One Minute Reflection – 16 May – “Mary’s Month” – Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension or The Seventh Sunday of Easter, Readings: Acts 1:11, Psalm 47: 2-3, 6-7, 8-9 (6), Second Ephesians 4: 1-1, John 17:1-11
“Holy Father, keep them in your name… so that they may be one just as we are one” – John 17:11
REFLECTION – “The Beloved in the Song of Songs says: “My dove, my perfect one, is only one. She is the only child of her mother…” (6,9). The same point is made even more clearly by the Lord’s own words in the Gospel. For when, in His blessing, He bequeathed all power to His disciples, in His prayer to His Father, He bestowed on His followers all good gifts,and He added the greatest gift of all, that they should never be fragmented or divided… but, they should all be one, united in growth with the one and only good. And so, through “the unity of the Holy Spirit,” they should all be clasped together in “the bond of peace” and become “one body, one spirit, through the one hope to which they are called” (Eph 4,3-4)…
“That they may all be one, even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one.” The bond of this unity is glory and that the Holy Spirit is called “glory” no sensible person will deny, if he considers the Lord’s words: “The glory which you have given me, I have given them” (Jn 17,22). He truly gave such glory to His disciples, for He said to them: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20,22). When He clothed Himself in human nature, Christ received this glory, which He had from all ages, “before the world began” (Jn 17,5) and, when His human nature was thus glorified by the Holy Spirit, the glory of the Spirit could be handed on to Christ’s kin, beginning with the disciples. This is the meaning of Christ’s words: “Father, the glory which you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one as we are one.” – St Gregory of Nyssa (c 335-395), Bishop, Brother of St Basil the Great – Sermon on the Song of Songs, no 15
PRAYER – Since it is from You, God our Father, that redemption comes to us, Your adopted children, look with favour on the family You love, grant us to seek You and to to find You in Your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ.,, May our whole being become a copy of Your Son’s obedience and thus follow Him to You in our eternal heritage. We entreat Our Lady, Queen of Heaven to offer her prayers to You, to strengthen us in our temptations and trials. Through Christ, Our Lord, with the Holy Spirit, God for all eternity, amen.
AnaStpaul 