Jesus was not concerned with the controversy many of his pronouncements created. Today was one of the most striking statements made to his Jewish audience, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” In our catechesis, we learn early in our faith lives this wording of “I AM” was how God identified himself to Moses in the story of the burning bush, “If the Israelites ask me, ‘what is his name?’ what am I to tell them?” “God replied, ‘I am who I am.'” Jesus was making a direct statement of his relationship with the Father. Bishop Barron asks, “What does that mean when God defines himself this way? God is saying, in essence, that he cannot be defined, described, or delimited. God is not a being but rather the sheer act of to-be itself. The sheer act of being itself cannot be avoided, and it cannot be controlled. It can only be surrendered to in faith.” This was a revelatory moment and one that set the Lord on his journey to the cross.