THE PERVADING THEME of the readings today is prayer, prayer which brings us closer to God and to his Son, Jesus Christ.

The Gospel gives us the first part of Jesus' magnificent prayer at the Last Supper. It is Jesus' final act before he leaves the upper room and begins the drama of his passion. The whole prayer is addressed to God his Father and is divided into a number of distinguishable parts. (John does not describe Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.)

Jesus prays first for the success of his mission. "Glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify you." This glory of the Son will, of course, come in a very strange way. It will not be the glory of overwhelming power and dazzling success. On the contrary, it will come through what, at first sight, looks like utter failure and disaster. To the casual onlooker it looked like the end of a flash-in-the-pan phenomenon. "He saved others; he cannot save himself." And so he was put through a series of kangaroo courts, punished by scourging, mocked with a crown of thorns ("Hail! King of the Jews! Ha, ha, ha!!!"), dragged through the streets of Jerusalem and finally nailed to a gibbet and set up for all to see as an example of what happens to those who commit crime.

Here is the Son being glorified and giving glory to the Father? To the unbelieving eye, No. But an officer in the Roman army, a pagan, seeing the way that Jesus died, said in awe, "Truly, this man was son of God". Maybe not a full profession of Christian faith but he was more than half way there.

For us now, the cross is our badge of triumph. We hang it everywhere with pride. It graces our altars and the highest point of our churches. And, through the cross, untold numbers have been drawn to God through the suffering and dying Jesus, seeing in it the overwhelming love of God for us. The words of Jesus' prayer to his Father have been and continue to be realised: "Through the power over all peoples that you have given [the Son], let him give eternal life to all those you have entrusted to him." Indeed he said he had come precisely for that reason, to give life and to give it in abundance to all those who come to him. And those who have given themselves totally to Jesus know exactly how true that is.

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The secret of life

There comes now one of those wonderful statements that sums up everything in our faith. "Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." Of course, everything hangs on the meaning of the word 'know'. Knowing in the biblical sense goes far beyond the ordinary meaning of the word as we use it in daily conversation, as when we might ask someone, "Do you know what day it is? Or do you know how to get to the city hall? Or do you know who is saying the Mass today?" These are mere requests for facts and do not really impinge on our lives. We might be getting a bit closer to the biblical meaning when someone asks us, "Do you know John and Mary?" And, if the answer is, "Yes", the questioner might push us further, "But do you really KNOW them?" And then we might not be so certain. In fact, the Hebrew word yada for 'know' is also used for 'sexual knowing', as when Mary, at the Annunciation, wondered how she could be a mother as she did not yet 'know' a man.

In today's context, to know God and to know Jesus means much more than knowing all about them, knowing everything that is said about them in the Bible, or even being able to give an erudite paper on some theological problem. To know God in the Gospel sense is to have had a deep personal experience of God working in my life. It involves a close, intimate, person-to-person relationship which matures eventually into a mutual love.

Another way of understanding this is to consider the meaning of Christian faith. It is easy enough to believe facts about Jesus, to 'believe that...' but it is quite something else to 'believe in' Jesus. I can believe facts in the newspaper as true but they may not impinge very much on my life. But to believe IN someone is to say that I entrust my very self to their care. Christian faith is essentially a 'believing in', a total surrender in trust. And that is how we come to 'know' Christ in an intimately loving way. And, says Jesus, that is what real life means: to have totally accepted the vision of Jesus as the Way, as Truth and Life. This is the way through which we become people who are fully human and fully alive.

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Prayer for disciples

Jesus now goes on to speak to his Father about the men that had been given to him and prays for them too. They have accepted the word of God as it has come to them through Jesus. They have done this in three ways: 1, they have fully accepted (though not yet fully understood) the teaching of Jesus, unlike the Pharisees and others who also heard but refused to accept; 2, they have acknowledged the divine origin of Jesus, as Messiah, as Son of God; 3, they have believed - in the sense given above. Their relationship with their Master is one of loving fidelity, even though there are still weaknesses to be overcome.

Jesus has handed on to them the teaching that he had received from the Father. It is their mission to continue the work of Jesus and so Jesus prays for them too. He says he is not praying for the world. The 'world' here does not refer to our whole planet and all the people in it but rather that part of it which is in opposition to all that Jesus stands for, the world of sin. He could not pray positively for that but only that it cease to be 'worldly', i.e. opposed to God and for this he does pray later on. Further on in the prayer [not in today's reading], asking for unity among his disciples, Jesus says: "May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me" (John 17:23).

