Reading
John 17:20-26
24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
Comment
Jesus not only prays for the twelve, or for the seventy-two disciples, for the men and women who followed him during his earthly life, but his intercession embraces believers of all times (v. 20), all who will believe for the word passed on by his disciples. The New Testament Scriptures and the ministry of preaching were established in the Church to beget men to faith.
The unity for which Jesus prays is the communion of saints, of those who are sanctified by the Spirit, in heaven, and on earth, in every time and in every latitude.
The fullness of the unity Jesus requested of the Father for his Church is a visible sign of the truth of the witness: "so that the world may believe" (v. 21). If believers are divided, their testimony is not credible.
The witness given to the world is also founded on the privilege of believers to be loved by the Father as he loved Jesus ("Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me"; v. 23). It will appear to the world that God has loved us if we love one another because when God's love is poured into hearts he transforms them into his own image. Our ability to love is proportional to the awareness of God's love for us.
The "priestly prayer" of Jesus insists on the union of the Father and the Son as a model for the union between the disciples ("that they may be one as we are one"; v. 22). Divisions among Christians shatter the reflection of God's image in the world. God is communion and communion between believers is the way that leads to him.
If initially, Jesus prays (erotao) for the disciples and for those who believe in him (v. 20), then he uses the verb "I want" (thelo), sovereignly expressing his will, which is also that of the Father: "I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory"(v. 24).
The prayer that Jesus raises for every believer is our strength in the fulfillment of the apostolic mandate, a source of firmness and courage in the midst of the difficulties and dangers that the world places before the witnesses of the gospel.
Prayer
That your Spirit, o Lord, instills in us the desire for fraternal communion and the courage to bear witness to you, so that the world may know your name. Amen.
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
