Gospel: John
17:11b-19
Jesus
raised his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to
your son, so that your son may glorify you, just as you gave him authority over
all people, so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him. Now
this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one
whom you sent, Jesus Christ. I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work
that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I
had with you before the world began.
“I
revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to
you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that
everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have
given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from
you, and they have believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I do not pray
for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and
everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been
glorified in them. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in
the world, while I am coming to you.”
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Reflection:
A man
would always pray to God and he would always pray for himself alone. Through
the grace of God the man would always receive what he prayed for. When he died
he was ushered by an angel to a room full with the things that he prayed for.
The man thanked the angel for giving him the
things that he wanted, then he noticed that he was alone. So he asked the
angel: “Why am I alone? The angel told him, you’re alone for the simple reason
that you would always pray for yourself when you were still alive. You never
bothered to pray for others, your prayers was always for yourself.
As Jesus
was set to leave HIS apostles he prayed for their welfare, that they would
always be in God’s protection and care.
How about us when we pray? Is it always us present in our prayers? Or we
never bother to pray for ourselves for the reason that we believe that God
knows everything about us including our needs.
God is an
all knowing God, He knows everything about us including our needs and prayers
for Him. Therefore, it would be better if instead of praying for ourselves we
instead pray for others. This does not mean that we will not anymore have our
own personal prayers and petitions before God.
We will
still have our prayers for God but we put forward first the interest and needs
of others before our own. For God doesn’t want us to become a person for
ourselves only; HE always wants us to become a person for others. – Marino J.
Dasmarinas
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