In this section you can find a daily commentary on the Gospel of the Day.

Wednesday 27 May 2020

Seventh week of Easter

Word for today
The Gospel of John 17:11b-19

What desire?

What does Jesus want for all of his children?  What does he ask His Father for in prayer, what did He consecrate Himself to, what did He devote Himself to entirely for all eternity? It was his desire to: keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are.  Jesus asks that the Father to guard His children in His name, the name that the Father gave to Him, so that they be one [in the Greek: hen] as we [in the Greek: kathos] are.
Jesus asks, forcefully yet sweetly, for His Father to guard His children from evil. This is not Jesus’ desire but the means, the wonderful and peaceful method by which the goal, the desire, is fulfilled. What then is Jesus' desire for His children, what is the desire that Jesus asks the Father to realize above all else? What is the aim of His earthly incarnation, what is the purpose behind His mission, why has He accepted the terrible burden of the cross and death? What singular and true desire motivated His earthly life, miracles, words, death and resurrection?  Here it is: so that they may be one just as we are. This is the desire, the purpose, this is the reason for everything Jesus lived and worked for: that those who believe in Him are one just as Jesus is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
The reason and the motive behind everything is not heroism, evangelization, faith, or organization; it is not to establish institutions but unity.  Everything in life is either functional for unity or it has no purpose or meaning.
As in nature, every unit is so different from one another that not one leaf is equal to another, and yet everything is joined to the one and the one is joined to everything. It is equally true for humanity and human diversity, which is the supreme gift of the Holy Spirit, rendering unity stronger, richer, more beautiful. When separation and division exist, even if they are generated from the human heart for noble and justifiable reasons, they are always energy supplied by Lucifer’s game. Unity is God's energy; the energy of division belongs to Satan. Any form of division will never bear the fruit of unity. If this world comes to know the victory of unity or of division, it will depend solely on which of the two forces we will give greater precedence in our every day actions and decisions. But what is unity if not love, and what is love, here on earth, if not forgiveness? Unity, love and forgiveness are all part of the same divine reality. Neglecting forgiveness is the same as assaulting love; without love unity is violated and destroyed. Once unity is destroyed, diversity is opposed as if it were a curse, what is is new and unprecedented is persecuted and condemned to death like a mortal enemy and life loses its richness and complexity. That is how life, all life loses its motion and harmony. The real goal of Satan is to push man towards all forms of division and separation. Satan does not care why division happens, or who/what is involved; the only thing that matters is to create separation and division in all that man lives for and touches. In Satan’s deadly game there is something that is almost incomprehensible to the human mind and that is that his goal is never so fully and superbly realized as when people become divided and separated for high/noble reasons, in the name of justice, religion, love, truth and freedom, or in the defence of laws and principles. When he  succeeds in deceiving humanity in this way Satan feels like God.
Those who work for division and separation, those who slander their brother because of his ideas, those who condemn their brother because he is different,  those who judge their brother for any reason at all, even for the most holy and just one, is a murderer and works to fulfill Satan’s desire and  makes him more powerful. Anyone who works for division, even in the name of the highest most noble ideals, or in the name of truth and orthodoxy, will never see the face of Jesus and can never be one with him.
Those who work in and for unity work in accordance with Jesus' desire: they do not judge or condemn, they do not separate or divide, but make the wind of the Spirit more powerful on this earth.
Unity among us is not only a desire of Jesus: Jesus could never have a desire that is not concordant with our own eternal destiny.   It is better then for us to get used to unity and not to separation during our earthly lifetime: unity is God's eternity. Division and those who work for division lead us to death and self-annihilation and they will not last forever. Instead unity is for eternity, and all of eternity is for unity.