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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Wednesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
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Gospel text (Jn 17:11b-19): Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed, saying: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me (…). 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 (…).”

The "world"

Fr. Antoni CAROL i Hostench (Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain)

Today, Jesus surprises us with a paradox: He says we are not of this world and demands protection for us, but at the same time, He sends us into this world. And… the history teaches us that the world —taking into account time and places— hates Christians.

Let us discern! "World" means, mainly, the “creation” born from our Creator’s love. It is not a “sinful place”, but “our place”. Jesus begs the Father not to remove us from the world: we belong to the "century" and we love it (we are "secular"). In the second place, "world" means "opposition to God ", the satanic pretense to build the "century" without the Creator. But this is tantamount to an inhumane world: when man prosecutes God, man prosecutes man. Jesus forewarns us against this "worldliness" (or "secularism").

—My Creator, grant me to passionately love life on earth and, at the same time, to lift my eyes to you to spread your love all over the world. Do, that we live united among us and united to you, for you are the Truth.