7th Sunday, May 13, 2018 Year B

May your relationship with Christ, through the Eucharistic celebration of this Sunday be strengthened  to enable you be a veritable witness to the Resurrection of Christ. Happy Sunday! + John I. Okoye

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Acts. 1,15-17. 20-26; 1 John. 4,11-16; John 17,11-19: 7th Sunday, May 13, 2018 Year B)

In  today's gospel reading, we are invited to listen to the Priestly Prayers of Jesus whose death is imminent, as he voiced his deepest hopes for his loved ones. His beloved ones are those people God the Father has given to him from the world and through whose word/preaching others will believe in him. They are those people whom Jesus will be sending into the world and for whom he will be consecrating or immolating himself. In this moving and emotion-charged prayer, Jesus resorts to the most endearing and trust-inspiring title of the Father: holy Father. God’s holiness is the quality of his absolute transcendence/separateness and, therefore, of his absolute otherness, sovereign dignity, authority and power; it connotes God’s divine quality. 
One of the important themes of this powerful prayer is Jesus plea for Unity: to be one as we (Father and Son) are one. He prays that the disciples may experience that unity he shared with his Father. Christ wants them to be one as they are one, because the oneness of Christ with the Father consists in his loving obedience and surrender to God’s plan of salvation in spite of the hardships that is involved; this oneness is grounded in Christ’s remaining in the Father’s love because of his compliance with his saving commandment (John 15:9f). This is how Christ wants the oneness of his disciples: it is not just a matter of coexistence, of keeping together without splitting. The Christian communion always includes a communion with the Father and the Son (1 John 1,3; John 17,20-23; 14,20), this is why in order for the disciples to be one, the Father has to keep them in his name, in himself. The persecution of the disciples in their ministry (John 17,15; 15,18ff.; 16,20ff.) constitutes a real threat to the disciples’ remaining in God’s name, in vital union with the Vine and the Vinedresser (John 15,Iff).

Jesus’ other plea in this Priestly Prayer is his asking his Father to consecrate them (literally make holy) in truth. Holiness in the Bible is not primarily a moral category but a way of speaking about living in the presence of God. It is more similar to a zone or marked-off area, than a personal disposition. Disciples are to operate in this zone imbued with the presence of God, which is also marked as in truth. The Greek term for truth, (aletheia), means unconcealment or revelation, removal of a veil, and in John it refers, principally, to the unveiling or revelation of God in the life and teaching of Jesus (John 1,14, 17; 14,6, I am the truth). Jesus prays that the disciples will live in a zone of God’s presence (holiness) as they faithfully witness to the truth or reality of God’s revelation of himself (his life in Christ). 

Another important theme in this prayer is the request for the protection of his disciples in a hostile world. Jesus’ own life is a paradigm for the lives of believers. He comes from above, from his presence with God, to an alien world that does not accept him, and then returns to the Father. The believer/disciple, in John, is born from above (John 1,12-13; 3,3), lives in a hostile and alien world (15,18-19; 16,33; 17,14,16, 18); and, as Jesus returns to the Father, the destiny of his followers is to be with him (John 12,26; 14,2-3, 13). The ambiguity (the quality of being open to more than one interpretation) of the world echoes throughout John’s Gospel. The world was made through him (the Word) but it did not recognise him (John 1,10-11). Jesus takes away the sins of the world, and God so loved the world that he gave his only Son; he is the living Bread that will be the life of the world (6:51). Yet, the world often symbolises the power of evil organised against Jesus and his followers (especially John 3,19; 15,18-19). In this perspective (a particular attitude towards or way of regarding something; a point of view), the world can be described as a mob of mankind mobilised in defiance of God’s love and power. It is in this sense that neither Christ nor his disciples are of the world. Yet, just as Christ worked in (among) and for this kind of world, so also he wants his disciples to be in (among) the world that is hostile to God and his interests: it is by being in the world that the disciples can render service to the world itself, Christ and God; after all, this is the world God loved so much and to which he gave his Son (John 3,16). The disciples must be, work and suffer, in the world. That is why Jesus offered this prayer before he leaves so that his disciples can learn what his wishes are: his prayer is restricted to a protection of God against the Evil one (see 1 John 5,18), according to the petition of the Our Father: deliver us from evil, or the Evil one.

