Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter

Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said,

“Father, the hour has come.”

It is a commonplace among Americans of whatever religious persuasion to say, “We all worship the same God. Whether you are Jew, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, or Native American animist, we all worship the same good God.” People like to make this creedal statement for the sake of national solidarity. But there is something perverse in me that mutters whenever I hear “We all agree….” If we all agree on anything, I’m sure it’s not true.

As I study the question of God I am more reluctant to say what God is, does or thinks. I prefer to let God remain behind the Cloud of Unknowing, inscrutable and transcendent, as we human beings worship with a multiplicity of rituals. And I am rather certain those who choose not to worship at all have no knowledge of God at all. They are like men who say they are married but have never met their wives. Their philosophical God is no more real than their philosophical ideas.

When I speak with a fellow Catholic in the hospital, one who attends the one Church that spans the earth, I can speak with confidence about that God, who is the Father of Jesus. I am sure this Veteran knows the God of whom I speak; we have worshiped together with Jesus as our Priest, Lamb and Altar of Sacrifice.

To describe my hunch in other words, I believe the rituals we use to worship God profoundly shape our expectations of God and our relationship with God. I cannot speak about the God of Muslims very well for I do not worship with them. I might speak about the God of Jews with a little more confidence because our Catholic faith was born out of the lacerated heart of a Crucified Jew. He studied and meditated upon the very same Hebrew Scriptures that I have heard; indeed, he is the Word made Flesh.
I can pray comfortably with my Protestant colleagues in the Veterans Hospital because we read the same New Testament in our various churches. But I would not rely on the interpretations of one who reads the Bible but never attends Church. The New Testament comes to life in the context of communal worship. It belongs to the community and cannot be appropriated by any one person. I do not know his or her god.

Given my skepticism about popular notions of God, I am all the more eager to hear John 17. In this climactic chapter, we will overhear Jesus speak at length to his Abba-God.

Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said,

“Father, the hour has come.”

His prayer will continue through our gospel readings for three days. Jesus speaks first of glory. God’s glory will be revealed perfectly in the most perfectly unexpected way – on the cross. Where human beings see only shame, pain, humiliation, agony and ignominy God shows divine and radiant glory. Indeed it could be seen in no other way!

Now glorify me, Father, with you,

with the glory that I had with you before the world began.

We have caught glimpses of his glory in his birth in poverty, his exile in Egypt, his development in obscurity, and the growing hostility of his enemies. We have followed this mysterious trail – strewn with the bread crumbs of our Eucharist -- from the broad path the world takes. We have felt a growing confidence in God’s serene presence and less at home in this world’s culture of power, violence and death.

As we hear Jesus pray we realize as never before that we cannot turn back. We belong to Jesus; he has received us as a precious gift from his Father.

I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world.

They belonged to you, and you gave them to me,

and they have kept your word.

Now they know that everything you gave me is from you,

because the words you gave to me I have given to them,

and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you,

and they have believed that you sent me.

I pray for them.

We don't know where this Eucharistic path leads. We only know that Jesus has taken each of us by the hand like a big brother in the deep woods. He is walking with us, confident and joyous, into the mystery.