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 his prayer would always be 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 starring 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 before 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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