Unbounded love; that is the emotion that oozes out of today’s gospel reading.
We have Jesus praying with his apostles as he prepares for his Ascension. Gone is the urgency to impart knowledge to them – they now understand; gone is the frustration of their failure to fathom the depths of the God-made-man before them – they know he is God; gone is the threat from the Jews whilst preaching – they are in Galilee and what could they do to the one who has risen from the dead?
Jesus has prepared the way for his apostles. They are as ready as they will ever be to go out and make disciples of all people, to baptise in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and to receive that same Spirit at Pentecost.
It is mission accomplished and those wavering apostles have come to fulfilment. They are the ones who be the bedrock for the Church, the ones that we remember still.
And Jesus loves them. They have been through a lot together and have come through and achieved all that was necessary to allow Jesus to live, die and rise again to defeat death and the ravages of sin. It is journey end and at a time of momentous reflection Jesus can pour out his love upon the apostles.
It’s no different with us; Jesus loves us in the same way. We can imagine as we come to journey’s end having an encounter with Jesus who wishes to impart all of his joy upon us. It is a great mystery of God that he should consider us worthy of that, and let us be humble enough to appreciate that we are not worthy of such love.
Let us be filled with the love of Christ that we might, having been true to the Father’s name, share in the Father’s heavenly home that Jesus is about to ascend to.
Gospel John 17:11-19 ©
Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said:
‘Holy Father,
keep those you have given me true to your name,
so that they may be one like us.
While I was with them,
I kept those you had given me true to your name.
I have watched over them
and not one is lost
except the one who chose to be lost,
and this was to fulfil the scriptures.
But now I am coming to you
and while still in the world I say these things
to share my joy with them to the full.
I passed your word on to them,
and the world hated them,
because they belong to the world
no more than I belong to the world.
I am not asking you to remove them from the world,
but to protect them from the evil one.
They do not belong to the world
any more than I belong to the world.
Consecrate them in the truth;
your word is truth.
As you sent me into the world,
I have sent them into the world,
and for their sake I consecrate myself
so that they too may be consecrated in truth.’