In the Gospel selection for this Last Sunday of the Easter Season, Jesus prays for his disciples as he prepares to take leave of them and send them out into the world to proclaim all that they have seen and heard. In praying for those who were with him at the Last Supper, he prays also for us – for the Church of every age and place – that we might heed the word he has given us.
The prayer opens with the declaration: “Father, the hour has come.” For those who are familiar with John’s Gospel we know that at the beginning when Mary comes to Jesus at the wedding feast in Cana, Jesus tells her that his hour had not yet come. Reading carefully through the Gospel we note with what frequency the evangelist emphasizes the time of day that Jesus is performing the various signs in his ministry. Now, with all things standing on the verge of completion, Jesus proclaims the coming of the hour.
The hour is that of the exaltation or the glorification of the Son of God. Jesus is not going to be carried off and enthroned as a king nor is he adored and worshiped as the Son of God. Instead his exaltation, his glorification, is the enthronement and the adoration of the Cross that was the instrument of death. The ironic turn in the Gospel then is that in Jesus’s humiliation is his glorification. This stands as the ultimate rejection of Jesus – indeed of God in the person of Jesus – by the world. We can see as we contemplate the full Gospel passage here that Jesus stands rejected by the world and prays that the disciples are not overcome by the world.
It is this rejection of and by the world that will stand as a hallmark of Jesus’s prayer for the disciples and for all of us who claim to be disciples of Jesus as well.
Being a disciple of Jesus – specifically being a Catholic – ought to make us uncomfortable. There are very clear and distinct ways that we stand by virtue of our faith and moral discipline in stark opposition to the values and principles of the world. The rift between the Catholic and the world grows deeper with each passing year. To a large extent this is distressing – not because it makes us uncomfortable – but because it shows that the impact that we as Catholics have on the world is diminishing, not growing stronger.
While on one level this is a cause for distress, it is also the very reality for which Jesus prepared the disciples and us in the discourse and prayer at the Last Supper. The world – those who do not heed the Gospel – will always be hostile to the Gospel. They are threatened by the message and cannot tolerate the power that comes through weakness, the glorification that comes from suffering, and the humility that leads to exaltation.
These are not easy times to proclaim and live the Gospel, but it is the time above all when this is what we are called to do. We have received the Word – handed on to us by the Church – and so we must then act. First we carefully listen to and accept the Word. We cannot go off on our own or separate ourselves from the Church. To do so causes us to become inauthentic and no better than the world that opposes us.
Then we must authentically hand that Word on to others. The call to evangelize the world is the constant with being a disciple. We have no other choice. Even though the world will harshly resist us, persecute us, and try to extinguish us, we must still boldly live and proclaim that Word because, as Jesus tells us, the world cannot overcome the Word – the darkness cannot repel the light – the Son ultimately achieves mastery over the world.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.