“Love’s longing is the preparation of the dwelling” (Augustine, Homilies on John 68.3). Saint Augustine spoke these words to his congregation sixteen hundred years ago about the very same Gospel we have just heard. Our Lord Jesus speaks to his apostles at the Last Supper about his moving on: “I am going to prepare a place for you,” he says. No one likes departures. Jesus knows this about us because he has made us and so he says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled . . . I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am, you also may be.” Thomas wants assurances. He wants to know the way for himself, lest he be forgotten. He says, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus responds, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”
Philip accepts this assurance and wants to use it as a shortcut, saying, “Show us the Father.” Jesus will allow no shortcut. He knows what he is creating within his apostles because he has first made them. Christ Jesus is generating love. He is stirring great love into the hearts of his apostles by making them yearn for the place he is going and for his return from that place, so they may be with their friend and Lord forever. “Love’s longing is the preparation of the dwelling,” Augustine says.
Rev. Peter A. Heasley, S.Th.D. is pastor of Corpus Christi and Notre Dame in New York City and adjunct professor of Scripture at Saint Joseph’s Seminary (Dunwoodie).