Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter

 

Lectionary: 298

"Father, the hour has come.
Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,
just as you gave him authority over all people,
so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him.
Now this is eternal life,
that they should know you, the only true God,
and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ."

Coming to John 17, we hear the "Priestly Prayer of Jesus." He has turned his soul's gaze away from his disciples and directly to His Father, even as Moses turned away from the Hebrew tribes in the desert to speak with God face to face. 

If we cannot see the face of God we can enjoy the singular privilege of overhearing in human language the Lord's side of their conversation. We can no more comprehend the intensity and depth of their relationship than a toddler can understand his parents' love and devotion to one another. Similarly, as we hear the prayer, we know we are enjoying a heavenly blessing reserved for saints and martyrs. 

What we hear may come as a surprise. Despite the coming of that long awaited hour, and That Day, foreseen by the prophets, in which he will suffer a most cruel and savage death, Jesus's first concern is the glory that he must receive from the Father. If that sounds selfish, further reflection reminds us of Saint Paul's ambition, that he must "glory in the Cross." What mankind sees as horror is Our Savior's glory; his death on the Cross is his victory over sin and death. 

Through the victory of the cross, He will be given, as he says, that

"authority over all people, so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him." 

Jesus understands that his life and death, and the authority he is given, are for us, and not for himself. And that is how we who aspire to the Imitation of Christ, must live our lives. That is how we must pray for no one lives who does not die to hmself. 

Jesus reveals in this prayer his enormous sense of responsibility for those he has taken from their families, careers, and nationalities to be his people. We sense his burden as his prayer continues:

"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." 

They will also endure the same abandonment he has known as he seems to abandon his disciples: 

"And now I will no longer be in the world,

but they are in the world, while I am coming to you."

Our desolation will be, like the blessing of the cross, an enormous resource as his missionary people scatter from Jerusalem into the whole world. Their home will not be anywhere familiar; it will not be identified by points on a map, nor even by any language or dialect. Free of these constraints these emigres from Eden will share the Good News that we humans are like our ancestors in the Garden, beloved sinners who come home to penance. They will wear whatever people wear and eat whatever they eat; but their traditional food will be His Body and Blood; their traditional apparel will be the robe of innocence and the helmet of salvation. They will be set apart from others and recognized as belonging to God. 

As He prays to the Father for his disciples, Jesus surrenders his Church to the care of the Holy Spirit. If he worries he also trusts; if he knows our weakness he also knows the Holy Spirit will bring us through to the glorious side of Easter.