Called to Friendship
There is no relationship more intimate, more precious, than the friendship between the Trinity of Persons. This is the friendship that God invites us into.
The following homily was preached to the student brothers during Compline. You can listen here or read below:
Reading: John 17:20-26
When a friend speaks intimately to a friend, they tend to set themselves apart, going to a secret place, or whispering so low that no one else would hear what they are saying.
Sometimes it is not so much that what they say are embarrassing. But I think, more than that, this is because the thoughts or sentiments revealed from the heart is meant for the other person alone—a gift intended for no other.
There is no relationship more intimate, more precious, than the friendship between the Father and the Son, or the fellowship between the Trinity of persons. Yet, our Lord has chosen to disclose his heart-to-heart conversation with the Father to His Apostles and to us.
Why? How could this be?
From all eternity, God has willed that we, too, should enter into the intimacy of this friendship.
“Father, I desire that those you have given me
will be with me where I am,
so that they may see the glory you have given me
because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”
This is the Christian Vocation. God became man and Christ died for our sins not only to take away our sins, but more principally, to carry us into the Bosom of His Father where He is and from where He proceeds, that we may see God face to face. At the end of the day, this is the One thing necessary. This is our dignity, and the dignity of all those to whom we are called to preach.
Yet how easy is it for us to forget, to forget our own dignity, the dignity of our brethren, and the mission to which you and I and all the baptized Christian are called.
But Christ knew this, and so He prayed. We know that His prayer comes at the end of his last discourse with His Apostles and before His passion. The Apostles did not understand. They were confused, troubled, and sad. One had gone out to betray him; another would deny Him three times; all of them would run away. Yet, knowing all of that, Christ still prayed for them, and He prayed for us. He knows that we, too, would betray him, deny Him seventy times seven, and run away at the first sight of cross.
He prayed for His wavering Apostles and for us not simply for protection, to get through, but above all, that in persevering we may share in His Divine Friendship and behold His glory.
Therefore, even though the way we are still might look almost nothing like what we shall become, we may yet hope, rejoicing in sharing in the cross of Jesus, carrying on His work of sanctification without glamour and returning to Christ day after day on our bended knees. We dare to hope because God has loved us first; He who loved us first has laid down His life and prayed for us.
Father, I desire that those you have given me
will be with me where I am.
Image: Duccio di Buoninsegna, Christ taking leave of the Apostles (c. 1308-1311). Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
