Preferring Nothing to Christ

John 17:20-26

Father, I want those you have given me
to be with me where I am,
so that they may always see the glory you have given me
because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

Often in liturgy we find ourselves holding several time frames at once. We have celebrated the Ascension and now we wait for the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. But our Gospel text has us back around the table with the disciples at the Last Supper and Jesus is looking to the future. The whole text is about intimacy and connection. The disciples have experienced a close connection to Jesus while he was on earth and Jesus wants this same connection to be theirs when they are united in heaven.

It can happen in the spiritual life that all of a sudden you feel as if your connection with Jesus has gone. Suddenly what once felt secure and life-giving just evaporates. When you are in the midst of this type of experience you have difficulty imagining that things could ever go back to normal. Today’s Gospel gives us hope. It is into our darkness and confusion that Jesus speaks these words:

I have given them the glory you gave to me,
that they may be one as we are one.

Jesus’ relationship with his Father is the guarantee that out of darkness light will come.

How do you hear Jesus’ words?

John 17:11-19

‘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.’

In recent weeks as the various scandals have unfolded in our country I have thought a good deal about truth and what it might mean to speak the truth. Time after time we have listened to terms being defined and redefined. Getting some someone to admit that they broke a rule can take months.

The truth that Jesus speaks of has resonances for me of uprightness, faithfulness and integrity. It’s not a question of actions and attitudes that will keep you on the right side of the law, but rather it is a question of relationship. Jesus’ desire for us to be consecrated in the truth sets us apart and marks us as chosen to be in relationship with him. This relationship moulds and shapes us to become Christ-like.

There’s a line in the old translation of Lent Preface 1 that comes to mind:

As we recall the great events
that gave us new life in Christ,
you bring the image of your Son to perfection within us.

This is God’s work if we will allow it.

How is Christ calling you to deepen your relationship with him?

Luke 1:39-56

‘Mary set out and went as quickly as she could to a town in the hill country’.

When Mary sets out to visit Elizabeth there’s a sense of urgency and excitement. By all accounts Mary’s journey to Elizabeth won’t have been easy. Whatever we imagine the terrain to be like, the journey was long and not without danger for someone Mary’s age. Luke gives us none of these details. His focus in on the joy of two women meeting. Mary and Elizabeth have lived lives of faithfulness to God’s Word. Their faithfulness has made them so open and ready to receive: God can easily find a home in them. On this Feast we sing a hymn written by one of our Sisters. This verse always strikes me:

Virgin mother, childless wife,
Vessels of his will;
In their flesh his kingdom grows,
Secret, holy, still.

Some similar themes are at work in a sonnet for the Visitation by Malcolm Guite:

Two women on the very edge of things
Unnoticed and unknown to men of power
But in their flesh the hidden Spirit sings
And in their lives the buds of blessing flower.

This place for the kingdom to grow ‘secret, holy, still’ is within each one of us.
Each one of us has the capacity for these ‘buds of blessing’.

How can you nurture this kingdom life within you?

John 16:29-33

I am not alone,
because the Father is with me.
I have told you all this
so that you may find peace in me.

How often have you prayed for someone that they may find peace? Perhaps someone might have to make a difficult decision or comes to terms with a difficult some difficult circumstances: we wish them peace. It’s possible to wish for others what we cannot find ourselves.

When Jesus is getting ready to leave his disciples his wish is that they may find peace. This won’t mean that they will avoid conflict or challenge. Instead they will find an inner strength in knowing that Jesus and the Father are one. Hidden in the tidy prose of John’s Gospel is the stark fact the disciples don’t know how things will turn out for them. They have been schooled in love by Jesus and promised the Spirit. Now it’s up to them to let the promises unfold.

What sense do you have of the peace that Jesus promises?

John 17: 20-26

May they all be one.
Father, may they be one in us,
as you are in me and I am in you,
so that the world may believe
that it was you who sent me.

Jesus sets before his disciples a vision of their own unity with each other, in and through the Father. This unity is to be a sign for the world. It’s a grand vision. As they set out on their mission they will need the strength which comes from this vision.

In the Acts of the Apostles Luke gives us a sense of what this unity might mean in practice:

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.

This of course is very much an ideal. Despite the desire to be one in heart and mind, as the Church grew, there were rifts and divisions. Through the centuries the Christian landscape has become vast and varied. What then of Christ’s prayer that we may all be one? Giles Fraser commented in an online article that ‘ecumenism seems to work better in practice than in theory.’ There’s a good deal of truth in this. For me, friendship plays a significant part in our path to unity. In friendship there’s a desire to ‘share what I love’ in the hope that you might love it too. In friendship we start from what connects us rather than what divides.

