Message of Abbot Paul - Sunday - 12th May 2024

​Today’s Gospel reading is taken from Chapter 17 of John, (Jn 17: 11-19), and is part of the concluding words of Jesus spoken at the Last Supper, part of what is known as his High Priestly Prayer. Jesus raises his eyes to heaven and prays to his heavenly father for his disciples, that they remain faithful and united to each other and to the Father in and through Jesus.

“Holy Father,

keep those you have given me true to your name,

so that they may be one like us.

While I was with them,

I kept those you had given me true to your name.

I have watched over them

and not one is lost

except the one who chose to be lost,

and this was to fulfil the scriptures.”

Jesus sees his disciples as a gift given him by his heavenly Father. He has kept them true to his name and prays that they will remain ever thus, that they might be united to one another as Jesus is to the Father. This is a prayer for unity as well for fidelity.

 

​Jesus, however, is now leaving his disciples to return to the Father from whence he came. He has taught his disciples, that his joy might be in them.

“But now I am coming to you

and while still in the world I say these things

to share my joy with them to the full.”

Jesus longs for the joy of the Spirit to fill the hearts of his disciples and transform their lives, even in suffering and persecution. He knows that if the world (those who reject God and his Anointed One) has hated him, whom the Father has sent into the world that the world might be saved, then it will also hate his disciples.

“I passed your word on to them,

and the world hated them,

because they belong to the world

no more than I belong to the world.

I am not asking you to remove them from the world,

but to protect them from the evil one.

They do not belong to the world

any more than I belong to the world.”

Jesus prays that they be protected from all that is evil, beginning with the very source and spirit of evil. For this he asks the Father to consecrate them in the truth of his word. “Consecrate them in the truth;

your word is truth.

As you sent me into the world,

I have sent them into the world,

and for their sake I consecrate myself

so that they too may be consecrated in truth.”

Jesus consecrates himself that they might be consecrated in him, for he is the Way, the Truth and the Life. They will be strengthened and sanctified by the power and purity of his word, the word of truth.

 

​Lord, we pray today that we, like the first disciples and apostles, might be consecrated in the truth by Jesus, our Lord and Saviour. We pray earnestly for the gift of the Holy Spirit, that our lives might be transformed in such a way that we become icons of the Risen Christ wherever we may be. Amen.