We live in a culture where all too often we want to see the replay before we even see the play. How often whilst watching a sporting event on TV will someone in the room yell “show us the darn replay!” . . . even having just witnessed the play. I suppose this comes from some deep-seated obsession with knowledge.
To know more gives us the illusion that we are more, that we have more control, more power over the plethora of phenomena that confront us. Unless we can see the whole forest we are not content with seeing a few trees. Something akin seems to going on with Thomas today with his question, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?”
Jesus never promises us the certainty of complete knowledge; ‘merely’ the prospects of revelation. And revelation not in the form of syllogistic and systematic philosophical propositions but revelation as the unfolding of the Divine Will in himself. In other words, Revelation as an on-going process of discovering, choosing, and following God’s will at every moment in life.
Every great journey begins with a tiny step . . . and often enough that tiny step is all that we are given to see. So when Jesus offers himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, don’t expect to see the whole way, know the whole truth, or live the perfect life; but hopefully enough of the way to keep walking, and enough of the way to keep believing, and enough of life to keep living . . . sharing that Life with others.
—Fr. Charles Rodrigues, S.J., Associate Novice Director at the Jesuit Novitiate of St. Alberto Hurtado, St. Paul, MN. For more information on Jesuit vocations, click here.