Contemplating today's Gospel
Today's Gospel + homily (in 300 words)
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’».
When he had finished speaking he knelt down and prayed with them all. They were all weeping loudly as they threw their arms around Paul and kissed him, for they were deeply distressed that he had said that they would never see his face again. Then they escorted him to the ship.
You kingdoms of the earth, sing to God, chant praise to the Lord who rides on the heights of the ancient heavens. Behold, his voice resounds, the voice of power: «Confess the power of God!».
Over Israel is his majesty; his power is in the skies. Awesome in his sanctuary is God, the God of Israel; he gives power and strength to his people.
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. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”
“They may share my joy completely”
Fr. Thomas LANE (Emmitsburg, Maryland, United States)Today, we live in a world which does not know how to be truly happy with the happiness of Jesus, a world which seeks the happiness of Jesus in all the wrong places and in the wrong ways. Seeking happiness without Jesus only leads to deeper unhappiness. Just look at the soaps on TV, there is always somebody in trouble. The soaps on TV show us the misery of a godless life.
But we want to live this day with the joy of Jesus. Jesus prayed to his Father in our Gospel today, “I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely” (Jn 17,13). Notice that Jesus wants his joy to be complete in us. He wants us to be full of his joy. This does not mean that we will not have crosses, for “the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world” (Jn 17,14), but Jesus expects us to live with his joy no matter what the world thinks of us. The joy of Jesus is to permeate us to our very core while the superficial rumblings of a godless world should not penetrate us.
Today then let us live with the joy of Jesus. How can we acquire more and more of this joy of Jesus? Obviously from Jesus himself, Jesus is the only one who gives us the true joy that the world is lacking as we see in the soaps on TV. Jesus said, “If you remain in me and my words in you, you may ask whatever you want and it will be given to you” (Jn 15,7). Then let us spend time each day in prayer with the words of Jesus in the Scriptures, let us eat and consume the words of Jesus in the Scriptures, let them be our food, so that we may be satiated with the joy of Jesus: “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon.” (Benedict XVI).
Thoughts on Today's Gospel
“The whole community of the faithful, once begotten in the baptismal font, was crucified with Christ in the passion, raised up with him in the resurrection, so too it is born with him in this Nativity” (Saint Leo the Great)
“Today too, in the Gospel, we heard Jesus’ prayer on the eve of his passion: ‘that they may be one, even as we are one’. From this eternal love between the Father and the Son, poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, our mission and our fraternal communion draw strength” (Francis)
“The prayer of the hour of Jesus, rightly called the ‘priestly prayer’ (cf Jn 17), sums up the whole economy of creation and salvation. It fulfills the great petitions of the Our Father” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nº 2758)
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December 25th
The Nativity of the Lord (Christmas): Mass during the Night
Gospel and commentary video
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