Thursday in the Seventh Week of Easter, May 25, 2020

John 17:20-26

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying: “I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me. Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me. I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”

The unity for which the Lord prayed on this occasion and for which he continues to pray even now before his Father in heaven, is not a physical one but one of grace.  As St. Paul famously explains, speaking of the human body, “And if one member suffer any thing, all the members suffer with it: or if one member glory, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ and members of it” (1 Corinthians 12, 27).  The human body itself is a figure for the reality of the Body of Christ.  

Another sign of this unity is Christian marriage, at the beginning of which the man and woman make vows to each other before God, and together to God, for their union to be exclusive, to be lifelong, and to be open to children.  In consequence of these vows, God joins the man and the woman together so that they cannot be separated.  As the Lord Jesus says, “They are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19, 6).  This unity lasts them the rest of their lives on earth.  No amount of secular intervention can alter this reality.  It is a gift from God, who does not take back his gifts.  

When God bestows unity upon us, we belong to him, as in baptism, or to another, as in marriage, without condition.  Because of this, the unity exists despite physical separation, sickness, old age, injury, confusion, or any other affliction to which we mortal humans are prone.  No matter what happens to us, God preserves the unity for us, for our good.  This allows us to live free from the fear of being rejected by the other.  It underlies the words of Jesus to the women at his Resurrection (Matthew 28, 10), and of the Angel to Mary at the Annunciation (Luke 1, 30): “Do not be afraid.”  

We pray with our Lord to the Father for this gift of unity, and for joy and harmony in it.