And none of them was lost except the son of destruction

15 MAY (Jn 17,11b-19)

Jesus lives of a straight and perfect conscience. He is perpetually illuminated by the Holy Spirit and with his divine light reads his past life on our earth. This same conscience, always read under the powerful light of the Spirit of God, is also found in Paul. It is a conscience that knows how to examine itself in its missionary duties.

From Miletus he had the presbyters of the church at Ephesus summoned. When they came to him, he addressed them, “You know how I lived among you the whole time from the day I first came to the province of Asia. I served the Lord with all humility and with the tears and trials that came to me because of the plots of the Jews, and I did not at all shrink from telling you what was for your benefit, or from teaching you in public or in your homes. I earnestly bore witness for both Jews and Greeks to repentance before God and to faith in our Lord Jesus. But now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem. What will happen to me there I do not know, except that in one city after another the holy Spirit has been warning me that imprisonment and hardships await me. Yet I consider life of no importance to me, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to bear witness to the gospel of God’s grace.

“But now I know that none of you to whom I preached the kingdom during my travels will ever see my face again. And so I solemnly declare to you this day that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you, for I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God. Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock of which the holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, in which you tend the church of God that he acquired with his own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. And from your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth to draw the disciples away after them. So be vigilant and remember that for three years, night and day, I unceasingly admonished each of you with tears. And now I commend you to God and to that gracious word of his that can build you up and give you the inheritance among all who are consecrated. I have never wanted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing. You know well that these very hands have served my needs and my companions. In every way I have shown you that by hard work of that sort we must help the weak, and keep in mind the words of the Lord Jesus who himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.'” (At 20,17-35).

Today, Jesus Christ presents to the Father his missionary conscience and his apostolic responsibility. He is examined before the Father on the fulfillment of the obligations he had been entrusted with. The light of the Holy Spirit attests him of being blameless before the perdition of Judah. He wanted to get lost. He let himself be dragged by his sin. He followed his heart. He did not want to persevere in order to have eternal life.

And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are. When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.

Jesus teaches us that there are not only moral duties that concern his own soul, but also duties that are aimed at the salvation of those whom the Lord sends us. We have responsibilities of all kinds. There is the responsibility of the salvation of the father and the mother, of the friend, of the deacon, of the priest, of the bishop, of the Cardinal and of the Pope. We are not only responsible for our soul, but also of every soul that the Lord has placed in our hands. If we do not start from this truth and evangelical obligation, we risk of living bad our lives, thinking it only in terms of ourselves. Today, this is a mistake that is submerging us. We live as if we had no obligations for the salvation of others. This lack of accountability confirms that we are without the light of the Holy Spirit. Ethical darkness is our clothe.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us responsible.