In today's Gospel we learn about Jesus' prayer for his disciples before His ascension to Heaven.
Holy Spirit, fill my heart and illuminate my mind. Help me to hear and understand God's message today. Help me to recognise when God is trying to speak to me in my daily life. Amen
Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying:“Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one. When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBAW9UEt3bA (Credit to Catholic Kids Media)
Say: Many young people, and even many adults, do things to try to make themselves popular. Most people do this because they want to be liked and accepted. Jesus taught us that there is something more important than being popular. He even said that his disciples might not be very popular at all.
Say: In today's Gospel, Jesus prays for his disciples, but he doesn't pray that people will like them. He prays for something more important. In fact, Jesus prays for three things.
Ask: What three things does Jesus pray for when he prays for his disciples? (that God will keep them united as Jesus and the Father are united; that God will protect them from the evil one; that God will keep them in the truth) What does Jesus think is more important than being popular in the eyes of the world? (their unity with one another and with God, following God's truth, avoiding temptation and sin)
Say: Sometimes we may face a choice between something we know will make us accepted by others and something we know to be right in God's eyes. When faced with such a choice, we can pray to Jesus to help us choose what will keep us united with God and with the community of disciples, the Church.
Conclude in prayer together that God will continue to protect us from the things that lead us away from God and the Church. Pray together the Lord's Prayer.
Father in heaven, for the conversion of sinners, we give you today, all that we think and do and say, and we join it with all that was done by Jesus Christ, your Son. Amen