A clear message from the gospel reading is that Jesus is sending his disciples on a mission just as he was sent: As you have Sent me I send them. John’s Gospel emphasises the fact that Jesus is sent by the Father. Jesus continues his mission by sending his disciples while he was about to finish his mission. The disciples who have learnt something from him are told to continue the mission. They were sent into the world Just as Jesus was sent into the world (John. 3,18). After his resurrection, Jesus will give his disciples a more specific mission (John. 20,21).

From the first reading we see how the nascent Church understood her mission of witnessing to the resurrection of Christ. The early Church chose Matthias to replace Judas, because he was a “witness to the resurrection” (Acts 1,21). But what makes you and me witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection? The resurrection of Jesus represents victory over death, not only for himself but also for us. Hence, we witness to his resurrection, if we are truly joyful people, secure in the hope that we too will rise with Jesus. The resurrection is God’s vindication of Jesus, the assurance that whatever Jesus preached and stood for was God’s will for the human race. Hence, we witness to his resurrection if we make Christ’s life and teachings our norm of behaviour. The resurrection is the confirmation of the value of human life, because in our resurrection, that which is human now will be glorified. Hence, we witness to his resurrection if we respect and honour other human beings, in fact all creation. The resurrection represents a new kind of existence, new life with God and spiritual dimension to our human life. Hence, we witness to his resurrection if we have a spiritual attitude to our life on earth, without succumbing to materialism.

Such a Christian witness is of paramount importance in our world today. Like the infant Church as portrayed in the first reading, the Church has always been in need of one more such witness. Christ’s prayer at the Last Supper was an earnest plea, made to his disciples, to bear witness to him. Father, consecrate them by means of truth. As you have sent me, so I have sent them into the world (Jn 17,17-18) was his prayer. Yes, we are consecrated, set apart, made to be within the sphere of God’s presence and commissioned at our baptism and confirmation to bear witness to him and his word. It is for this reason that we are instructed every Sunday by God and strengthened by the Eucharist. The world into which we are sent to bear witness may honestly, frighten us with all its problems. Poverty, oppression, injustice, violence, abortion and all sorts of social vices may abound. Yet we are not to run away but, confront these problems and eliminate them. Our task is to influence the world and renew it by means of good News. We are not believers in Christ’s resurrection just only for our own sanctification; but believers for the transformation of the world as well, because of the love we have for the world.
We love the world because God loves us. And how does God love us? Deus Caritas est (God is Love) and it is God’s nature to love and save. How often have we hurt him with our unfaithfulness and how far have we run away from his embrace! But still, he pursues us with his love. If God has loved us so, we must have the same love for one another (1 Jn 4:11). The world may turn a deaf ear to our Good News; it may resist our every attempt to transform it; it may even strike back at us like a scorpion or venomous snake though we try to redeem it. But these reasons should not make us give up on the world if we truly love the world as God has loved us.

However, we can become veritable and successful witnesses to the resurrection of Christ in the hostile world if we, with Jesus, raise our eyes to heaven and pray to the Holy Father, if we like the apostles allow God to indicate the way forward in our discernments and our choices, if we remain in the zone of God’s presence and get immersed in the truth and reality of his self revelation, if we therefore maintain our relationship with Christ as he nurtured his relationship/unity with the Father by keeping to his commandments and if we respond with singular mind and undivided heart to God who is love and who loves us because his nature is to love. May we therefore, truly, in today’s Eucharistic celebration plea for the above favours. Happy Sunday! +John I. Okoye

pictures  by charles