ABIDING IN THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD

SUNDAY, Seventh Week of Eastertide

Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke, OP

Acts 1:15-17,20-26; Ps 103:1-2,11-12,19-20; 1 Jn 4:11-16; Jn 17:11-19

Abiding in the Presence of the Lord

Our Lord Jesus Christ prayed for us in the gospel of today. He said this prayer before he went to his passion and death. It is a solemn prayer for his flock for which he assumed our human flesh. He outlined the purpose of his mission on earth in that prayer and what constitutes its success. He came to bring us men back to the communion we lost through our disobedience to the Father’s will. His humanity was the visible bond of communion between God and man. It was the Sacrament of our coming together with God. In this unique sense, the Maiden and her Son constitute the Sacrament and the reality of the communion of God and men. We will continue to reiterate this essential truth because of its salvific import for us. Coming to the end of his earthly mission, the Lord took stock of what he had achieved before proceeding to the next level of the mission which will continue till the end of time. He recognised that the Father is the Initiator of this mission as he is the one who sent his Son, and called those who received him by enabling them to recognise the divine presence in the Son of Man. It is by their recognition of the divine presence that the Son was able to protect them by keeping them true to the Father’s will. The acceptance of the presence and the words of Jesus Christ kept them in the love of God. 

The only one lost among the called got lost because he abandoned the presence and the word of God present in the Son of Man. As the Lord was about to remove his physical presence, which was the Sacrament of the divine presence, he prayed to the Father to give us another means of remaining with him when he enters his glorified state. His words remain with the flock as the very first means of remaining with him. But the flock needs another presence to fix the words of Jesus deep and steadfastly within the consciousness of the flock, individually and collectively. Thus, Jesus prayed for the Holy Spirit who is the principle and bond of unity to be given to us his flock. “I passed your word on to them, and the world hated them, because they belong to the world no more than I belong to the world. I am not asking you to remove them from the world, but to protect them from the evil one. Consecrate them in the truth; your word is truth.” The word of God is the means of our salvation, being what we lost in disobedience, the gift of the Holy Spirit consecrates us to the word of the Father, and therefore to the Father. In other words, the Holy Spirit is sent to consecrate us to Jesus and the Father through filling our hearts, minds, and wills with the love of Jesus and the Father. Love is our consecration for that is the name given to the personality of the Holy Spirit.

From the foregoing, we see why St. John laid much emphasis on our love for one another. According to him, the only way to discern and recognise the one who is consecrated to the truth is by his act of love for others. That is the visible mark of a consecrated soul, the bearer of the Spirit of consecration and communion. One who truly loves the Son and the Father would love equally those the Son laid down his life for; and those the Father sacrificed his Son for. “My dear people, since God has loved us so much, we too should love one another. No one has ever seen God; but as long as we love one another God will live in us and his love will be complete in us.” This criterion again singles out the Virgin Mother for us to imitate. She shows her love for God and her Son in her preoccupation for the salvation of those he shed his blood to save. It would not be an overstatement to say that she poured out her blood in union with him in love. The disciples used the same criterion to select the one to replace Judas Iscariot as an apostle. The Father called the two they selected because they accepted the gift of the divine presence in Jesus Christ and followed him through his earthly ministry. They subsequently deferred to the Father’s will in the final appointment after the selection. To abide in God's presence is to do the Father's will at all times.

Let us pray: Grant us, O Lord, solid faith to believe that Jesus your Son is exalted in glory at the right hand of your divine Majesty, so that we may experience his abiding presence among us until the end of the world. 

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