The Farewell Discourse: The Priestly Prayer of Jesus: Part 3 (17:20-26)
Posted on November 6th 2011 in St. John's Gospel
The final section of the Priestly Prayer of Jesus is a prayer that draws the disciples into the love that the Father and the Son share. The mention of Jesus’ love for the disciples reminds the reader of the opening sequence of the after supper narrative: ‘He always loved those who were His own in the world’ (13:1). This was the prelude to the great act of charity, the washing of the disciples’ feet. The apostles about to be sent out into the world will require the same bond that unites the Father and the Son. This love is both the essence and the person of the Holy Spirit, who will be the principle of unity that brings the apostles together, the spiritual heart of the Church.
The divinely constituted unity of the apostles, and of their successors, will be an authentic witness to the divine foundation of the Church. The historic divisions that exist between the Churches are a stain on the Church, and detract from the claim of its divine foundation. Jesus emphasises that it is their oneness that will reveal the true nature of God. The ecumenical movement between Churches discovers its divine mandate in this prayer of Jesus, and what seems natural from a human perspective is revealed as inimical to God.
Jesus now recognises His divine antecedence. The use of the imperfect tense, similar to the prologue, points to the timelessness of the Word that exists for all time. The risen Jesus, dwelling in the domain of God, will be ever present to His apostles and their successors throughout the ages. Earlier Jesus had spoken of the work of the Paraclete, the other Advocate, as bringing the apostles into the fullness of truth, which is equivalent to possessing eternal life itself. St John emphasises that the experience of eternal life will now become a reality after His death and Resurrection, made possible through the working of the Holy Spirit. The prayer concludes on a positive note. Despite the onset of the hour of darkness that will include the walk to Gethsemane and the arrest and trial, Jesus looks towards the future and the time when the reality of the love between the Father and the Son becomes a visible reality in the Church.
Praying for the dead has been the immemorial tradition of the Church
Posted on November 6th 2011 in Weekly messages
Solidarity and its polish original, Solidarność, become a byword for a coherent response to the violence and degradations of communism. The word finds a weak translation in the ‘Big Society’, but the original concept looked to a key Catholic idea about the nature of human society, that of the ‘common good’. There is something more to society than simply an amalgam of individual rights, concerns and duties. This natural order of solidarity finds its supernatural equivalent in the Church’s teaching on ‘the communion of saints’. In the years immediately after Pentecost, the Church was described in the New Testament as the ‘communion of saints’. The ever present threat of martyrdom made membership of the Church a real matter of life or death. Later, the term ‘communion of saints’ was restricted to those gathered round the risen Jesus and His Blessed Mother in the Kingdom of God. The saints are not gathered as a group of solitary Christians but are united in a living unity through the grace of the Holy Spirit. This spiritual vitality animates the whole Church, and connects the communion of saints with the Church on earth and the Church in purgatory.
The Catholic doctrine about death teaches that the soul is bound either to heaven or to hell at the point of death. If heavenward then that soul either ‘goes’ to heaven immediately to be united with his or her resurrected body at the end of time, or ‘goes’ to purgatory where it is prepared to see God face to face. Purgatory reveals one of the great paradoxes about death. While on earth most people would rightly shy away from saying they are ready to God face to face but, after death, their relatives show no such reserve. It therefore has become more difficult to speak about praying for the recently deceased. The contemporary desire to arrange eulogies after the final prayer, and the demands for secular music at cremations, often make the traditional understanding of praying for the dead even more difficult to explain.
The Church does reassure us that the souls in purgatory do benefit from the spiritual solidarity expressed both by the communion of saints, who intercede to God for the deceased, and the prayers of those who mourn and mark their passing. The solidarity expressed by those on earth may take a number of forms, of fasting, of charitable works, and, most importantly, the offering of Mass. The Eucharistic prayer includes a passage for all the faithful who have died, but the priest may also seek to ‘apply’ the infinite fruits of the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross to a particular person, a group of people, or the Parish, normally on a Sunday. This may take place throughout the year, but the Church becomes particularly sensitive to this during the month of November. The teaching on purgatory finds its Scriptural origin in the Second Book of Macabees (12:40-46). Judas Macabeus sends a donation to the Temple for the priests to offer sacrifice for those who had fallen in godliness in the battles against Gorgias, the pagan overlord of Israel. Their prayers were that these fallen heroes would not have their sins of idolatry held against them. The desire to offer sacrifice for fallen war heroes points towards this country’s Remembrance Sunday, one of the rare moments which brings together the natural order, the continuing well-being and safety of the nation, and the supernatural order, thoughts and prayers directed to those who died defending the country. For many who will participate in next Sunday’s Remembrance Services, the supernatural order may remain hazy, but the act of collective remembrance does not make much sense without some intimations of the immortality of the soul. The Catholic Church gives flesh to such thoughts and gives firm purpose in praying for those who have died, and whose souls are in purgatory.
The Farewell Discourse: The Priestly Prayer of Jesus: Part 2 (17:9-19)
Posted on October 23rd 2011 in St. John's Gospel
The second section of Jesus’ prayer to His Father, the so-called Priestly Prayer that occupies c17 of the Gospel, has the apostles as its main focus. The apostles occupy an ambiguous position, being simultaneously both in and out of the world. Jesus expresses a tender care for them as they will remain in the world after His return to the Father. They have relied on Him for everything: direction, learning and encouragement. Behind their own uncomprehending decision to follow Jesus lies a deeper force, that of the Father’s will, which gives strength to their human fallibility. Jesus asks the Father to become their Father as well, otherwise the apostles would not survive the opposition from the world.
Twice Jesus refers to the apostles as those ‘given me true to your name’. This truth reflects back on Jesus Himself, who is Son of the Father. The love between them is the Holy Spirit, so the ‘name’ to which the apostles are connected is the Trinity. Hence Mass begins, ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’. Liturgy like faith is conducted under the name of God, the Most Holy Trinity. The attentiveness that Jesus demonstrates to those given to Him by the Father does not deny the requirement for a free response on the part of the apostles. In the case of Judas this free response was not given and he was left to choose his own path, that of betrayal. The betrayal by Judas, though his own free act, is embraced into the plan of God. Jesus’ awareness of his imminent betrayal demonstrates that He is in charge of events, not those seeking to arrest and kill Him, a fact that will colour all the subsequent scenes of the Passion.
Jesus’ request to consecrate the apostles in the truth, and for them to be ‘made holy’ is to assist them to identify completely with the design of the Father, which had been the guiding principle of Jesus’ own life. The design of the Father is to make His name known, and with that the identity of the Son, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. The prayer looks forward to after Easter and Pentecost. The apostles are being prepared for the worldwide mission which keeps them in the world, but the mission’s success depends on them not being part of the world, but of being true to the design of God, revealed in the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
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