Wednesday Reflection

Daily Gospel Reflection May 27^th 2020 

Gospel                                                    JN 17:11B-19

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed, saying:
“Holy Father, keep them in your name
that you have given me,
so that they may be one just as we are one.
When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me,
and I guarded them, and none of them was lost
except the son of destruction,
in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
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.”

Dear Friends and Family,

            Jesus does not ask his Father “to take us out of the world.”  Would that have made things easier for us?  Jesus gives us his Word.  We trust and believe that Jesus’ decision to leave us in the world is better.  So what is our purpose for remaining?  We have to remain for the same reason Jesus came into the world.  In the Gospel of Luke, after his return from the desert, Jesus goes into the synagogue and reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.  It’s Jesus’ mission statement:

      The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

      because he has anointed me

            to bring glad tidings to the poor.

      He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives

      and recovery of sight to the blind,

            to let the oppressed go free,

      and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”

This becomes our task, our challenge, our mission.  We live as emissaries in a land not our own; we represent someone greater than ourselves in the midst of people who know nothing of our homeland or our King. 

            The poor are more vulnerable today than ever before and the number of people in need has grown dramatically because of the Covid-19 virus. How will we reach out to the marginalized in their need?  The captives today are often enslaved by their own decisions.  Consider how we as a people of faith can model right behavior and offer the enslaved a way out.  Many people are blind to the lies and deception of the world.  It’s our task to live the truth in a manner that is appealing and draws people to the source of all truth: Jesus Christ.  In this time of pandemic, friends and neighbors are feeling oppressed.  Consider how a phone call, a handwritten card or some other sign that you care could set them free.  Many of us may consider 2020 to be a less than acceptable year, but what criteria does God use to measure a year?  The quote Jesus uses comes from the prophet Isaiah in the context of a Jubilee Year, a year when all debts were forgiven and people would start anew.  Many of us may be at such a crossroads where we have to start anew.  This can be an anxious time but it can also be a time of great opportunity.  Maybe we can walk with a neighbor through the crossroads and help them begin anew. In walking with our neighbor, we may discover new realities and new possibilities that help us on our journey.  In times like these let us give ourselves permission to live with the uncertainty.  To sit in the question, to be able to pray and ponder and reflect will give us the opportunity to discover the answers God lays before us and how he is present in the struggle.