This passage from John’s Gospel is so powerful and leads my emotions in many directions. As I read it, the first thoughts that came into my mind were Love, Faith, and our call to Evangelize. In this reflection, I will try to show the impact of each one of those words.
Love
In this passage from John’s Gospel, Jesus is praying to His Father and says “Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am, they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” Jesus is telling us that we are a gift from God. When we give a gift to someone in our lives, we do it out of love. We go out of our way to get a gift for someone because we have a special relationship with the person to whom we are giving the gift. How powerful is it to know that we are a gift God gave to Jesus? God loves us so much that He wants an everlasting relationship with us and by giving us to Jesus as a gift, He ensures that we will know His love for us. God sent Jesus to us out of love and we know that Jesus loved us so much that He was willing to be crucified to give us the promise of eternal life. Jesus’s crucifixion is our promise of life with God forever. For those who are parents, think of the love you have for your children and how you would do anything for them. Use that as a small guide to know how much God loves each of us. Jesus also says in his prayer to God “that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.” How amazing is it to know that God loves us as much as he loved His Son? Let’s reflect on that for a second: Is there anything else that needs to be said to understand God’s love for us? When we are facing difficult times in life, we should always remember God’s love for us. Just knowing of His everlasting love for us can help us to deal with what life brings us. In addition, it is important to show that love back to God. We need to stand up for our beliefs, even when it is difficult. Because we live in a secular world today in which many do not believe in God, it is even more important to fight for our beliefs, even when our beliefs are mocked. We must stand up for life in the face of today’s acceptance of abortion. We must fight for the unborn. We must help those less fortunate than ourselves, especially the needy, by giving of our time and talents. Think about the Gift we receive every week when receive the Eucharist at Mass. We are being given Jesus Himself; He is always with us.
Faith
As I read this Gospel, I could not stop thinking of faith. Faith is a difficult concept because we believe in something that we can not necessarily prove. As Catholics, we believe that Jesus was born, died and was resurrected. In Jesus’s prayer to God, He is praying not only for the apostles, but praying for all of us, that we may know that God has sent Jesus to us and that we may know of His love. Jesus says “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.” This is where I believe faith comes in: we may not have witnessed the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus, but we all believe. This is our faith and we believe; Jesus is praying that we will do just this. When I think of faith, I always think of Mary, whose faith was so strong when God asked her to carry and give birth to Jesus. She was scared, but she said yes to God. We must learn to say yes to God, even when we don’t understand. We know how much God loves us and that He will always be there to guide us.
Evangelization
My final thought on this Gospel is that Jesus is compelling us to go out and spread the Good News. Jesus is praying for the apostles and instructing them to go out and tell people of the story of salvation. Each of the apostles went to different parts of the world to spread the Gospel. They did this with joy, even though they knew the risks of what might happen. Each of the apostles except John was martyred. We are all called to spread the word. While our lives may not be at risk and it can be difficult to discuss our faith in these secular times, we must. We should not be rude or condescending to people, but we should not be afraid to talk about our beliefs. We know the saying, “Don’t talk about religion or politics,” but God is asking us to spread the Good News, just like the apostles. As Catholics, we want people to know of God’s love.
May God bless you on your faith journey and let us pray for each other that we have the courage to share God’s love.
~Dan Pirrello