Some years ago, I was honoured to work with a group of hard-working religious Sisters on a Retreat. We were sharing our favourite pieces, when one very quiet nun, hesitatingly, shared:

There are many rooms in my Father's home.

After a pause, she went on to tell us, 'I find this scripture so powerful as I pray that, in heaven, I'll be in a different room to Sr X who is really hard to live with!'— (names are changed to protect the innocent!). This beautiful image that Jesus gives us, speaks, to me, of our unity in diversity. As the first reading today shows us, in the early Jerusalem Church, the Greek Christians felt marginalised and left out. Things were not perfect, so the apostles looked to creating the seven deacons who could support and help everyone in the community—very early on, they realised that they had to ensure that 'every room' of the Church received help.

By following the true way of Jesus, we should never have problems because he is our truth and life. In following the true way of Jesus, people like Thomas and Philip discover how the life of God can permeate their lives and transform them. In following Jesus as 'the way, the truth, and the life', we discover the true nature of God. A God who brings healing to the most distressed, a God who speaks a gospel of joy, a God who understands, a God who walks with us through good times and bad — a God who loves us all so dearly and wants us to share His eternal life.

Today is the call to celebrate our union with God. In Jesus we discover who God is: a God of compassion and hope, a God of understanding and care, a God who wants the very best for us. If we share that life of God, then we can, as Pope Francis reminds us, see the world through a lens of compassion:

Compassion allows you to see reality; compassion is like the lens of the heart: it allows us to take in and understand the true dimensions. In the Gospels, Jesus is often moved by compassion. And compassion is also the language of God.

Fr Gerry O'Shaughnessy SDB

Photo by Jean-Louis Paulin on Unsplash