Fifth Sunday of Lent
03 May 2026
First Reading: Acts 6:1-7
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19
Second Reading: 1 Peter 2:4-9
Gospel: John 14:1-12
Reflection
By: Carlo Alexis Malaluan
When I was going through old photos of my late mother, I came across pictures from her youth I had never seen before. In one, she was dancing in a school program—full of life and confidence. In another, she stood proudly as the leader of a Girl Scout troop. And I found myself thinking: How is it that I lived with her for so many years… and never knew these parts of her? I knew her—but not fully. There were depths, stories, and experiences that remained hidden to me, even in our closeness.
This is precisely the tension we see in the apostles. The apostles had something far greater than photographs. They had Jesus Christ himself. They lived with Jesus Christ—they walked with him, prayed with him, shared meals with him. They listened as he taught, watched as he revealed the heart of God, and received more than anyone could have hoped for. And yet, after all that, one of them still says: “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
It is a startling moment. Because it reveals that proximity is not the same as a relationship. It is possible to be close… and still not fully know. You can be near Jesus and still not fully recognize him. You can hear his words and still not let them take root. Jesus’ response is both gentle and piercing: “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me?”
That question reaches across the centuries. And perhaps that is where many of us find ourselves. We have been “with” Jesus for years: through prayer, through the Church, through the rhythms of faith. We can live a “religious” life and yet remain restless, still asking for proof, still waiting for something more. Not because he is hidden, but because we have not yet opened those spaces in our lives to him. And maybe that is the quiet danger of familiarity. When someone has been part of our life for so long, we can begin to assume we already know them. We stop asking questions. We stop paying attention. We settle into a comfortable, surface-level knowing. But Jesus is never exhausted by our understanding of him. That is why his words to Philip the Apostle carry both a correction and an invitation: “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me?” This is not a rejection but a call to go deeper. So perhaps the real question is not simply, “Do I know Jesus?” But: “Am I still allowing him to reveal himself to me? Or have I already decided who he is and stopped looking any further?” Because the greatest tragedy is not ignorance from a distance. It is familiarity without depth. To know Jesus is not simply to accumulate teachings or perform good works. It is to recognize, with clarity and trust, that in him we have already seen the Father. That in him, nothing essential is missing. That in him, the search finds its end. Jesus never stops revealing himself. He continues to remind us who he is, especially when we begin to forget. Because we do forget. When uncertainty clouds our minds, when fear takes hold, when life becomes heavy or confusing, we lose clarity. And in those moments, Jesus speaks again, not with something new, but with something eternal: “I am. I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Not “I will show you a way someday” or neither “I was the way in the past” but “I am”. Right now at this moment, in the middle of your uncertainty. He calls our attention to his presence.
And slowly, our lives begin to reflect that certainty not perfectly, but genuinely. We begin to live not as people still searching in the dark, but as those who have glimpsed the light and are learning to walk in it.
