What would you say in your farewell prayer from this world? This might be felt like a mind-boggling question to respond but this is what we encounter in today’s lesson from St. John’s Gospel. What we hear this morning is the concluding part of what’s known as the Farewell Discourse of Jesus which includes Chapters 14 to 17. This is a different version compared to Jesus’ prayer at Gethsemane from the Synoptic Gospels of Sts. Mark, Matthew, and Luke where he prays, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want but what you want…My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” (Matthew 26:39b, 42)
Before we delve into his Farewell Prayer or sometimes known as the High Priestly Prayer, let’s remind ourselves of his farewell teachings because they continue in his intercessory prayer as well. In summary, as I understand it, he focuses on the two main themes: the coming of the Holy Spirit and his command of love of God and neighbors. These two themes for Christians are interconnected and interdependent in that one cannot be complete without the other. As we receive the Holy Spirit, we are empowered to love God and our neighbors. In this act of love with the help of the Holy Spirit, we become one with one another and God. Jesus’ farewell prayer precisely reflects this oneness through love. This also tells us what he would like to see for himself and leave behind for those he loves. This love is the way into the oneness with all which connects every single one of us, the living and the dead. This oneness created by love, however, does challenge us since it includes those we don’t want to be associated with for whatever reasons. We probably have good enough reasons to distance ourselves from them. Whether we like it or not, this love embraces all, and we genuinely desire to follow it and live it out. What should be dealt with first is how we understand love, which seems to be an obstacle to the way of love. Usually, we presume to know what it means and assume we all have the same understanding. If we follow a dictionary definition of love, it generally means to feel deep and tender affection for someone. As Nancy spoke about in her homily on 5/15, love is not merely a feeling. I would push it a bit further that it doesn’t even require any affectionate feeling at all, to begin with. Think of love in two ways. Suppose there are two requirements to be qualified as love. One requirement is to have goodwill and good intentions for someone and to wish that person the best. This means that we hope that person stops harming others and oneself but finds true joy and happiness that doesn’t depend on others’ suffering. The other requirement is to be open to the possibility of that person’s change of heart so that we can reconstruct and reframe our relationship with a changed version of that person. In other words, we keep our hope and longing for a reconciled relationship that is no longer harmful. These two requirements are applied from St. Thomas Aquinas’ understanding of love but are more specified in that the second requirement is not just our desire for union with the beloved. While we make ourselves open to a renewed relationship with someone who has hurt us, we expect that person to have a change of heart. This is indeed conditional but it is conditioned by the goodwill we have for that person because without that person’s own effort and action to change, we end up allowing harmful behaviors to continue, which would do more harm to others. Fulfilling these two requirements to concretely love someone doesn’t make our act of love any easier but certainly clearer. There are two steps to follow which would eventually lead us to be more loving and compassionate to others. How we take these steps then is our spiritual practice of contemplation. In this contemplation, we work with our breath for one biblical reason. As we breathe in and out mindfully, we receive the breath of God, the Holy Spirit breathing through us. We don’t merely breathe the air in and out but actively accept and allow the Holy Spirit to flow through our being. We’re consciously patterned and shaped by the flow of the Holy Spirit. This gives us the energy to have goodwill and good intentions for others, especially those who hurt us and to hope for a reconciled and renewed relationship with that person. As we breathe in and out the breath of God, which is the same breath Jesus breathed, we are opening ourselves to infinite possibilities of change in ourselves and others. In the moment of our human breath united with the divine breath, we are one with Christ. There’s no limit, no boundary, but the infinite goodwill and openness of God are available for all of us. Let’s not forget that we ourselves are included in Jesus’ farewell prayer. He continues to pray for us to be at one through the act of love. The way to join his prayer is to actively love and to train our minds by letting our breath dance with the breath of God. Jesus’ farewell prayer, after all, is an invitation to love without ceasing because he loves just like that even now. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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