The Contemplation on the Incarnation begins ‘The Second Week’ of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. Here, the Trinity, in communion with one another, are bending down and gazing on all the joys and hopes, griefs and anxieties and broken and mended relationships of the world. We are invited to listen to and engage with their conversation: ‘what can we do?’ So, the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ becomes one of us so we can know intimately the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and their sharing of their interior wealth with one another.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ desire and promise to the apostles is that they can know the Father because Jesus is the revelation of everything about the Father: they can now show everyone this path of friendship with the Father.

Every sentence in today’s Gospel seems to have an ‘if…then’ or an ‘I’ve done this…so that you….’ It’s very inviting to become caught up by this series of appeals and challenges. Would we want to follow Jesus the King who has loved, called, chosen, appointed and commanded us? Would we not want to sign up with this abiding, joyful, friendly, revealing and giving God?

Cardinal Re’s homily described Pope Francis: ‘His charisma of welcome and listening…touched hearts and sought to reawaken moral and spiritual sensibilities… a Church (a field hospital) capable of bending down to every person, regardless of their beliefs or condition, and healing their wounds.’

Can we share this interior wealth in friendship, as Jesus did?

by Peter Webb