535. May 3, Sts Philip & James, Apostles
Meditations no. 467 (unofficial computer-aided translation)
In the lives of the Apostles we see the mingling of the action of grace and their human limitations.
God our Father, every year you give us joy on the festival of the apostles Philip and James. By the help of their prayers may we share in the suffering, death and resurrection of your only Son and come to the eternal vision of your glory.
The Apostle Philip came from Bethsaida, the home town of Andrew and Peter, a small town on Lake Tiberias. One morning, by the river Jordan, Philip met the Lord on his way to Galilee with his first disciples. To him Jesus said, Follow me. Without a momentās hesitation, Philip followed the Master. The call took such deep root in his heart that when he saw his friend Nathaniel, he told him, We have discovered who it was Moses wrote of in his law, and the prophets too; it is Jesus the son of Joseph, from Nazareth.
The Gospel does not tell us the precise moment when James the Less, who became the first bishop of Jerusalem, began to follow Jesus. This may have been due to the fact that being cousins, they had known each other from childhood. Tradition pictures him to us as a man of austerity, demanding with himself, a pillar of the Church with Peter and John.
In the lives of these Apostles, the divine vocation was compatible with the limitations common to all men. Sometimes they were pig-headed and obstinate, with their fair share of human outlook, like the other Apostles. The Lord had to form them bit by bit, with infinite patience. St John tells us in his Gospel that when Christ was ready to do the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, he asked Philip, Whence are we to buy bread for these folk to eat? In saying this, he was putting him to the test; he himself knew well enough what he meant to do. Philip answered according to purely human reasoning: Two hundred silver pieces would not buy enough bread for them, even to give each a little.
Sacred Scripture often shows us other weaknesses that the Apostles had: petty earthly ambitions, discouragement at difficulties, lack of faithā¦ Nonetheless, because they were simple, their defects were slowly filed down. Thus they prepared themselves to cooperate with our Lord in his mission of redemption. The fact is that naturalness and simplicity are two marvellous human virtues which enable men to take in the message of Christ. On the other hand, all that is tangled and complicated, the twisting and turning about oneās own problems, all this builds up a barrier which often prevents people from hearing our Lordās voice.
The divine call, and their generous response, made these men Apostles of Jesus Christ who brought the divine truth everywhere. Philip preached the Gospel in Phrygia where he was crucified and martyred. In his old age, James was thrown from the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem. The memory of these Apostles must fill us with confidence. We too have weaknesses and defects, but we can count on the powerful help of grace and we shall conquer them.
Our Lord wants us to be his apostles even though we have defects.
At the Last Supper, Jesus told the Apostles that he would prepare places for them in the house of his Father and that he would then return to take them with him. The uncomprehending Twelve plied him with questions and our Lord explained. If you had learned to recognise me, you would have learned to recognise my Father too. From now onwards you are to recognise him; you have seen him. At this, Philip said to him, Lord, let us see the Father; that is all we ask. What, Philip, Jesus said to him, here am I, who have been all this while in your company; hast thou not learned to recognise me yet? Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father.
Philipās question is an opportunity for Jesus to make a great revelation: Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? Our Lord speaks here of the substantial unity of the three Divine Persons. Through his holy humanity, the body and soul that he willed to assume in order to save us, he shows us the Divinity. It is the original sacrament from which all graces flow. The Son of God, writes St Augustine, became man to become our way. Follow the way of his humanity and you will reach the divinity. He will lead you to himself. If he had not willed to be the way, we would always stray from the path He made himself the way for us to follow.
This is the only way to be apostles: to walk along this Way; to search for this Truth, to live the Life which the most holy humanity of our Lord offers us. What does it matter if we have defects, so long as we struggle? Our Lord has taken them into account.
Ever since I began to preach, I have warned people against a certain mistaken sense of holiness. Donāt be afraid to know your real self. Thatās right, you are made of clay. Donāt be worried. For you and I are sons of God - and that is the right way of being made divine. We are chosen by a divine calling from all eternity: The Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him (Eph 1: 4). We belong especially to God, we are his instruments in spite of our great personal shortcomings. And we will be effective if we do not lose this awareness of our own weakness. Our temptations give us the measure of our own weaknessā¦
Even in moments when we see our limitations clearly, we can and should look at God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and realise that we share in Godās own life. There is never reason to look back. The Lord is at our side. We have to be faithful and loyal; we have to face up to our obligations and we will find in Jesus the love and the stimulus we need to understand other peopleās faults and overcome our own. In this way even depression - yours, mine, anyoneās - can also be a pillar for the kingdom of Christ.
Let us recognise our infirmity but confess the power of God. The Christian life has to be shot through with optimism, joy and the strong conviction that our Lord wishes to make use of us. If we feel part of the Church, if we see ourselves sustained by the rock of Peter and by the action of the Holy Spirit, we will decide to fulfil the little duty of every moment. We will sow a little each day, and the granaries will overflow.
Union with Christ is an indispensable condition for yielding apostolic fruit.
Our vocation, like Philipās and Jamesā, like the other Apostlesā, leads us to reproduce in our own lives the life of Christ. It therefore requires that we be effective instruments for passing the doctrine of Jesus Christ on to others.
In our meditation we have seen how the divine call led Philip, in the dawn of his vocation, to do apostolate. Come and see, he told Nathaniel, who was sceptical about the coming of the Messiah. Later, as the Pasch approached, the Gospel notes that there were certain Gentiles, among those that had come up to worship at the feast, who approached Philip, the man from Bethsaida in Galilee, and made a request of him; Sir, they said, we desire to see Jesus. Philip came and told Andrew, and together Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
This is the mission of the apostle: to lead souls to Christ, to make them know and love the only one who can save them. God calls us to be his presence and witness in the middle of society, at all the crossroads of mankind, and with our example and our words to play our part in increasing the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church. To fulfil this mission, only one thing is necessary: to remain united to Jesus Christ at all times, even in the midst of our personal defects and weaknesses.
Our Father once said, I am going to give you some points for your meditation, three points which you can then take to the prayer. The first is those words from the Gospel, euntes ergo, docete omnes gentes (Matt XXVIII, 19). It is to you and to me that our Lord has said euntes! Teach with your example, even if you are full of errors, even though you have defects. Even then, docete omnes gentesā¦
The second point: sine me, nihil potestis facere (John 15: 5). Why does he tell us to go out - euntes! - if we can do nothing? And then, the third point: omnia possum in eo qui me confortat (Phil 4: 13). Imagine a vine with branches which can give fruit, fruit which will mature. But if they are torn from the vine, they dry up and end up trodden under foot by horses or men and are good only for the fire. But the branch which is united to the vine matures and produces wine for the table or the altar.
What must we do? We must be very united with Jesus Christ, our vine. How? With the Bread and the Word: with the Sacred Eucharist and with prayer throughout the day, repeating spiritual communions and telling him affectionate thingsā¦
If the branch is torn off, even if it has fruit, it rots; it becomes a seething pile of worms; it becomes a means for evil instead of for good. And so, my sons, euntes ergo doceteā¦ sine me nihil!ā¦ and omnia possum in eo qui me confortat.
Always bear in mind the image of the vine which, if torn apart, is only useful for animals to walk on or for fuel for a fire. Taste the good wine, from mature grapes. And finally, call upon the Blessed Virgin to teach you to be very close to the vine, united to Jesus Christ. She always was.