Saturday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 15, 2021

John 16:23b-28

Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.  I have told you this in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures but I will tell you clearly about the Father. On that day you will ask in my name, and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have come to believe that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”

“Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.”  The Lord Jesus invites and even urges his Apostles — and us — to ask for what we need, in his name.  This is the reason the Church concludes her public prayers with, “Through Christ our Lord.”  This phrase is an abbreviation of “We ask this through Christ our Lord.”  The most formal prayers include this phrase within an invocation of the Holy Trinity.  We ask all things through Christ our Lord because even now: “He is . . . always living to make intercession for us” (Hebrews 7, 25).   The Son of God who became incarnate in order to intercede for us, has passed from death to life and thence “into Heaven itself, that he may appear now in the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9, 24).  Standing in the presence of the Father, showing himself as the one obedient even unto death for us, he is the perfect Mediator, so that we may have absolute confidence in him and in asking for what we need through his name.  His name is most powerful in heaven and earth: “In the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth” (Philippians 2, 10).

“Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.”  The Lord teaches us here that our joy will not so much be complete in the thing we receive, but in the fact that we receive it through him: that is, as a sign of his love for us.  We will see in the answers we receive to our prayers the personal love of the Lord for each of us.  This, ultimately, is why he tells us to ask in his name, so that we may have the greater joy of knowing the intensity of his love for us, and his eagerness both to help us and to give us joy.  

Twenty-two years ago today, on a Saturday, I was ordained to the Holy Priesthood, and the next day I heard a confession for the first time and offered my first Mass.  Every Mass I have offered since, even when I struggle especially much with the tumor, has been just as wonderful, just as exciting.  I always remember as I prepare for Mass the answer my mother gave me when I was four, and asked her what was the priest doing at Mass.  We were getting in my father’s car to drive to the church where he played the organ.  She told me, “When the priest is on the altar, he is very close to Jesus.”  I remember thinking at the time, “That’s what I want.  That’s what I want for me.”  And I have never stopped wanting it.  Please pray for me that I may always do God’s will without counting the cost.