+((ntro) In our first reading this morning we will hear of St Paul commending his disciples to God’s gracious word that can build them up and give them an inheritance that lasts. Let us take a moment to reflect on our failures to be truly attentive to God’s word in our lives.
(After the gospel) As we just heard, Jesus praying to the Father asked that his disciple may be one just as he and the Father are one. Most of us are all too aware of the divisions within our Church and society. We do well to make this prayer of Jesus our own.
Although we are in the world, we do not belong to the world. How to be in the world but not of the world demands a continual discernment on our part. To be not of the world means to be consecrated in truth even as Jesus himself was consecrated so as to give his life out of love for us.
To be so consecrated in the truth means allowing God’s word and the Holy Spirit to transform the whole of our lives. It means allowing what takes place at this altar to take place in the depths of our hearts throughout the day in whatever may absorb our time and energy.
Acts 20:28-38; John 17:11b-19