Each year as we approach the celebration of the Solemnity of Pentecost Mass during the sixth week of Easter, we hear excerpts from the high priestly prayer of Jesus at Mass. The high priestly prayer of Jesus is the longest recorded prayer of our Lord in the Gospels, filling the entire seventeenth chapter of The Gospel of John. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says of this prayer:

2747 Christian Tradition rightly calls this prayer the "priestly" prayer of Jesus. It is the prayer of our high priest, inseparable from his sacrifice, from his passing over (Passover) to the Father to whom he is wholly "consecrated."

Jesus prayed this prayer on the night of the Last Supper, as he prepared to “go to” his Father through his death, Resurrection, and Ascension. Although he's now already at the right hand of the Father, preparing a place for us in our heavenly home, this prayer gives a beautiful window into how he is praying for our eternal life even now in Heaven. This prayer reveals Jesus’ own intimate relationship with his eternal Father, the relationship we are called to share through grace. By reflecting on it, we discover the glory of union with God that awaits those who follow Christ. One of my professors in grad school, Sr. Timothy Prokes, FSE, went so far as to say that God would have given us more than enough if he had only given us this one chapter of Sacred Scripture.

Although I couldn't possibly plumb the depths of this prayer adequately in one article (I spent about a third of my book, Remain in Me: Scriptural Reflections on Growing as a Disciple of Jesus, examining this prayer), I'd like to highlight just a few lines.

Now this is eternal life,c that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ. (John 17:3)

When Jesus speaks of the eternal life that he offers us, he does not mention pearly gates, fluffy clouds, or harp playing angels. Instead, he promises that those who follow him will know the Father. Catholic tradition refers to this heavenly knowledge of God as the “beatific vision” (CCC 1028), the only thing that can fully satisfy our human hearts. Because God himself is perfect beauty, perfect truth, perfect goodness, and perfect love, only the communion with him that Jesus offers can satisfy the longing of our hearts. Every thought, word, and action of this life should be directed toward gaining this beatitude, this perfect happiness.

I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. (John 17:9-10)

Consider this extraordinary truth: Jesus prayed for you and laid down his life for you two thousand years ago. Like St. Paul, each of us can say, “[T]he Son of God ... has loved me and given himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20). Now Jesus continuously prays for you by name from his heavenly throne. Both then and now, Jesus prays that we will be kept in the Lord's “name.” Baptized “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19), we have been immersed into the life of the Trinity as sons and daughters of the Father, members of the body of Christ, and temples of the Holy Spirit, and Jesus prays that we will persevere in this new life.

Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24)

These words express Jesus' very last request, his “dying wish.” Jesus, who is eternally “at the Father's side” (John 1:18) in the Blessed Trinity, desires us to be with him. St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, a young twentieth century French Carmelite, understood this better than most. She reflected, “He wills that where he is we should be also, not only for eternity, but already in time, which is eternity begun and still in progress... The Trinity – this is our dwelling, our ‘home,’ the Father’s house that we must never leave.” This is the entire reason that the eternal Son of God came among us and is the central message of these Last Supper Discourses: By giving us his Holy Spirit, Jesus wants us to remain in him, so that we can share his life, his love, his joy, and his glory both now and forever.

Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me. 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.”

Jesus concludes his high priestly prayer by bringing together some of the themes that have been found throughout: the Son knowing the Father, the Father sending the Son, the Son making known the Father, and, of course, the love between the Father and the Son. Jesus wants us to be filled with his own Father's love. As St. Paul's letter to the Romans declares, “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). The Holy Spirit, who is the love of God in person, gradually changes our hearts, inspiring us to cry out with the Son, “Abba, Father!” (Galatians 4:6) The Spirit empowers us both to know God’s love for us and to love him in return. This same divine love is meant to overflow into our love for others, so that we become more like Jesus in this life, so that we can share his glory in eternity.

Because I've just scratched the surface of the Great High Priestly Prayer of Jesus in this article, I encourage you to take some time to read and reflect upon the rest of the prayer sometime this week.