Jesus at Prayer

In today's Gospel, we are listening to the prayer of Jesus to His heavenly Father.  This takes place at the Last Supper with Jesus very conscious of His impending death.  Jesus did not see His death as an ending, but rather going home to His heavenly Father and a new way of being  who are in the world.

In the Upper Room on the Eve of His passion, the Lord prayed for his disciples gathered around Him.  At the same time, he looked ahead to the community of disciples of all centuries.  In His prayer for all disciples of all time, he saw us too, our First Communicants and our candidates for Confirmation, and He prayed for us.  He prayed that we be consecrated in truth.

To consecrate someone means to give that person to God.  We are set apart for God.  But rather than being separated from the world, we are given over to God and thus are charged to represent God to others.  We must be available for others, for everyone.

Overhearing Jesus at prayer is our way of understanding the identity of Jesus and our participation in the divine plan.  The mission of Jesus is to become our mission.  What is this mission?  We are missioned to release divine love into the world.

Jesus tells us to look for Christ in one another and to be Christ for one another.

Our First Communicants and our candidates for Confirmation are to be Christ for all in our faith community, and may we see the face of Christ in our newly initiated.