Questions for reflection

As you slowly read this Gospel passage, allow its words to soak into your mind. You may want to light a candle to help you ponder the passage, reflect on the image above or on the words of Pope Francis below. You might want to imagine that you are in the upper room at the Last Supper listening to Jesus praying to the Father for you and reflect on the feeling that it stirs up in you.

1. What is this passage saying to you?

2. What word(s), sentence or phrase in this Gospel passage most caught your attention; most touched your heart; most challenged you; most comforted you? Is there anything in this passage that you found uncomfortable or startling?

3. ‘Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven, and praying said, ‘Holy Father, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you’. Who do you need to pray for at the moment? Whose faith do you need to support through your words and actions?

4. ‘The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one’. What is your experience of unity in your church and with other Christians? Where is there disunity and discord in your community? What can you do to build bridges?

5. ‘O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known’. How can you get to know God better? What sources to you use to strengthen your relationship with God? How can you help make God known to those whom you encounter?

6. ‘I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them’. Have you ever been enveloped in the love of God? What did it feel like? Did it overflow to others?

Pope Francis tells us:

After the Last Supper, Jesus prayed “that they may all be one” (Jn 17:21). This was His prayer before the Passion, we could call it His spiritual testament. Let us note, however, that the Lord did not command that His disciples be united. No, He prayed. He prayed to the Father for us, so that we might be one. This means that we are not able to achieve unity with our own strength. Above all, unity is a gift, it is a grace to be requested through prayer.

Each one of us needs it. In fact, we know that we are not capable of preserving unity even within ourselves. Even the apostle Paul felt a painful conflict within himself: wanting the good but inclined toward evil (see Rm 7:19). He had thus grasped the root of so many divisions that surround us – between people, in families, in society, between nations and even between believers – and inside us. The Second Vatican Council stated, “the imbalances under which the world labours are linked with that more basic imbalance which is rooted in the heart of man. For in man himself many elements wrestle with one another. […] Hence he suffers from internal divisions, and from these flow so many and such great discords in society” (Gaudium et spes, 10). Therefore, the solution to these divisions is not to oppose someone, because discord generates more discord. The true remedy begins by asking God for peace, reconciliation, unity.