SEVENTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Year A

Readings

First Reading
Acts 1:12–14

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 27:1, 4, 7–8

Second Reading
1 Pt 4:13–16

Gospel
Jn 17:1–11a

Meditation on Today’s Readings

Taken from the Vatican II Sunday and Weekday Missal
Written by Celia Sirois

The Gospel for today excerpts the first part of the prayer of Jesus on the night before he dies. He has just talked at length of his departure, and the air is heavy with dread of the hour that will change everything. So he prays, anticipating the hour that will finally, fully reveal the Father’s glory and give eternal life to his disciples. That life, he says (in what most commentators think is a gloss), consists in “knowing” the one true God and the one whom he sent—knowing, not intellectually but intimately, as the Son knows the Father. He does not pray for the world, however, but for the disciples who must remain in the world without him. This is not a rejection of the world, but a realistic assessment of the vulnerability of his disciples. Their hope in a hostile world lies in the fact that they belong to the Father. This same hope moves Peter in the second reading to declare blessed those who suffer in Christ’s name.

The selection from Acts finds Jesus’ followers also prayerfully anticipating an hour that will change everything. In this time between Ascension and Pentecost, so must we wait and pray.

The copyright for the Sunday Missal Introductions is:
Copyright (c) 2001, Daughters of St. Paul
The copyright for the Weekday Missal Introduction is:
Copyright (c) 2002, Daughters of St. Paul