Reflection for the Vigil of the Fifth Sunday of Easter 2008
Mary Teresa Morris, OSB

Poor Phillip and Thomas. All they wanted were directions that they could understand. As a home health nurse, I can related to that. Phillip and Thomas didn’t mind going; in fact, they wanted to go. They just wanted directions. The directions that they received made as much sense to them as the, “ Turn where old man Smith pastured his horses before sold off the land.” directions that I sometimes get. Now I can go to my laptop and pull up mapquest: Phillip and Thomas had no eschatological mapquest. They just had the reality that they knew.

C.S. Lewis in, The Screwtape Letters, wrote, “ The humans live in time but He destined them for eternity. He, therefore, I believe, wants them to attend to two things: to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.”(1 p.75) Lewis goes on to say, through the characters of Screwtape and Wormwood, that the temptations of earthly time present the problems: dwelling in the past; believing that we can control the future; making our wants and desires the focus of our lives rather than realizing the present is all that we have…and that is where we touch eternity and the Father.

But back to Phillip and Thomas: at the time of this interchange between Jesus and them, Phillip and Thomas are pre-Easter, pre-Emmaus, pre-Pentecost, pre-Ascension. Phillip and Thomas are thinking in terms of the time and space that they know: Which way? What road? Where is the Father? How can knowing Jesus be knowing the Father? How can we know someone we have never met? An aside here: I also feel sorry for Peter. Although not a part of this conversation, he has the similar problems: he’s been called a rock; he’s been told to build a church, but no location or floor plan; he is supposed to shepherd Jesus’ sheep and he didn’t even know Jesus had sheep. Again, no eschatological mapquest.

But Alleluia! Easter does come. Emmaus does happen. The Spirit does come at Pentecost. Jesus ascends, and yet, remains until with us always. And time and the true meaning of the present changed forever for Phillip and Thomas. And for us.

1 Lewis, C.S. The Screwtape Letters, Harper Collins 2001 Ed. P. 75

© 2008 Benedictine Sisters
Mount St. Scholastica
Atchison, Kansas