......"so that they may be one, as we are one, I in you and you in me......"

……..“so that they may be one, as we are one, I in you and you in me……”

Part of the “high priestly prayer” that Jesus addresses to His Father.  (Jn. 17: 22b - 23a).  Words so profound that one needs to absorb the meaning in a manner that may exceed any human understanding.

An experience that transcends our knowledgable existence.  The essence of becoming one with the infinite existence of Almighty God, once being present only to the Holy Trinity, now open to humanity in a supernatural manner.  To separate from a mundane format into an abstract reality that takes our belief in the Paschal Mystery into a faith that knows no limit.  

This is the Mystical Body of Christ that Jesus professes to His Father saying, “I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”  (Jn. 17: 26).   A statement that has transcended from the material world of doubt and fear to the new life that Jesus promised his disciples before and during His Ascension.  We are part of that through Apostolic Succession and recipients of the Holy Sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church.

Herein there is no other way to share this mysterious element of complete absorption with the Eternal God than through the Catholic Church and her Sacraments.  Only then will the words found in the “high priestly prayer” Jesus prays to His Father make any sense, even in a mysterious way.      

The way to intimately know someone is to spend time in their company, learn their likes and desires for a better world, and become one with them in a way that shows this is a lasting friend-ship that knows no bounds.  This is part of the deep relationship we can develop with Jesus Christ, an intimate friend, a loving God, and one who promises to be with us as he is with his Father, and they are with us.  We have been invited into that life-giving reality by nothing but trust and acceptance of God’s love and dependence on him alone.   

Ralph B. Hathaway, June 2019