You are a person of ‘integrity’. And what is ‘integrity’ ? The definition, found in any standard dictionary is: ‘a person having the quality of being honest, of strong moral principles and moral uprightness, it is a state of being whole and undivided.
As a person of integrity you choose, you hand-pick, your own friends; you share your daily life with them; you instruct them; you give ample proof of what you teach; you make them realise that life is worth living, and, the ultimate reward of such life. They witness love to neighbour as something real, whereas so far, love had a different definition. The realize what justice is, how every person deserves, and must be treated with dignity.
Yet, though your friends feel that you are well-meaning; that you are a person of integrity and honesty; that you should be trusted; that they feel ‘at home’ with you; that you are the one and only one who has the ‘truth’, notwithstanding all this, they can’t understand all you tell them. Very often, notwithstanding their trust in you, they cannot make head or tail of you declarations that you will one day have to suffer death at the hands of your enemies.
If you are a person of integrity, needless to state that Jesus Christ was a superman of ‘integrity’ and the other characteristics that makes such a person. And, if you have experienced such a disappointment of having such ‘hand-picked’ friends’ who misunderstood you, Jesus felt the same and more. After living and sharing His life with the Apostles, a few days away from His passion, they still do not understand Him. Please keep in mind that these ‘hand-picked’ friends were to be the foundation stone of His Church, they were to be responsible to carry on His mission when He ultimately joins the Father in Heaven.
This is a mystery. You might argue: ‘why has Christ chosen these twelve persons almost all, illiterate? But there is still another mystery to all this; notwithstanding all, the apostles did remain with Jesus, even when they did not understand Him and what was going around them, they remained steadfast. They are faithful, they are patient. They bank on Jesus, as it were, made an advance declaration of confidence and trust. Meantime the Holy Spirit must have taken over to convince the Apostles of what they had been feeling inside them, though they were not realizing it, that the Master, must be believed for all He has instructed and shown them by facts. His Resurrection from death sealed all their feelings, what they had been feeling, deep down in their hearts, without sharing or making it known to each other. This behaviour is another mystery.
Would it not be folly to expect everything to be intelligible, or to accept no more than we can understand. As Karl Rahner once said: “The incomprehensible must lay hold on us, for only then shall we be open to God the infinite. One day we shall find everything’ .
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