Tuesday in the Seventh Week of Easter, May 18, 2021

John 17:1-11a

Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all people, so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him. Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ. I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.  I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.”

“Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”  The Gospel readings for Mass continue to be taken from the Lord’s sermon at the Last Supper in St. John’s Gospel.  “That they should know you, the only true God.”  The Lord Jesus does not say, “that they should know about you”, but “they should know you”.  Eternal life, then, is knowing God.  This brings to mind 1 John 3, 2: “We know that when he shall appear we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is.”  Intimacy with the Lord results in our becoming “like to him”.  The Lord Jesus desires his followers to know his Father in prayer, to really know him.  Deep in prayer and in meditation upon the mysteries of our salvation, we may draw very near to God and know him in a way far greater than if we could see him with our eyes.  To know him — to see him — is eternal life because it is to look upon infinite love.  This we shall do perfectly in heaven if we are pure of heart, for only the pure of heart shall see God (cf. Matthew 5, 8).

“Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.”  This is one of the most moving and majestic sentences ever uttered.  We ought to gaze in wonder at it and think about the glory that the Son had with the Father from all eternity, “before the world began”.

“Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.”  We see here what we must do to “know” God: we must accept the words the Son gives to us — agreeing to obey them because they come from the Father through the Son.  We must “truly understand” that the Son comes from the Father — that he became incarnate and lived among us.  And we must believe that the Father sent the Son — that the Son, knowing the Father’s will, freely came down from heaven to us in order to atone for our sins and to open the gates of heaven for us.

“I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me.”  That is, those who belong to the world reject the graces which the Lord offers them.  We think of Annas and Caiphas, the high priests who looked into the eyes of Jesus Christ and heard him acknowledge his divinity — proven time and again by his miracles — and rejected him anyway.  Their pride and their ambition was their god.  We think of Judas and the thirty pieces of silver that were his gods.  Also, of Pontius Pilate, who looked at the Truth with his own eyes and asked, “What is truth?”  But he was not looking for an answer, only speaking in despair.  He crucified an innocent man rather than uphold justice.  His god was himself.

“I have been glorified in them.”  God glorifies his Son in those who belong to his Son and have zeal for the Gospel.  This is the glory for which the Son prays, and his prayer is all for our benefit.  He offers is the chance to glorify him, the infinite God, with all the angels and saints in heaven.