Fr Xavier Writes 12th May 2024

As we listen to His prayer on the night before He died, we see that His thoughts were on how helpless His friends would be without Him. He voices His concern for their welfare, knowing that because of their mission they will encounter opposition and hatred in the world. He prepares them and did not pray that they would be spared these trials and sufferings, but that they would remain faithful in spite of opposition.

These parting words of Christ are meant for us, just as much as they were for the apostles. We have been taken into this prayer of Jesus, as he has chosen us to share in His work; our calling is to be missionaries, dedicated to the truth of God’s word in the way we live and by our behaviours in the smallest of our acts of compassion. In our lives often, on occasions when we run into difficulties, we think God has abandoned us. It would be helpful in times of trouble if we could remember that God did not offer a release from problems, but the ability to cope with them, provided we turn to Him for comfort and help.

The gospel ends with a prayerful appeal to remain true to our Christian roots - to be consecrated to the truth. This means that we are to have a value system, not dictated by the prevailing spirit of the age or the trends of society, but based on the gospel message. We should cling to the Lord even in the midst of sufferings, struggles and the tragedies of life that occur, as they inevitably do. We would be selling ourselves short if we were ever prepared to ignore this call to believe more firmly and take our mission seriously.

Happy weekend.