Tuesday 3 June 2025 - The hour has come

Tuesday 3 June 2025

Today is Tuesday the 3rd of June, the feast of St Charles Lwanga and Companions, in the 7th week of Eastertide.    The Choir of Royal Holloway sings, ‘One in Christ’.    When we were still far off you met us in your Son and brought us home.  Dying and living you declared your love and opened the gate of glory.  Today’s reading is from the Gospel of John.    John 17:1-11a  After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.  ‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.  This reading finds us almost at the end of Jesus’ great discourse to his disciples, on the night before he died, and we find ourselves eavesdropping on the prayer he makes to his Father. Jesus said, “Father – the hour has come”. Imagine you are with Jesus as he says these words... what stirs for you as you hear these words? Not knowing exactly what is to come?   Jesus speaks of “those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word”. Stay with imagining yourself with Jesus here... how does it feel to hear him praying about you?     Now listen as the passage is read to you once more. Does anything in it really touch your heart?  John 17:1-11a  After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.  ‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.  Finally, see if you can bring together now all the thoughts and prayers that have come to you during this time, and turn them into a prayer to God, in your own words.  Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.   As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be  World without end  Amen