This theme is also expressed in the closing lines of today’s Gospel reading from John. "'Lord,' said Thomas, ‘we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus told him: ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life . . .’” This famous proclamation, often used on billboards and samplers, is rich in possible interpretations. Here is one way to reflect on this passage. Part of our humanness seems to be the need for meaning and purpose. But for so many, life is meaningless; it is just one event after another with no direction or growth. The characters in Seinfeld are good examples of this form of life. The physicist Stephen Weinberg expresses this purposelessness about the cosmos as whole: “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.”1 But for us, after Jesus’ resurrection, all has meaning, both the cosmos and each one of our lives. And it is Jesus – the way, the truth, and the life – who gives it this meaning. This is an immense gift for which we should praise God everyday. 1. (The First Three Minutes [Basic Books, 1977],
154.)
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