Finally, Jesus says that he is no longer in the world (he speaks as if already ascended to the Father) but his followers are. They are to be in the world in both senses, as Jesus himself was. That is, they are to be fully identified with our planet and all that goes on in it. They are also to be in touch with, though not identified with, the world of sin and corruption. They are not to run away from that world. They are to act as agents of truth and love within it. They are to be the leaven in the dough. Penetrating to every corner and bringing about change. They are to be purifying salt. They are to be lights shining in the darkness.

Only in this way will people see that there are alternative ways of living. "Your light must shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father" just as the good deeds of Jesus brought glory to the Father by leading more people to identify with him. "By this will all know that you are my disciples, that you have love one for another." But this can only happen when Christians are visible as Christians in the midst of the "world", of secular society.

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Not easy

And this brings us to the Second Reading from the First Letter of Peter. For giving witness in the midst of the world is not always easy. From the very beginning right up to our own time, giving witness to the Way of Jesus has brought great challenges to Christian communities. Persecution, rejection and martyrdom have been a feature of Christian life in every century. Jesus never promised otherwise. And the list of people who gladly and without hesitation suffered for the values of the Gospel is truly inspiring - from Stephen the first martyr to those well within our lifetime. Jesus even said that those who suffer persecution for the Gospel are blessed, are fortunate, are specially graced.

The reading says the same thing: "It is a blessing for you when they insult you for bearing the name of Christ, because it means that you have the Spirit of glory, the Spirit of God resting on you." No Christian should ever suffer punishment for "being a murderer, a thief, a criminal or an informer". But "if anyone of you should suffer for being a Christian, then he is not to be ashamed of it; he should thank God that has been called one." We should remember that the term "Christian" was first used by outsiders, often in a pejorative sense. But for the follower of Christ it was no badge of shame. Quite the contrary.

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Source of strength

The First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles shows us the source of strength for those early communities. They prayed together and they prayed frequently, especially at times of decision and/or crisis.

Today we see the apostles (without Judas, of course), immediately after Jesus has left them to ascend to his Father, returning to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, which was just outside the city walls. (A "sabbath walk" was about half a mile or .8 km.). They were joined by "several women" among whom was Jesus' mother. These women could include the wives of the apostles and other women who accompanied Jesus on his missions. We are told they were in continuous prayer, for there were important decisions to be made. They had to elect someone to take Judas' place, someone who had the qualifications of having been with Jesus from the beginning of his public life and who had been a witness to the resurrection. Also, they were now on their own and they had to discover how they were to continue the work of Jesus. Soon, the Holy Spirit will be poured out on them and fill them with the courage and zeal they will need.

There are many examples in the Acts of the Apostles of the apostles and other followers of Jesus praying together, very often with the "breaking of bread", the celebration of the Eucharist. They prayed especially on important occasions such as elections, laying hands on ministers, when new rulings were issued in the name of the Church and, naturally, during times of persecution. We also see individuals praying: Stephen at his martyrdom, Peter and Paul on a number of occasions. "On most occasions it is a prayer of asking and also to obtain pardon, prayer of praise, thanksgiving, finally witness to the faith: 'calling on the name of Jesus' is the hallmark of the Christian" (New Jerusalem Bible, loc. cit).

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Centrality of prayer

Prayer must always be central to the life of the Christian. It can take several forms. There is the praying of the individual and of communities or particular groups. There is the prayer of the liturgy, when we celebrate the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. And there are other paraliturgical prayers, such as Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and other devotional exercises. There is vocal prayer, which is based on fixed formulae e.g. the Daily Office of the Church or the rosary. There is meditation or contemplative prayer. Ultimately, all prayer is getting in contact with God, from whom all good things come and who is the ultimate destination of all our living.

We should all try to set aside some time to spend with God in prayer. We know that the excuse "we don't have time" is not very convincing. It is amazing how easily we find time for many things we don't really have to do, like time spent in front of the television set. Just think how we re-arrange our working day when there is a big football match on! We will pray when we realise how meaningful it is, when we realise that it is a very special time that eventually we would not want to miss.

But even on the busiest of days, there are times when we can turn aside, turn inwards and contact God present in the depths of our heart. When sitting in a traffic jam, instead of cursing other drivers or the government "for not doing anything about it", try praying. It can transform what formerly was seen as a frustrating experience. When queuing at the supermarket, instead of getting impatient at the slowness of the line, use the time for quiet prayer. Then you may even wish the line was slower! And there are all kinds of other situations which lend themselves perfectly to getting in contact with God, with oneself and to pray about the thing that are bothering us.

Our prayer will often consist of asking for what we need or want but it should also include praise and thanksgiving, pleas for forgiveness, strength to bring about reconciliation, or just to be with Jesus.

Let our prayer be: "Lord Jesus, grant that all my thoughts, intentions, actions and responses may be directed solely to your love and service this day and always."