Jesus offered two prayers on your behalf

Seventh Sunday in Easter

Acts 1:15-26; 1Jn 4:11-16; Jn 17:11-19

When I was ordained a priest three years ago, one of the things that I had to get used to was people telling me, “Father, please pray for me! You are a priest and God will surely hear your prayers!” I used to reply assuring them that they would definitely be in my prayers especially during mass and during the divine office. However I always used to wonder why they always wanted to add that last part, “You are a priest and God will surely hear your prayers.” Doesn’t God listen to everyone’s prayers whether you are ordained or not? If anything, I used to feel a much greater responsibility to pray for those in need.

"Priestly" Prayer

Today’s Gospel reading can help us understand a bit more what these people meant when they used to tell me, “Father, please pray for me! You are a priest and God will hear your prayers!” The reason is that the text that we have read today is known as the “Priestly” prayer of Jesus. What more powerful way of offering prayers to God the Father if not through his Son Jesus Christ? This prayer then must really be an important one!

Just to put you a bit into the context, we are here in the very dramatic scene at the Last Supper. Jesus has just washed the feet of his disciples, Judas has just left in the middle of the night and Jesus shares with them his most intimate thoughts just a few hours before he dies on the cross. This is the climax of that long monologue that goes on for three long chapters.

Here takes on the role of the High Priest who sacrifices the Lamb, but at the same time he also takes the role of the Sacrificial Lamb. In fact, the prayer starts with the words, “Father, the hour has come.” And we know that Jesus always referred to his dying on the cross “as the hour.”

What, then is so important in this prayer for it to be offered by Jesus himself?

Prayer for unity

First, he asks that we may “be one” just as Jesus and his Father are one. It is therefore first and foremost, a prayer of unity. He prays for a unity in a divided community – Judas has just left them, in a community where in just a few hours’ time, they all were going to disperse out of fear. Jesus’s prayer for unity continues to resound today in our own human community which seems to be characterised more by divisions our of fear of each other. Jesus prays for unity of his community, the Church which is divided conflicts and misunderstandings.

But Jesus’s prayer would have no effect unless we are willing to overcome these differences and of building bridges between us, of encountering the other. This week, Pope Francis visited two communities in Italy: Nomadelfia and Loppiano.

At a certain point during one of his speeches Pope Francis said that a priest from one of these communities wanted to test him. This priest told him, “What is the opposite of ‘me’?” Pope Francis said that he replied, “You!” But then the priest told him “You fell into my trap! ‘Me’ and ‘you’ are signs of individualism! The opposite of that is ‘the spirituality of us’.”

Jesus also asks his Father to protect us, who are in the world; not that we flee the world, but that we remain in it while being protected from the evil one.

Prayer to be Christians "in tension"

“The Christian is a man or woman in tension.” In other words, we will always feel this attraction to worldly things but as Christians we are called not simply to renounce them but to deal with them in such a way that we bring the presence of God here on earth. St Ignatius of Loyola would say, “Finding God in all things.”

This means that as Christians we have the duty of inhabiting all spheres of life: political and economic, as well as scientific and the world of entertainment as well. However we have to make sure that we leave an imprint as Christians through the values that we try and live.

Jesus has offered his prayer to the Father on our behalf: that we may be one just as he and the Father are one and that we may be in the world but not of the world. It is now up to us to make sure that his prayer is effective and realised in the here and now.