Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Easter, Feast of Saint Catherine of Siena
First Reading: Acts 12:24—13:5a | Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 67 | Gospel: John 12:44-50
I vividly recall from the hazy recollection of my youth, a Tuesday that ended in tears, ketchup, and theological insight. And to be very clear that what happened was in no way our fault.
We were having lunch, quietly and demurely, as fifth graders are wont to do.
Then the cafeteria doors slammed open.
Sr. Mary of the Paschal Candle-Half-Lit strode in. She walked like a woman on a mission from God and possibly the fire marshal. Full habit.
Everything stopped. I mean everything. Forks down. Mouths open. The two first graders who had been crying for reasons unknown, stopped.
Even Psycho Pete froze. Pete had once stared down an actual Doberman and won.
Sr. Mary fixed her eyes on the new teacher — Miss Not-Albright, twenty-four years old, nine days into her career:
“You. Moved. The reading corner.”
Now. You have to understand what the reading corner was stuff of legends. Crazie Eddie claimed his grandparents had learned to read there.
So startled was crazy Eddie that he dropped his tray, a tray of ketchup with a side of fries. The ketchup and fries landed squarely on Tina the temper.
She stood up slowly, drenched shoulder to sneaker, like a scene from Carrie. She turned toward Eddie with the calmness of an agitated rotweiler.
At that exact moment, Miss Not-Albright spoke the words that changed everything.
“Sister,” she said quietly, “it’s not your classroom anymore.”
The cafeteria went silent. Real silent.
Tina forgot to be angry. (Miracles do happen.)
The two women stepped into the hallway. A moment later we could all feel it through the wall: Sister was crying. Not angry crying. Something deeper.
Mrs. Potts, head of the lunch volunteers, who always seemed to have the munchies, between bites of her brownie,said softly, “She’s right. It was never hers to begin with.”
Then she added the line I have never forgotten:
“The room she gave everything to… was only ever on loan. The grace wasn’t in owning it. The grace was in giving it back.”
They may have been words of wisdom but we were too preoccupied with avoiding the goblets of ketchup as Tina shook herself.
In that ordinary hallway, a small but real drama of detachment unfolded—the same drama Jesus enacts on a cosmic scale in today’s Gospel.
At the climax of His public ministry, as He offers His final words to the crowds before the Passion, we might expect Jesus to draw all eyes and hearts to Himself. Instead, He does something radical and beautiful: He deflects.
“Whoever sees me sees the One who sent me.”
“Whoever believes in me believes not only in me but also in the one who sent me.”
“I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and speak.”
Even the eternal Word speaks as one under obedience. Even the perfect Image points beyond Himself to the Father. Jesus does not present Himself as the endpoint; He is the way, the light, the voice through whom the Father is seen and heard. In the very hour when attention could have centered on Him alone, He models perfect subordination of love rooted within the Trinity.
In the year 381, Gregory of Nazianzus rose before the Council of Constantinople to deliver his own farewell. Exhausted, ailing, and battered by theological combat and ecclesiastical politics, he drew on this same Johannine logic:
“I was a voice… and the voice departs. The Word remains.”
A voice goes. The Word abides.
That is the logic of the Gospel. And it cuts directly against one of the most subtle temptations in ministry—the instinct to possess what was only ever entrusted. The most dangerous sentence any of us can utter is: “This is mine.” My parish. My people. My way. But nothing here is ours. Not the Church. Not the mission. Not even the words we preach. Rather Christ’s. His mission. His message.
Catherine of Siena, whose feast we celebrate today, understood this with fiery clarity. She loved the Church passionately and confronted its leaders when they confused the dignity of office with personal ownership. To priests she reminded: you are not the source. You are the channel.
Because every priest, at some point, stands in that hallway. With a parish or seminary he has poured himself into. With a ministry he has loved. With people who have become part of his heart. And the quiet voice of the Gospel says: Give it back. Not because it didn’t matter—but because it did. The grace was never in clinging to it. The grace was in receiving it as gift … and then returning it. Even if, occasionally, it’s returned with a little ketchup on it.
Jesus stands before us today and says, “I have not spoken on my own.” Even the Son receives from the Father. Even the Son returns everything in love.
A voice goes. The Word abides.
One day—and for some of us that day comes sooner than we expect—we step out of the room. The prayers will still be prayed. The Word will still be proclaimed. Grace will still be poured out. And it will not need us to sustain it. That realization may sting at first, until we see the deeper freedom: it was never ours to possess or to prop up. Only ours to serve for a time.
A voice goes. The Word abides.
And the holiest thing any of us will ever do is to love what we were given—enough to give it back.
The Joy of the Gospel 