
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.
-John 17:1-5
John tells us that even in death Jesus prays for God’s glory, so that he can glorify God, as he did on earth with the promise of eternal life: “that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” In glorifying Christ in his life, death and resurrection, we receive is the gift of eternal life.
John’s passage is like a prism informing the Eucharistic prayer and illuminating the role of the Holy Spirit in the Holy Trinity.
“Through him, with him, and in him in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, for ever and ever.” This is the heart of the Eucharistic prayer, that in the mystery of the consecration, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are unified in the Holy Trinity. Sister Benedicta of the Cross calls it the prayer of the Church, of the ever-living Christ prayer. She writes in Before the Face of God, “All praise of God is through, with, and in Christ.
Through him, because only through Christ does humanity have access to the Father and because his existence as God-man and his work of salvation are the fullest glorification of the Father;
with him, because all authentic prayer is the fruit of union with Christ and at the same time buttresses this union, because in honoring the Son one honors the Father and vice versa;
in him, because the praying church is Christ himself, with every individual praying member as a part of his Mystical Body, and because the Father is in the Son and the Son the reflection of the Father, who makes his majesty visible.”
Jesus us teaches we can know God for all time, through him, with him and in him in union with the Holy Spirit, living the prayer of the Church as the ever-living body of Christ.
This is the great gift and the joy of Easter.
Musical Reflection - God So Loved the World - Stainer St. Paul's Cathedral Choir
Through with and with him and in him in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours Almighty Father. Amen.
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