Homily for the Seventh Sunday of Easter

On this Sunday that falls between the Feast of the Ascension and Pentecost, we are privileged to listen-in on a prayer that Our Lord Jesus Christ offers to God the Father. This passage is borrowed from what is known as “The Priestly Prayer” of Jesus which he offered on the evening of the Last Supper, but it is taken out of chronological order and placed here in this liturgical context for our use this Sunday.

Given to us as it is today, we can use our imaginations, placing Jesus already ascended into Heaven, praying in the immediate Presence of God the Father for His Church, which is about to be endowed with the Holy Spirit.

Had Christ not risen from the dead, ascended into heaven in plain view of His disciples, nor sent the Holy Spirit, human remembrance of Him would be limited to a collection of Teachings and stories of His miracles… not linking Him to the Holy Trinity, but merely placing Him in the company of other “great teachers” such as Buddha, Confucius or Mohammed.

This would have made our faith more earth-bound, like those Oriental religions that merely suggest a path for our earthly life, rather than a call to eternal life.

His Ascension allows Him, as both fully human and fully divine, to sit at the right hand of the Father, placing His human nature (and, therefore, our redeemed human nature) into immediate and eternal communion with God the Father. His piercéd human body, having literally pierced the heavens, shows how our human prayers also pierce the heavens on their way to God the Father.

Let’s now look at the context of Our Lord’s prayer.

Jesus addresses God as “Holy Father.” Although Jesus has already introduced the First Person of the Holy Trinity as “Father,” here, He puts Himself, with divine humility, into a place of subservience and calls Him Holy Father, the only time that Jesus uses this title.

Our Lord’s first words in heaven as we hear them today, are a prayer for His Church on earth. In His prayer for us, Jesus asks for two things:
+ knowledge of and protection in… God’s Holy Name
+ trust of and consecration in… God’s Holy Word

Jesus prays: “Holy Father keep them in your name that you have given me.” What does protection by way of God’s Holy Name mean? God had revealed His Name to Moses as  “Yahweh” meaning “I am who Am.” This revealed Him as
+ the essence of eternal being  - and -
+ the cause and Creator of human being.

But now, through the instruction of Christ, God wishes to be known by a new name: “Father,” which He gave to Jesus to reveal a new dimension of transcendence and intimacy with God.

Thus, coming to know God with some immediacy, we might come further, to know, understand, and act upon His word. And… what can we say briefly in the space of a Sunday sermon about God’s word?

While He speaks to mankind more frequently in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, His words are few. So, let’s look simply at His first and last words as they appear in the Bible. In the Creation of the world, God first says, “Fiat lux” — “Let there be light.”  (Genesis 1:3) Not like switching on a light as we enter a room, these words suggest that before God’s word, all was darkness, emptiness, and chaos. God’s words created the milieu into which the beginnings of divine Revelation to Creation would take place.

And, later, in the New Testament, God’s final words were: “Hic est filius meus dilectus; audite ilium… “This is my Beloved Son, listen to Him.”  (Mark 9:7)

Here, the fullness of God’s intention in Creation is revealed in both the Person and the words of Jesus Christ. And, as God the Father identifies Jesus as “My Beloved Son,” He confirms the title of “Father” as revealed by God the Son.

Jesus then prays that we might be protected and consecrated in this truth, in this mystery. This protection and consecration will be achieved through the sending of the Holy Spirit, protecting and consecrating the Church, and each member, through the Grace of the Sacraments.

Saint John the Evangelist, in the Letter we heard today, instructs us how to live this Consecration. He writes: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we must also love one another.” The love of which he speaks here, does not connote affection; it comes from the Greek verb "agapeo,” meaning “to be full of good will, and to act upon it.” Saint Thomas Aquinas would later translate it: “to love another as other, for his own good.

Saint John writes further, “No one has ever seen God. yet if we love one another, God remains in us. Centuries later, Victor Hugo would approach this mystery in his book, “Les Misérables” as he wrote: “To love another person is to see the face of God.” What this suggests is that even with our imperfect attempts to be loving, our works of charity, our sacrifices for love, make God visible to others, in a way.

So it is important to keep in mind that even in our failures to love, the prayer of Jesus that we heard today is not His last word. He, and all the Saints in heaven pray for us continually, that we might be protected in the strength of God’s name and be consecrated in the beauty of His Truth.