Easter Week 4 Friday

Readings: Acts 13:26-33; Psalm 2; John 14:1-6

When Benedict XVI took that name as Pope it drew attention to one of the forgotten popes of the 20th century, Giacomo Della Chiesa, who reigned as Benedict XV from September 1914 to January 1922. His reign was dominated by the First World War and its aftermath. He is remembered as a pope who gave his energy, along with his extensive diplomatic experience and skills, to encouraging reconciliation and rebuilding peace, across Europe especially, and between the Church and the state in many nations, not least in Italy itself.

Benedict XV's motto was the opening verse of Psalm 70 (71), In you, O Lord, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame. It is also the final verse of the Te Deum, the Church's great hymn of praise and thanksgiving, sung when wars and plagues end, sung at the turning of each year and to mark moments of special gratitude. That final verse reads In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum' 'in you, O Lord, I hoped: let me not be forever lost'. It is a solemn prayer at the end of a great hymn, given greater solemnity and seriousness by the musical setting to which it is often sung. To be lost is bad enough. To be lost forever would be dreadful, dreadful beyond words.

Place alongside this prayer the famous declaration of Jesus in today's gospel reading: 'I am the way, the truth, and the life'. It addresses three ways in which people can be lost and reminds us that the Lord in whom we trust rescues us from each of them.

If I do not know where I am, or I do not know where I am going, then I am lost. As Thomas - yes, the doubter! - says in the reasonable question that elicited Jesus's declaration, 'we do not know where you are going - how can we know the way?' 'I am the way ...' Jesus is our present companion, our future destiny and our guide if we are to get from here to there. Because he is the way, staying with him means we cannot get lost on our journey.

If I am ignorant or in error about things that I ought to know and know correctly, or about things I ought to understand and accept, then I am, once again, lost. We often say it when we are trying to understand something difficult: 'I'm lost'. 'What is truth?' is a question on the lips of another doubter, Pontius Pilate, a question to which Jesus does not reply. Is it that he has already answered it in today's gospel passage, 'I am the truth'? Was Pilate supposed to know this? Jesus had just told him that his mission was to bear witness to the truth and Pilate, unwittingly, helps him to fulfil that mission. Because Jesus is the truth, staying with him means we cannot get lost in ignorance or error.

Our animal nature reacts most strongly to anything that would threaten its life. To lose its life is, for any living being, the ultimate way of being lost. To be lost here is to be dead, to cease to exist, to be forever lost since once an animal nature loses its life what can restore it? There are many levels on which we are alive - biological life, intellectual life, social life, spiritual life. Just as we live on all these levels we can also die on all these levels. Jesus has already taught the disciples that he has come that they would have life in all its fulness. All of these plus a level of life beyond anything we can imagine are held out to us by Jesus, who is the Author of Life, the firstborn of all creation, and the firstborn from the dead. Because Jesus is the life, staying with him means we cannot get lost in death, we cannot be lost forever.

'All the promises of God are fulfilled in the raising of Jesus from the dead': Paul preaches this in today's first reading. The prayer of Psalm 70 (71) is therefore answered. You will not be lost forever because the One who is risen from the dead is your way, your truth, and your life. 'My sheep listen to my voice', Jesus told us earlier this week, 'I know them and they follow me, I give them eternal life, they will never be lost'.

We will sometimes feel lost in the course of our life - about where we are, about what is true, about living life in its fulness - but to place our hope in Jesus Christ means we cannot be lost forever. We will travel safely on the way. We will live in the light of truth. We will enjoy the fulness of life.