What will happen to me there I do not know, except that in one city after another the Holy Spirit has been warning me that imprisonment and hardships await me. Yet I consider life of no importance to me, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to bear witness to the Gospel of God's grace. "But now I know that none of you to whom I preached the kingdom during my travels will ever see my face again. And so I solemnly declare to you this day that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you, for I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God".
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. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.”
Today, the Gospel of Saint John—which we have been reading for days—begins by speaking to us of the “hour”: “Father, the hour has come” (Jn 17:1). The culminating moment, the glorification of all things, the ultimate gift of Christ who gives himself for all… “The hour” is still a reality hidden from mankind; it will be revealed as the plot of Jesus' life opens the perspective of the cross to us.
Has the hour come? The hour for what? For the hour has come for mankind to know the name of God, that is, his action, his way of addressing humanity, his way of speaking to us in the Son, in Christ whom the Father loves.
The men and women of today, knowing God through Jesus (“the words you gave to me I have given to them”: Jn 17:8), become witnesses of life, of the divine life that unfolds within us through the sacrament of baptism. In Him we live, move, and have our being; In Him we find words that nourish and make us grow; in Him we discover what God wants from us: fullness, human fulfillment, an existence that does not live by personal vainglory but by an existential attitude that rests on God himself and his glory. As Saint Irenaeus reminds us, “The glory of God is man fully alive.” Let us praise God and His glory so that the human person may reach his fullness!
We are marked by the Gospel of Jesus Christ; we work for the glory of God, a task that translates into greater service to the lives of men and women today. This means working for true human communication, true human happiness, fostering joy in the sad, showing compassion for the weak... In short: open to Life (with a capital L).
Through the Spirit, God works within every human being and dwells in the depths of each person, constantly encouraging everyone to live by the values of the Gospel. The Good News is an expression of the liberating happiness He wants to give us.
Thoughts on Today's Gospel
“We are all, therefore, one in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; one, I mean, both in identity of mental condition, and also in conformity to the life of righteousness, and in the fellowship of the holy Body of Christ, and in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” (Saint Cyril of Alexandria)
“Knowing Jesus means knowing the Father; and knowing the Father means entering into real communion with the very Origin of Life, Light and Love” (Benedict XVI)
“Vigilance is ‘custody of the heart,’ and Jesus prayed for us to the Father: ‘Keep them in your name’ (Jn 17:11). The Holy Spirit constantly seeks to awaken us to keep watch. Finally, this petition takes on all its dramatic meaning in relation to the last temptation of our earthly battle; it asks for final perseverance. ‘Lo, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is he who is awake’ (Rev 16:15)” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nº 2849)