Could Jesus acknowledge you as a person in whom there is no duplicity?

Wednesday, 8/14/16

Today we honor the Apostle Nathaniel whom Jesus identified as a man as honest as the day is long. (Wouldn’t you like to have Jesus testifying to your complete honesty?)

Nathaniel, whose father had been Ptolemy was also known as Bartholomew, meaning the son of Ptolemy . When Jesus greeted Nathaniel as a true son of Israel, a man in whom there is no duplicity, Nathaniel asked Jesus how he knew him; and Jesus said, “Before Phillip called you, I saw you under he fig tree.”

Nathaniel then said, “You are the Son of God.” You might imagine that Nathaniel had known he was alone with God under the fig tree; and so Jesus could only have seen him if he were in fact the Son of God.

The first reading sees the heavenly Jerusalem as God’s people from the Old and New Covenants. Its twelve gates bear the names of he twelve sons of Jacob, while the courses of stones making up the walls are inscribed with the names of the twelve Apostles.