Daily Mass Gospel Reflection - The Ideal Of One

Friends, in today’s Gospel,
Jesus prays for our unity with him and with each other.
The Church is one because its founder is one.
Jesus compels a choice precisely because he claims to speak and act in the very person of God.
Jesus simply cannot be one teacher among many,
and therefore those who walk in his way must be exclusively with him.

Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) commented that the opening line of the Nicene Creed,
“I believe in one God,” is a subversive statement,
because it automatically rules out any rival claimant to ultimate concern.
To say that one accepts only the God of Israel and Jesus Christ
is to say that one rejects as ultimate any human being,
any culture, any political party, any artistic form,
or any set of ideas.

A Christian, I would argue, is someone who,
at the most fundamental level of his or her being,
is centered on the one God of Jesus Christ.
This helps to explain why, on the last night of his life on earth,
while sitting at supper with his disciples, the core of the Church,
Jesus prayed, “I pray not only for these,
but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
so that they may all be one.”

+++Lifting up his eyes to heaven,
Jesus prayed, saying:
“Holy Father, keep them in your name
that you have given me,
so that they may be one just as we are one.
When I was with them I protected them in your name
that you gave me,
and I guarded them, and none of them was lost
except the son of destruction,
in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
But now I am coming to you.
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.”+++

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.