READING: JOHN 17
In this chapter, we are privileged to enter the most holy place of loving communion between the Father and the Son. In this high priestly prayer, offered just prior to the anguish of the garden, the betrayal and arrest, the trials, insults, beatings, and crucifixion, Jesus interceded on behalf of His disciples as well as those who believe in Him through their word. Now that He is about to leave the world, Jesus lifts up those who have been given to Him and asks His Father to “keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.” Just as He is in the Father and the Father is in Him, so the Lord prays that those who have believed in Him would be perfected in unity and experience the mystery of “I in them, and You in Me.”
Prayer: Lord, it is impossible for me to grasp the full implications of this holy prayer, since it expresses Your Son’s desire that all who know Him will enter into the fullness of communion with the divine Trinity, the all in all.
Meditation passage: verses 3–4, 11, 16–18, 21–26