FRIENDS and SERVANTS of the WORD
May 23, 2023 Seventh Tuesday of Easter
WORD of the DAY
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 your son 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: 1-11a)
How shall I live this Word? 
The seventeenth chapter of John’s Gospel is one of the vertices of the itinerary that the evangelist makes his disciples travel. In this chapter, we are given the deep and delicate prayer in which the Son dialogues with the Father, delivering us, disciples of all times, to His heart. It is a revelation of the love that unites the Son and the Father and in which Jesus wants to involve us fully. We are the main topic of love talks between Jesus and the Father. Isn’t this just extraordinary?!
Jesus concludes today’s Gospel with this request, “I am no longer in the world; but they are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep in your name those you have given me, so that they may be one, like us.” His concern is to keep us in unity with Him and the Father. And it is perhaps the experience that we all have when we feel we belong ‘to someone’. In that moment we also feel protected despite the difficulties. The prayer of Jesus wants to give us a sense of belonging. That’s where our secret is, our turning point. We belong to Him, we are His.
O Father, let the Holy Spirit who already dwells in us transform us into a temple of Your glory and give us the gift of making us ever more aware that we belong to You.
The voice of Fr. Joseph Pollano, Theologian
Jesus comes to tell us that we belong to the Father and He behaves consistently with this truth. He shows us what it means to belong to a Father by teaching us how to live, by encouraging us on this path. … If God exists and is nearby, we must raise our eyes and look Him in the face, and then He is no longer an architect. Jesus immediately made things clear: look at God to whom you belong and look at Him only as a Father. One must be humble to look at God and understand Him. … You belong to a Father who in this moment holds you in His hand and thus you can trust …
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E-mail: srmterzo@gmail.com Website: www.sanbiagio.org info@sanbiagio.org Blog: livingscripture.wordpress.com Comment: Sr. Vilma Colombo, FMA
