In today’s Gospel, a passage known as the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus in John 17, Jesus talks about the work the Father gave him to do. We might ask, “Exactly what is his work?” And many Christians probably would answer, “Dying on the Cross for the salvation of humanity.” But as we unpack this reading, it becomes apparent that Jesus had something more in mind. Jesus certainly wants to save the human family, but he seems to see the need to focus on the Twelve Apostles. The work the Father gave him was to form those twelve men to be his disciples so that they would take the Gospel to the ends of the earth and make his message endure through the ages.

This challenges us to consider on a deeper level: What is our work? If we use Jesus as our example, the answer has to be that God wants us to take the same kind of ownership for the people in our lives as Jesus did in his. He wants us to invest our lives in relationships in order to become a vessel of God’s love and grace for the world. Today’s Gospel carries a powerful lesson for us: like Jesus, our real work, the work the Father has given us, is rooted in relationship and discipleship.

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First Reading
~Acts 1:12–14~

After reading various passages from Acts that indicated the mission and growth of the infant Church after the Resurrection, we return now in our Lectionary LEADER TIPS: • We've provided reflectionsfor each reading on the following pages. Read these in advance; they'll give you additional insights for understanding and discussion. • Depending on when your group meets and how much time you have, you may want to read through each reading from the Prayer Journal together before beginning lectio divina. readings to the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles. We do this because this section of Acts exactly matches our place in the liturgical year. Having celebrated the Ascension of the Lord, we now await the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Church is again reminding us that what we read in Scripture, we live in the Sacraments.

We don’t simply imitate what we read or dramatize it in some way in the Sacraments; we actually receive sacramentally what the disciples received. To receive the Holy Spirit we need to prepare by retiring with Mary, the faithful women, and the Apostles to an upper room of prayer to invite a fresh anointing from the Spirit. The world won’t recognize the Spirit because it doesn’t receive the Son with obedient love. That’s why we attend this Sunday Eucharist: to receive the Son so that we might recognize the Spirit at Pentecost.

This passage describes what the saints have consistently referred to as the height of Christian discipleship. St. Peter’s phrasing is very close to the Beatitude: “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven” (Matthew 5:11-12). The common teaching is that this isn’t only the last Beatitude, but the greatest. The reasoning goes that if we suffer for Christ, we’re most conformed to him in his total gift of himself to the Father for our salvation. By that same reasoning, martyrdom is the highest calling; all vocations, whether lay, religious, or Holy Orders, participate in some measure in the character of the martyr’s self-offering to Christ.

Every philosophy and religion has wrestled with human suffering, either to accept or reject it, but none considers it blessed. In this, Christianity is utterly unique. Because God has united himself to us in our suffering by suffering in the Person of Jesus, he has made suffering a blessing. Only this can transform suffering from a curse to a source of union with God.

The Catechism says explicitly that John 17 (the High Priestly Prayer) “embraces the whole economy of creation and salvation” (2746) and then goes on to list some of these themes in 2748: “God and the world; the Word and the flesh; eternal life and time; the love that hands itself over and the sin that betrays it; the disciples present and those who will believe in him by their word; humiliation and glory.”

There’s clear division in Jesus’s prayer. The first part is the “prayer of glory” in verses 1 through 5. This section testifies most strongly to the origins of salvation history in the Godhead and in Eden. Jesus confesses that he is one in glory with the Father. Jesus speaks of the “work” he has completed, suggesting the re-creation (our salvation), which he performs to parallel the work of creation that he shared with the Father at the beginning of time. Another theme is expressed in the verb “to know.” This is a clear reference to that deep, marital, covenantal form of knowing. In the second section of this passage, verses 6 through 11, Jesus has revealed that “Yahweh saves,” which is the import of his name in Hebrew. It is precisely as God that Jesus saves us, which is revealed in his very name.
 

MEDITATION:

RESOLUTION:

This week, whenever you are tempted by fear, discouragement, or doubt, remember that Jesus is praying for you before the Father. Allow that thought to drive out any negative feelings or emotions.