Bishop Barron's Gospel Reflection May 13, 2018

Your daily Gospel reflection...

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Seventh Sunday of Easter

John 17:11B-19

Friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus prays: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one.” The Church is one because its founder is one. Jesus compels a choice precisely because he claims to speak and act in the very person of God. Jesus simply cannot be one teacher among many, and therefore those who walk in his way must be exclusively with him. Moreover, the God whom Jesus incarnates is one. The Israelite conception of God is fiercely monotheistic and hence it excludes any diversity or syncretism at the level of basic belief: “The Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” Joseph Ratzinger commented that the opening line of the Nicene Creed, Credo in unum Deum (I believe in one God), is a subversive statement because it automatically rules out any rival claimant to ultimate concern. To say that one accepts only the God of Israel and Jesus Christ is to say that one rejects as ultimate any human being, any culture, any political party, any artistic form, or any set of ideas. A Christian is someone who, at the most fundamental level of his or her being, is centered on the one God of Jesus Christ.  Gospel Jn 17:11b-19 Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one. When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep 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, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”