Today’s Gospel reading is a beautiful excerpt of what is sometimes referred to as Jesus’ priestly prayer in John’s Gospel. This is Jesus’ prayer for his disciples at the Last Supper – his prayer for them to this father immediately before his arrest.
The entirety of Jesus’ prayer in Chapter 17 of John’s Gospel is worth praying with over and over because Jesus’ prayer is not only about the disciples with whom he shared his last meal, but with each of us. In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus asks for each of us:
Holy Father, keep them in your name
that you have given me,
so that they may be one just as we are one…I speak this in the world
so that they may share my joy completely.
I gave them your word, and the world hated them,
because they do not belong to the world
any more than I belong to the world.
I do not ask that you take them out of the world
but that you keep them from the Evil One.
They do not belong to the world
any more than I belong to the world.
Consecrate them in the truth.
Your word is truth.
As you sent me into the world,
so I sent them into the world.
And I consecrate myself for them,
so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”
Listen to Jesus pray these words to his father, knowing that it is your name he prays when he speaks of his disciples.
What difference does it make to you to know that this is Jesus prayer to his father about you?
Creo en Dios! 