Thursday, December 20, 2007

Jn 7, 35-36 What is the meaning of his saying?

(Jn 7, 35-36) What is the meaning of his saying?
[35] So the Jews said to one another, "Where is he going that we will not find him? Surely he is not going to the dispersion among the Greeks to teach the Greeks, is he? [36] What is the meaning of his saying, 'You will look for me and not find (me), and where I am you cannot come'?"
(CCC 208) Faced with God's fascinating and mysterious presence, man discovers his own insignificance. Before the burning bush, Moses takes off his sandals and veils his face in the presence of God's holiness (Cf. Ex 3:5-6). Before the glory of the thrice-holy God, Isaiah cries out: "Woe is me! I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips" (Isa 6:5). Before the divine signs wrought by Jesus, Peter exclaims: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord" (Lk 5:8). But because God is holy, he can forgive the man who realizes that he is a sinner before him: "I will not execute my fierce anger… for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst" (Hos 11:9). The apostle John says likewise: "We shall… reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything" (1 Jn 3:19-20). (CCC 426) "At the heart of catechesis we find, in essence, a Person, the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, the only Son from the Father… who suffered and died for us and who now, after rising, is living with us forever" (CT 5). To catechize is "to reveal in the Person of Christ the whole of God's eternal design reaching fulfilment in that Person. It is to seek to understand the meaning of Christ's actions and words and of the signs worked by him" (CT 5). Catechesis aims at putting "people… in communion… with Jesus Christ: only he can lead us to the love of the Father in the Spirit and make us share in the life of the Holy Trinity" (CT 5).

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