Over the past few weeks we have been hearing Jesus’ farewell discourse – what I refer to as Jesus’ love letter to us – just prior to his passion.
In the Gospel of today’s Mass (John 17), we have the conclusion of this discourse, as Jesus prays to the Father for himself, for the disciples who would establish his Church, and for all of us who would come after to continue Jesus’ mission and the work of those first disciples.
The overriding theme of Jesus’ prayer is that of unity. Jesus prays that all of us might achieve a unity with God and each other similar to the unity between Jesus and His Father – “that they may be one as we are one” (John 17:11).
The unity between Jesus and his Father centers on a relationship of mutual love and glorification. It is a unity most especially characterized by a life lived in intimate communion – a shared life so profound and mysterious that it is beyond human understanding.
And this unity is what Jesus is praying for. This unity is what Jesus desires for us. This unity is what Jesus invites us into.
So if we are to accept this invitation we must consider two things – our relationship with God and our relationship with each other. And of course it is Jesus who shows us the way for both.
For our relationship with God, we follow Jesus’ example as the devoted Son who constantly communicated with His Father in prayer, who humbly acknowledged his utter dependence on His Father, and who always looked to do His Father’s will in utmost obedience and out of great love. We see that it is these characteristics of Christ – prayerfulness, humility, gratitude, obedience, and love – that we must “put on” in order to achieve unity with God.
In our relationship with each other we again look to Jesus. We observe the example that Jesus sets before us and the life that Jesus lived as He walked among us – a life characterized by love and mercy, kindness and compassion, outreach and healing, tolerance and forgiveness. And we see that it is by “putting on” these characteristics that allows us to achieve unity with each other. We realize that we are called to love, to be kind and compassionate, to be tolerant and forgiving, to show mercy. We realize that we are called to be generous, to share ourselves with those who need a shoulder to lean on, to make ourselves available to those who need their voice to be heard, to lend a smile or an encouraging thought or a helping hand to those who need to be uplifted. As we lovingly and generously share our lives with others, we together achieve the unity that Jesus prays for.
So we ask God to increase in us those attributes that allow us to achieve greater unity with Him. We ask God to help us to be a prayerful, humble, obedient, and grateful people who realize that every good thing in our life is a gift from God – a people who realize that we are nothing without God, but everything with God.
We also ask God to increase in us those things that unite us to each other – open-mindedness, tolerance, patience, compassion, forgiveness, selflessness, love. At the same time, we ask God to help us fight off those all-to-human tendencies that divide us – fear, insecurity, prejudice, selfishness, and ego.
God calls His people – all of us – to be united to Him and to each other. Jesus prays for this, and He also shows us the way. So we go forward, with profound gratitude for such a loving and personal God who desires to be united with us and constantly draws us towards Him so that by His grace we might be united with each other. We go forward united as one people of God, as a sign of God’s love, reflecting that love onto each other and our world.