the further development of the truth that Christ gives us in our lives. Mothers and fathers are the first teachers of their children and hopefully the best teachers. Just like the Holy Spirit showing us the way to Christ always pulling us towards him. Our mothers show us the way in our life and especially guide us to our faith. Jesus says, ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled because even though I will be physically gone the Spirit is all around you.’ And I think we see the glimpse of God’s love especially in our mothers. Not only that, but this week we celebrated teachers and nurses. They have characteristics of mothers, don’t they? To nurture, to guide and sustain us, where do you see the Holy Spirit in your life? Where? Do you see it in your teachers, your mothers, the nurses? But not only that, but the Holy Spirit is showing us of God’s love throughout our whole life. That is the truth and the life that we live in and when we lose our way, come back. Come back to Jesus Christ especially in the Eucharist because as Jesus said he is the way the truth and the life and our hearts no longer need to be troubled because of that. So as you go into your inner room where the Holy Spirit is always dwelling within you today, continue to ask the Lord for the strength and the courage to bring your struggles, your fears, your anxieties to Him to ask him to guide you to show you the way so that he can start to reveal the truth and the life through Him. Amen.”