As you hear the Gospel today, bring to mind your friendships with people from other traditions. Thank God for those friendships.

Image: Chang Duong, Unsplash

‘Ask and you will receive’

The old Catechism definition

Luke 10:1-9

‘Carry no purse, no haversack, no sandals. Salute no one on the road.’

These words always pull me up short. I rarely travel light as I like to be able to cover every eventuality when I am on a journey. We can quickly spiritualise this text and tell ourselves that Jesus wants us to leave behind our heavy emotional baggage and to set out on a journey where he is the guide. But when it comes down to it leaving behind emotional baggage is every bit as hard as leaving behind physical baggage. What is being asked of us it to rely completely on God.

When St Augustine lands on these shores in 597 he too is being asked to rely completely on God. After leaving his monastery in Rome, the prospect of his mission is challenging and he considers turning back. He wrote to Pope Gregory, hoping to be able to abandon his mission. St Bede records Pope Gregory’s reply:

Let not, therefore, the toil of the journey, nor the tongues of evil-speaking men, discourage you; but with all earnestness and zeal perform, by God’s guidance, that which you have set about; being assured, that great labour is followed by the greater glory of an eternal reward.

In Pope Gregory’s reply I hear resonances of the Rule of St Benedict. In his Prologue St Benedict sounds several clarion calls: Clothed then with faith and the performance of good works, let us set out on this way, with the Gospel for our guide, that we may deserve to meet him who has called us to his kingdom.

Few of us will be asked to lead a mission, but we can all answer the call to live with the Gospel as our guide. We can be Good News for others.

How is God calling you to be Good News for others?

Luke 24:46-53

‘And now I am sending down to you what the Father has promised. Stay in the city then, until you are clothed with the power from on high.’

I don’t think I ever really noticed this sentence from today’s Gospel. Usually by this stage in Eastertide the various Bible texts have washed over and over me like the waves on the seashore. Some words stay in my mind and others wash away. But today I am struck by the disciples being asked to stay in the city until they are clothed ‘with the power from on high’. Being clothed with something is a powerful image for me and speaks of strength and protection. Did they sit together in a room discussing what this might mean? Did they go about their ordinary tasks and hope they’d recognise this power when it came?

Then he took them out as far as the outskirts of Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. Now as he blessed them he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.

Jesus’ parting gift to his disciples is a blessing. Every twist and turn of their journey has led them to this moment. Though there is all the potential for sadness in this scene, the disciples are filled with joy. This joy overflows and they go back to the Temple in Jerusalem where they praise God. Luke tells us that they were ‘continually in the Temple praising God’. The disciples are now tasked with being Christ’s loving and redemptive presence in the world.

We too have been ‘clothed from on high’ and we too are commissioned to be Christ’s resurrected presence for the world. How we do this is down to each one of us.

How can you witness to the resurrection today?

John 16:12-15

When the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth…

When I was at Primary school I remember listening to the teacher as she sorted out a playground fight. Two 7 yr old boys were standing at the front of the class, eyes fixed on the the floor. ‘Now, who is going to be the first to tell me the complete truth?’ the teacher said. We knew what this meant. This was not to be the slightly ‘fuzzy’ truth quickly concocted to avoid punishment. What the teacher wanted was an account of events with no interpretations or excuses added. I remember a sense of relief when one boy was finally brave enough to answer.

Week after week our news is filled with situations that call for the ‘complete truth’. It’s becoming quite rare to find this. I think a part of me has even stopped expecting it. There are now elaborate rituals that must be gone through before the public can find out what really happened.

When Jesus tells us that the Spirit will lead us to the complete truth we know that this has a personal and communal dimension. Following Christ calls us to truth and integrity in all aspects of our lives. It can take courage to act from that place of inner truth. Sometimes others can model this for us and this gives us courage.

Who are the truth tellers in your life?

John 16:5-11

I must tell you the truth:
it is for your own good that I am going
because unless I go, the Advocate will not come to you.

It’s fairly easy to put ourselves in the position of the disciples: the prospect of Jesus going is sad and the promise of the Advocate coming is very much the unknown. Although the life and ministry of Jesus have prepared them for this moment, it would be quite natural for the disciples to want just a little more time with him.

Instead the promise of the Advocate now challenges the disciples to live from their shared conviction that Jesus is the Holy One of God. They’ll need each other if they are to be credible witnesses to the resurrection. It’s the Spirit who will be their guide and the power that binds them together.

We can sometimes be slow to recognise the workings of the Spirit in our own lives. It can often be easier to recognise the movement of the Spirit in others.

Where do you see the Spirit at work in those around you?