I revealed your name to those whom you gave me

TUESDAY 26 MAY (Jn 17,1-11)

The Father and Christ Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, are one mystery of salvation. No one can come to know the Father without knowing Christ Jesus. It is by knowing Christ that the Father is known. Christ manifests himself in all his truth and his love and in him, with him and for him we know all the truth and charity of the Father. What Jesus says about himself in relation to the Father, the Christian must also say about himself in relation to Christ the Lord: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him. “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light”” (Mt 11,25-20). As the Father is known for Christ, in Christ and with Christ, so also Christ Jesus is known through the Christian, in the Christian and with the Christian. As Jesus manifested the Father by doing his will, so the Christian manifests Christ, by doing his will.

Can  The Christian say today: “Nobody might ever know Christ except through me, through my life which is a manifestation of his obedience and his love, his justice and his truth?”. Without true knowledge of Christ, never might there be true knowledge of the Father. It is this today that is consuming, more than a cancer, the mind and heart of many of Jesus’ disciples: the removal of Christ from their life, with the will of presenting a God deprived of the scandal and foolishness of the cross. In doing so, not only do we act contrary to what St. Paul reveals to us, but we also destroy the same mystery of the true God, which is all in the mystery of his true Christ: “Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God. It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.” When I came to you, brothers, proclaiming the mystery of God, I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling, and my message and my proclamation were not with persuasive (words of) wisdom, but with a demonstration of spirit and power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God” (1Cor 1,27-2,5). Christ’s life is entirely consecrated to manifest the Father. The Christian’s life is all aimed at manifesting Christ. If we do not manifest Christ, we build ourselves on a false God.

When Jesus had said this, he 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 he 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.

Today many Christians have become builders of idols. They have lost their glory.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints arrange that Christians are not builders of false divinities.