Seventh Sunday of Easter

Dear Friends,

On the evening of the Last Supper, Jesus fully embraced His role as high priest, which is to offer intercession and sacrifice. The Gospel today is His final priestly intercession before being arrested, convicted, and crucified, so these are particularly powerful words. He begins by praying not just for the disciples present but all who will come to believe through them...i.e. YOU. You have come to know love Himself through a long lineage of believers who have faithfully passed it on. Generations upon generations of people before you gave everything for their Lord in hopes that the Church would live on today, here and now. And Jesus in His infinite power was in fact thinking of you and me in this moment. I’m sure that gave Him comfort going into the hardest day of His life, thinking of you and your irreplaceable role in His love story with mankind.

Later in this passage, with His eyes raised to Heaven He says, “ Father, they are your gift to me.” Now, I know that my faith is a gift, Jesus dying for me is a gift, but sometimes it is harder for me to believe that I am a gift to Jesus. In my brokenness and sin, my shortcomings and failures, how can I be a gift to Him? Still, Jesus ends this passage saying, ‘ The love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.’ He shares His desire to give of himself totally to us, that this love, which was powerful enough to defeat death itself, could live on in you. And how does He do this? He does this through the total gift of Himself in the Eucharist, when we consume and are consumed by love Himself.

Jesus, our high priest, prayed for us and then sacrificed Himself for us. As you receive Him in the Eucharist or look at Him during Adoration, let His words from the Gospel permeate your being. Do you believe that you are His gift? Do you want to give of yourself totally in return?

-Annaliese Cotnoir, Penn FOCUS Missionary