Jn 16, 1-4 They have not known the Father

John 16

(Jn 16, 1-4) They have not known the Father

[1] "I have told you this so that you may not fall away. [2] They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. [3] They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me. [4] I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you. "I did not tell you this from the beginning, because I was with you.

(CCC 520) In all of his life Jesus presents himself as our model. He is "the perfect man" (GS 38; cf. Rom 15:5; Phil 2:5), who invites us to become his disciples and follow him. In humbling himself, he has given us an example to imitate, through his prayer he draws us to pray, and by his poverty he calls us to accept freely the privation and persecutions that may come our way (Cf. Jn 13:15; Lk 11:1; Mt 5:11-12). (CCC 530) The flight into Egypt and the massacre of the innocents (Cf. Mt 2:13-18) make manifest the opposition of darkness to the light: "He came to his own home, and his own people received him not" (Jn 1:11). Christ's whole life was lived under the sign of persecution. His own share it with him (Cf. Jn 15:20). Jesus' departure from Egypt recalls the exodus and presents him as the definitive liberator of God's people (Cf. Mt 2:15; Hos 11:1). (CCC 769) "The Church… will receive its perfection only in the glory of heaven" (LG 48), at the time of Christ's glorious return. Until that day, "the Church progresses on her pilgrimage amidst this world's persecutions and God's consolations" (St. Augustine, De civ. Dei, 18, 51: PL 41, 614; cf. LG 8). Here below she knows that she is in exile far from the Lord, and longs for the full coming of the Kingdom, when she will "be united in glory with her king" (LG 5; cf. 6; 2 Cor 5:6). The Church, and through her the world, will not be perfected in glory without great trials. Only then will "all the just from the time of Adam, 'from Abel, the just one, to the last of the elect,'… be gathered together in the universal Church in the Father's presence" (LG 2). (CCC 853) On her pilgrimage, the Church has also experienced the "discrepancy existing between the message she proclaims and the human weakness of those to whom the Gospel has been entrusted" (GS 43 § 6). Only by taking the "way of penance and renewal," the "narrow way of the cross," can the People of God extend Christ's reign (LG 8 § 3; 15; AG 1 § 3; cf. RMiss 12-20). For "just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and oppression, so the Church is called to follow the same path if she is to communicate the fruits of salvation to men" (LG 8 § 3).