Steps in the Spiral Staircase

Dear Friend,

Peace and all good be yours!

As I look back over the past week – disruption and violence in the nation’s capital, continuing threats, political turmoil, and the loss of life in record numbers in the continuing pandemic – I find my heart filled with questions: Where are we headed?  How did we get here? What’s really going on? – questions that implicate our communal past, present, and future.

Interestingly, the Gospel text from John presented to us this weekend is also a territory charged with questions: What are you looking for? Jesus asks those who’ve started to follow him. Where are you staying? ask his future disciples.

In John’s Gospel questions like these are catalysts and guideposts along the path of faith. Over and over, Jesus is questioned about his origin, his whereabouts, and his future. At their final meal together, Thomas asks, “Master, we do not know where you are going, how can we know the way?” Scripture scholar Sandra Schneiders would describe these questions as steps in the “spiral staircase” of John’s Gospel which takes a reader “up higher and down deeper… giving an ever clearer view of the One who stands in the center. The reader is being initiated into a mystery that deepens as one participates in it.”

The mystery is love, an unfolding story where answers to basic questions require participation and trust. Jesus tells his would-be followers Come and you will see, which is not a ready-made answer, but one they have to experience. In the new community that Jesus is forming, truth is much more than the agreement on a set of facts; it is the capacity to stay with and be true to each other, especially when things get tough. In the face of history’s challenges today, are we ready to go deeper as a parish community?

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm