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An aviator, a submarine commander, or an officer in the field will sometimes send back to his superior officer the laconic message: “Mission accomplished.” Our Blessed Lord had said His last word to the world; He had worked His miracles as a sign of His Divinity; He had finished the business His Father had given Him to do. The time had come to address to His Heavenly Father the high priestly prayer of “Mission accomplished.” In no literature can there be found the simplicity and depth, the grandeur and fervor of this last prayer. He taught men how to pray the “Our Father” now He would say His “My Father.”
His prayer was based on His consciousness as Mediator between the Father and mankind. For the seventh time He spoke of His “Hour,” which invariably referred to His death and glory.
Father, the Hour has come
Give glory now to thy Son, that thy Son
May give glory to Thee.
Thou hast put Him in authority over all mankind,
To bring eternal life to all those
Thou hast entrusted to Him.
Eternal Life is knowing Thee,
Who art the only true God,
And Jesus Christ Whom thou hast sent.
I have exalted Thy glory on earth
By achieving the task Thou gavest Me to do;
Now, Father, do Thou exalt Me at Thy own side,
In that glory which I had with Thee
Before the world began.
JOHN 17:1–5
During the Last Supper Our Blessed Lord used the word “Father” forty-five times. Up until then, the world had only known the Supreme Being as God. He now emphasized that God is a Father, because of His intimate and paternal attitude toward men; He also intimated that now He, His Divine Son, had completed His temporal mission on earth, and His humanity was ready to receive celestial glory. When the Word became flesh, there was a descent, an emptying, and an enslavement. What He asked for was not the glory of His Divine nature, for that was never lost, but rather the glorification of something that He had not before He came into this world, namely, the glorification of the human nature which He took from Mary. His human nature had the right to glory because of its union with Himself. He afterward told His disciples on the way to Emmaus:
Was it not to be expected that the Christ
Should undergo these suf erings,
And so enter into His Glory?
LUKE 24:26
Eternal life He defined as knowing the Father and His Divine Son, Jesus Christ. It was not enough to know the existence of God as proved by reason; this indeed is the basis of natural religion, but eternal life comes only from knowing Jesus Christ. What was remarkable about His affirmation that He is Eternal Life was that it came within eighteen hours of His death. His Father, He said, was glorified indirectly in His mortal suffering. This was done by fulfilling the Father’s mission of redeeming humanity. Throughout history, men’s minds were directed to God, but there were only guesses as to what was God’s will in detail. Jesus here said He had a blueprint before He came, and He spoke of it as being finished even before He was crucified, so intent was His will in obeying the Father. No young man of thirty-three has ever lived who could say: “I received a mandate from God and I fulfilled it.” But here was the affirmation that the last thread had been drawn in the tapestry of Providence. He was the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” by Divine intention. Now had come the “Hour” or moment of execution of that intent. With it, He asked the Father to take His human nature into the glory of the pre-existent majesty of the Godhead.
AUTHORITY OF THE APOSTLES
The next part of His prayer spoke of the relation between the Father, Himself, and the Apostles; it had to do with the authority of the Apostles.
I have made Thy Name known to the men
Whom Thou hast entrusted to Me,
Chosen out of the world.
They belonged to Thee,
And have become Mine through Thy gift
And they have kept true to Thy Word.
Now they have learned to recognize all the gifts
Thou gavest Me as coming from Thee;
I have given them the message which Thou gavest to Me,
And they, receiving it, recognized it for
Truth that I came from Thee, and found faith
To believe that it was Thou Who didst send Me.
It is for these I pray, I am not praying for the world,
But for those whom Thou hast entrusted to Me.
JOHN 17:6–9
God is not power alone or some vague immobile Mover, such as Aristotle conceived; He is an all-loving Father Who is not thoroughly known and understood except by His Son. He next described the Apostles in whom His Presence has been felt: they were separated from the world which was seated in unbelief, but they were owned by the Father. All who become His followers, He said, are gifts of the Father. He kept them as the Shepherd His sheep, He taught them as a Master His disciples, He healed them as a Physician His patients. Into this sinful mass of humanity, the Father plunged His all-powerful hand and drew out of it men of the world; He then placed them in the arms of His Divine Son, Who in turn gave them power to carry on His work, speak in His Name and apply the merits of His Redemption.
Our Divine Lord here noted the continuity of a mission from the Father to Himself, and from Himself to the Apostles. Any other body of men who might, in fifty, a hundred, or five hundred years, read something that one of His Evangelists wrote after His death, would be lacking that immediacy of contact which was essential for the communication of Divine power. Believing that the Father had sent the Son and that they sat with the Eternal Son made flesh, they could now vouch for the fact that He had sent them. The Cross was to be on their shoulders as it was on His; He was slandered, so would they be vilified. If they shared the spirit of the world, instead of the Spirit that He would give them, they would be loved by the world.
After having asked that the Apostles be kept in love, Our Lord asked His Father that they be kept from evil. He said that He was leaving the world, but they were to stay in it, even though the world would hate them as the world would crucify Him. They, and all who would be united with Him through this apostolic body, were to be in the world, but not of it. Our Lord did not ask His Father that they be preserved from sickness, mock trials, false charges; He asked only that they be kept from sin. Material assault from without must be met by spiritual resistance from within. Since they were to be ridiculed by the world, He was asking that they bear up under it for His sake. There was to be no escapism. The world would say, “If you embrace Christ, you are an escapist.” But Christ said that if we escape Him, we are escapists. He gave the death blow to the charge that His religion was an escape. On the Mount of Beatitudes He told His followers to count themselves happy if they were persecuted; now He told them they must share the hatred of Him. The Cross is no “escape” it is a burden—a “yoke that is sweet and a burden that is light.”
To live in the midst of the infection of the world and at the same time to be immunized from it is something that is impossible without grace. The Father was now asked to keep them holy:
I am not asking that Thou shouldst take them
Out of the world, but that
Thou shouldst keep them clear of what is evil…
Keep them holy, then, through the truth;
It is Thy word that is truth.
JOHN 17:15–15
In the Old Testament those who served God had to be holy.
And thou shalt make a plate of pure gold,
Inscribed with all the engraver’s skill,
With the words, Set apart for the Lord.
This is to be bound with a blue cord on to the mitre,
And will hang over the priest’s forehead.
Whatever fault is found in of ering and gift,
By Israel’s sons dedicated and hallowed,
Aaron must charge himself with it; and
The Lord will overlook it, so long as
The plate hangs ever on Aaron’s forehead.
EXODUS 28:36–36
Holiness had been evidenced by the insignia on the sacerdotal forehead, now it was to be in the heart through the Spirit Who sanctifies. It was not enough that they be holy; they must be “holy in truth.” As the light of the sun purifies the body from diseases, so His truth, He said, sanctified the soul and preserved it from evil.
Holiness must have a philosophical and theological foundation, namely, Divine truth; otherwise it is sentimentality and emotionalism. Many would say later on, “We want religion, but no creeds.” This is like saying we want healing, but no science of medicine; music, but no rules of music; history, but no documents. Religion is indeed a life, but it grows out of truth, not away from it. It has been said it makes no difference what you believe; it all depends on how you act. This is psychological nonsense, for a man acts out of his beliefs. Our Lord placed truth or belief in Him first; then came sanctification and good deeds. But here truth was not a vague ideal, but a Person. Truth was now lovable, because only a Person is lovable. Sanctity becomes the response the heart makes to Divine truth and its unlimited mercy to humanity.
Then Our Lord added that as He had been sent on His Father’s business, so they, sanctified by the Spirit of holiness, were to go through the earth as His ambassadors.
Thou hast sent Me into the world on Thy errand
And I have sent them into the world on My errand.
JOHN 17:18
When the Word was made flesh, the human nature which was united to Him was sanctified and dedicated to God. Now He asked that they who were to act in His name be as dedicated to Him according to their natures as He was dedicated to God according to His nature. On the following day, He would dedicate Himself for their sakes on the Cross that He might purchase for them their own dedication to holiness. More efficacious than the victims of the ancient Law with all of its shadows and figures, the holocaust of Christ would procure for them a veritable sanctification:
I dedicate Myself for their sakes,
That they too may be dedicated through the truth.
JOHN 17:19
He held back nothing; all that He was in Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity He would lay down for them in total surrender. Where His Blood, that of the Lamb of God, would be sprinkled, there would be His Spirit and sanctification. No one would lead Him to slaughter. He would offer Himself “for their sakes” in order to be the fountainhead of their lives. Then both He that sanctified and they who were sanctified would be one. The sins of the world were transferred to Him, and the Cross was the result; His holiness and sanctification were transferred to His Apostles and those who, through them, would believe in Him. St. Paul would paraphrase this idea in his Letter to the Corinthians.
Christ never knew sin, and God made Him
Into sin for us, so that in Him
We might be turned into the holiness of God.
II CORINTHIANS 5:21
PRAYER FOR THE FAITHFUL
The third part of His prayer was for those who through the centuries would believe in Him because of the Apostles.
It is not only for them that I pray;
I pray for those who are to find faith in Me
Through their word; that they may all be one;
That they too may be one in us, as Thou, Father
Art in Me and I in Thee;
So that the world may come to believe that it
Is Thou Who has sent Me.
And I have given them the privilege which Thou
Gavest to Me, that they should all be one, as We are one;
That while Thou art in Me, I may be in them,
And so they may be perfectly made one.
So let the world know that it is Thou Who hast sent Me,
And that Thou hast bestowed Thy love upon them,
As Thou hast bestowed it upon Me.
JOHN 17:20–20
The most profound preoccupations of His Sacred Heart embraced the dimensions of the universe, both of time and of space. He would not only have His Apostles united in love with Him but would have all believing souls, through their ministry, also one with Him. Their oneness with Him would not be global and confused, but personal and intimate, for He said, “I call My sheep by name.” Though He was now addressing only eleven men, He had in mind all the millions who later would believe in Him through them and their successors. A bond of unity must exist between believers and Him, built on that higher unity which exists between Him and the Father. Since the Father and He are one in the Spirit, in a few minutes He would tell them that this Spirit must come upon them to make them truly one. That Spirit he called the “Spirit of Truth,” i.e., His Spirit. As the body is one because it has one soul, so shall humanity be one when it has the same Spirit which makes the Father and Son one in heaven. The unity which believers were to have with Him was to be through the intermediary of the Apostles. He then concluded this part of His prayer for the holiness and unity of His Mystical Body with these words:
This, Father, is my desire that all those
Whom Thou hast entrusted to Me
May be with Me where I am, so as to see My glory,
Thy gift made to Me, in that love which Thou
Didst bestow upon Me before the foundation of the world.
Father, Thou art just;
The world has never acknowledged Thee,
But I have acknowledged Thee,
And these men have acknowledged that Thou didst send Me.
I have revealed and will reveal, Thy Name to them;
So that the love Thou hast bestowed upon Me
May dwell in them, and I too may dwell in them.
JOHN 17:24–26
He Who now said that He had completed His earthly work designated His followers as a community, or a fellowship. At the beginning of the prayer, He had merely solicited His Father, saying, “It is for these I pray.” Now He becomes more categorical and expresses His will, “This, Father, is my desire.” He recognized that this unity is something that would be completely and perfectly achieved only in glory and in eternity. This glory all the members of His Mystical Body would one day see when they are with Him; then would be revealed the glory that He had before He “the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us,” the glory that was His “before the foundation of the world.” In the Our Father which He taught men to pray there were seven petitions. In His “My Father,” there were also seven petitions, and they had reference to His Apostles who were the foundation of His Kingdom on earth. First, their continual union with Him; second, their joy as a result of this union; third, their preservation from evil; fourth, their sanctification in the truth which is Himself; fifth, their unity one with another; sixth, that eventually they may be with Him; and seventh, that they may perceive His glory.
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