17.05.25 Terlambatkah Aku Mengenal Yesus?

Saturday 4th week of Easter "Jn 14:7-14" "If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him. Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip?" It sounds like a reproach, doesn't it? I have been with you all this time, "and yet you do not know me". How often this happens with Our Lord! St John Mary Vianney told the story of St Alexis, the only son of a rich Roman senator, who left everything to follow God and, in disguise, he travelled to Syria in the East and lived in great poverty near a Church of Our Lady. After seventeen years, he became a famous holy man there, which was the last thing he wanted, so he ran away and ended up, one day, begging at his parents' home. His parents used to do great works of mercy for the poor. Whilst helping hundreds of other poor people, they assisted him as well; but they did not recognise him. They let him stay in a corner under the stairs, where Alexis lived for seventeen more years, until he died. On the day he died, his own mother was taking care of his dead body when she recognised that it was her son who had lived for years under the stairs in her own palace. Tradition says that she exclaimed in tears, "O my son! Too late have I known thee!" Commenting on the story, St John Mary Vianney said, "The soul leaving this life will at last see Him, whom she possessed in the Eucharist so many times, and at the sight of the consolations, beauties and riches that she had ignored, she will likewise cry out: "O Jesus! O my Life! O my Treasure! O my Love! Too late have I known Thee!"Saints could recognise Jesus in the Eucharist from the very beginning of the history of Christianity: "I hunger for the bread of God, the flesh of Jesus Christ...I long to drink of his blood, the gift of unending love," said St Ignatius of Antioch in the first century. Let's adore Him with the Angels who stand in His presence, constantly glorifying Him: before the Divine Host there is always an angelic host in adoration. Mary, my Mother, Jesus received His Body from you. Help me to recognise Him in every Tabernacle of the world.