Word to the Wise
Wednesday, May 20, 2015 - 7th Week of Easter - Wed
[Acts 20:28-38 and John 17:11b-19]"Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one... 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." [John]
These lines from Jesus' "High Priestly Prayer" bring together two major themes of the prayer: unity and truth. Unity means that the disciples participate in the relationship that Jesus has with his Father. Truth is the message that Jesus is the one whom God has sent. This is why Jesus sends the disciples "into the world," so that they may proclaim the Truth. This twofold mission of unity and truth appears dramatically in the scene with Pilate [John 18:36-37]: "For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." Pilate then asks his ironic but important question: "What is truth?" The real question, standing in front of him is not WHAT is truth, but WHO is truth!
As baptized persons we are "consecrated in truth" We become identified with Christ [Rom. 6:3-11] and represent his truth as the one whom God has sent [John 3:16]. The Second Vatican Council speaks of the "universal call to holiness" that is given by our baptism. When we relegate that truth to the past as something that occurred when we were babies, we lose sight of the very power of Christ working in us through the Spirit that he sent and continues to send upon faithful disciples. We know that Jesus prays for us that we will be protected from "the evil one," and be faithful to our mission just as he was faithful to his. AMEN