Wednesday April 5
There is a paternity controversy in today’s gospel. Everyone in the episode claims to be a descendant of Abraham and belong to God, but somehow their “genetic fingerprints” do not match. For a child of God should do as God does; a child of Abraham should do as Abraham did. Evidently, only Jesus’s words and deeds seem to pass the test. Not that the other people do not belong to God. In fact, they do. But the genetic fingerprints of God in their souls have been so blurred and hidden away that they themselves cannot access or recognize them. Jesus tells them how to regain the lost connection: allow his words to take root within, and his words will set them free to reclaim their true identity.
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Jesus speaks today with the Jews who believed in him. But the dialogue was enflamed because the listeners fail to capture the fullness of the mystery of Christ and they try to defend their origin and privileges as God's chosen people, the children of Abraham. The first statement of Jesus is well known: the truth shall set you free. Christ does not refer to the philosophical concept of truth but the revelation that he proposes with his word which opens to the salvific and loving plan of the Father. A truth, which liberates from evil, falsehood, misery and the slavery of sin.
