The Lord's Prayer
That's how we describe
the prayer that Jesus taught us...the one he offered when his
disciples asked him how they ought to pray.
But in our gospel today
we are allowed to eavesdrop on the Lord's prayer that he offers
himself – the REAL Lord's prayer, if you like...the words that pass between Father and Son as Jesus prepares to leave the world, as, indeed, he prepares to die.
Time and again I find myself thinking, as I visit someone close to the end of their life-journey
"There's no room for pretence now...This is a time of relentless honesty, a time when we get to see what really matters, who are the real priorities"
And at this time in Jesus' earthly life who does he choose to pray for?
He prays for US
His
disciples and all who would believe in him through their words.
The Church with all her aspirations and all her brokenness.
Here, as we listen to this outpouring from Son to Father, we glimpse
ourselves as his Love sees us.
Although gospel
writers, commentators, and preachers like to present the disciples as clueless and bumbling, we hear Jesus affirm them ("they know
in truth that I came from you").
We hear him lift them up ("they do not
belong to the world"), and tell us they were worthy companions
on his journey ("they have kept your word").
More...they and
we are his GLORY...
“I have been
glorified in them”
We may offer but
the poorest reflection of Christ's righteousness and holiness, we may
be dull, disobedient, slow to love but for all that, we are his
glory.
This
prayer of Jesus is very much about his followers today - it is not just
limited to his first century disciples. We still need protection from
the evil one, and sanctification for the work we do in the world. In
our struggle to preach Christ crucified in a society blinded by
material wealth at any cost and enamoured
with creature comforts, it is this kind of prayer on our behalf that
invokes the Holy Spirit. When we hear Jesus pray this prayer for us,
it is a foretaste of the feast of Pentecost, a sampling of the
clothing of power from on high...and goodness, we need that power.
While
on retreat before my priesting, I was
invited to read this prayer and imagine Jesus replacing every
reference to the disciples with my
own name.
It
turned out to be one of the most powerful exercises I've ever
undertaken.
“I
am coming to you and I speak these things to you so that
Kathryn...Mary...Eira...may have my joy made complete in her....”
When
Jesus is alone with his Father – he talks about US...and
longs for us to be filled with joy.
How good is that"
To know that Christ prayed for "me" gives us strength when we thought we were exhausted, success when we believed ourselves failures, and vision to see transformation where it seemed that none was possible
On
Thursday as we celebrated Ascension we remembered that for all our
inadequacies, WE are the ones to whom Jesus entrusted his mission in
the world. There
is no “Plan B”...
Today
we see that though he prays for our protection from the world, he
does not want to remove us from it but sends us out to get on with that insistent God given task of loving the world into the Kingdom.
This
is not just the “real” Lord's Prayer but the ultimate Eucharistic
Prayer...a prayer in which Jesus consecrates not bread and wine but
his very self, drawing together in unity all that his Father has
given him into unity and sending them, sending US, forth into the
world.
Dare
we, as we listen to this prayer, offer a heart-felt “Amen”?
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