Daily Reflection – 6/4/19
Sacred Scripture
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 he 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.” (John 17:1-11)
Reflection
In his Last Supper discourse, Jesus speaks of his glory and the glory of his Father. What is this glory? It is the cross which Jesus speaks of here.
How does the cross reveal his glory? In the cross God reveals the breadth of his great love for sinners and the power of redemption which cancels the debt of sin and reverses the curse of our condemnation. Jesus gave his Father the supreme honor and glory through his obedience and willingness to go to the cross. The greatest honor, trust, and love any person can give one’s leader is through his obedience even to the point of sacrificing his own life. In warfare the greatest honor belongs not to those who survive but to those who give the supreme sacrifice of their own lives for their fellow countrymen. Jesus also speaks of the Father bringing glory to the Son through the great mystery of the Incarnation and Cross of Christ. God the Father gave us his only begotten Son for our redemption and deliverance from slavery to sin and death. There is no greater proof of God’s love for each and every person on the face of the earth than the Cross of Jesus Christ. In the cross we see a new way of love — a love that is unconditional, sacrificial and generous beyond comprehension.
Jesus also speaks of eternal life. What is eternal life? It is more than simply endless time. To have eternal life is to have the life of God within us. When we possess eternal life, we experience here and now something of God’s majesty, his peace, joy and love and the holiness which characterizes the life of God. Jesus also speaks of the knowledge of God which is not simply limited to knowing something about God, but to know God personally. The essence of Christianity, and what makes it distinct from other religions, is the knowledge of God as our Father. Jesus makes it possible for each of us to personally know God as our Father. In Jesus we see the perfect love of God — a God who cares intensely and who yearns over men and women, loving them to the point of laying down his life for them upon the Cross. Jesus is the revelation of God — a God who loves us completely, unconditionally and perfectly.
Prayer of The Day
Thank you, Lord, for loving me to the extreme of dying in unspeakable agony upon the cross. Thank you for your gift of the Holy Spirit so that I can follow your path of self-giving love.
Daily Note
God doesn’t need us, but He does want us. The Father loved the world so much that he sent his only Son into the world, not to condemn the world but to save the world. The Father loves His Son. The Father sends the Son. The Son loves a sinful world. The Son loves his own in the world. The Apostles make disciples. The disciples love the Church. The Church loves its own and reaches out in love to the unchurched.
Excellent. Let us keep reaching out in love to the unchurched.