you. After I have gone and prepared a place for you, I shall come again and take you to me,
so that where I am, you also may be. Yet you know the way where I am going.”
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going; how can we know the
way?” Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but
through me.
Reflect
Today’s first reading is easily misunderstood as a condemnation of the Jewish people. Too
many times throughout history, such misunderstandings have led to persecution of and
violence against the Jewish people. But this should not be so! In Nostra aetate, the Fathers
of Vatican II – all the bishops of the world – made it very clear that neither the Jews of Jesus
’ time nor the Jewish people of our own day can be held responsible for the death of Jesus.
While some of the people of Jerusalem, mostly the leadership, conspired with the Roman
authorities to condemn Jesus because he was a threat to their power.
In light of the Holocaust and continuing antisemitism, it is essential that Christians take
Church teaching about the Jewish people and Judaism to heart. Jesus and his apostles
were all faithful Jews. They attended synagogue and celebrated Jewish feasts such as
Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth) and the Feast of the Dedication (Hanukkah).
God called the Jewish people to be his own and God never fails to keep his
promises. His covenant with the Jewish people is irrevocable.
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