Gospel (Jn 14,6-14) - At that time, Jesus said to Thomas: «I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you have known me, you will also know my Father: from now on you know him and have seen him." Philip said to him: "Lord, show us the Father and it will suffice for us." Jesus answered him: «Have I been with you for a long time and you have not known me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say: “Show us the Father”? Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? »The words that I speak to you, I do not speak of myself; but the Father, who remains in me, does his works. Believe me: I am in the Father and the Father is in me. If nothing else, believe it for the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do and will do greater than these, because I go to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it."

The commentary on the Gospel by Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia

Today the Church remembers the apostles Philip and James, and Paul, writing to the Corinthians, recalls that the risen Jesus "appeared to James, and therefore to all the Apostles". From Easter and the apparitions of the risen one, the preaching of the Gospel begins which is transmitted from generation to generation. And Paul remembers having transmitted to the Corinthians the very same Gospel that he himself had received. Between this welcoming and communicating the Easter of Resurrection lies the heart of the Gospel and the secret of Christian life. And the apostles Philip and James are remembered by tradition as generous disciples who were among the first to respond to Jesus' call. Philip was a Galilean from Bethsaida, a fisherman like Peter, he was the one to enthusiastically call Nathanael-Bartholomew. And he himself will then bring to Jesus the request of those Greeks who wanted to see him in Jerusalem (Jn 12,20-22). In particular, the Gospel of John shows him as a missionary who questions himself and is questioned by the questions of the people who want to see Jesus. Tradition wants him to be an evangelizer of Asia and Phrygia, where he will die a martyr. James, however, also called the "Lesser", so as not to confuse him with the other James, brother of John, son of Zebedee, died as a martyr in Jerusalem in 62, among the first to give his life for the Gospel. "If Christ had not risen, our faith would be in vain." Paul names the eyewitnesses: those to whom the resurrected Jesus appeared, even adding "more than five hundred brothers" most of whom, Paul says, were still living in his time. We too, who can consider ourselves the last in this long chain of witnesses to the resurrection, are called to immerse ourselves in this testimony of faith and love. We believe in the resurrection not for our words, but for our lives. And the resurrected body of Christ today is in the members of the disciples, those members that we too are, living his love for him in this world.