Thursday, May 17, 2018 7th Week of Easter 1st Reading: Acts 22:30; 23:6-11 Gospel: John 17:20-26
Jesus looked up to heaven and prayed, “I pray not only for these but also for those who through their word will believe in me. May they all be one as you Father are in me and I am in you. May they be one in us; so the world may believe that you have sent me.
“I have given them the Glory you have given me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. Thus they shall reach perfection in unity and the world shall know that you have sent me and that I have loved them just as you loved me.
“Father, since you have given them to me, I want them to be with me where I am and see the Glory you gave me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.
“Righteous Father, the world has not known you but I have known you, and these have known that you have sent me. As I revealed your Name to them, so will I continue to reveal it, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I also may be in them.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
How generous of Jesus to pray that we too might be with him in order to experience the Father’s glory! In today’s Gospel reading he prays: “I want them to be with me where I am and see the Glory you gave me”.
In biblical parlance glory refers to the “radiant manifestation of God in his grandeur” (see Ez. 1:28). Our joy shall be complete when we see God’s glory. Jesus manifested this glory, so full of grace and truth (see John 1:14) while he stayed with humanity on earth. In paradise we shall experience this to the full, no longer veiled by our senses.
Sharing this glory with Jesus means sharing his sonship. St. Paul describes this sharing when he wrote, “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:16). This singular favor of being heirs of the kingdom makes us proud children of God and removes in us the appetite for sin. Sin alienates us from God. When our greatest desire is to give God glory, there is no way we can still nurture the appetite for sin. St. Augustine puts this concept succinctly when he said, “Love God and do what you please.”
Today’s Gospel disposes us to examine how proud we are of our identity as heirs of the kingdom of God. Actions do not lie. The more voracious we are in committing sin, the lesser we value our identity as children of God and heirs of the kingdom of heaven. But what a waste of priceless opportunity if we miss eternal joy because we gamble our souls on the fleeting glory and honor of this lifetime! —(Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com
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