“as you, Father, are in me and I in you”

 
In today’s Gospel, we see Jesus’s final prayer with His apostles. The final prayer takes place in the context of the Last Supper.  “When ‘his hour’ came, Jesus prayed to the Father. His prayer, the longest transmitted by the Gospel, embraces the whole economy of creation and salvation, as well as his death and Resurrection. The prayer of the Hour of Jesus always remains his own, just as his Passover ‘once for all’ remains ever present in the liturgy of his Church.”[i]
 
What does Jesus show us in this prayer? The Catechism teaches us that this final prayer reveals an immense about of things about Christ, His Mission, and the unity between the Father and the Son. In the final prayer everything is reset and focused on the centrality of Christ. “In this Paschal and sacrificial prayer, everything is recapitulated in Christ: God and the world; the Word and the flesh; eternal life and time; the love that hands itself over and the sin that betrays it; the disciples present and those who will believe in him by their word; humiliation and glory. It is the prayer of unity.”[ii]
 
“Jesus fulfilled the work of the Father completely; his prayer, like his sacrifice, extends until the end of time. The prayer of this hour fills the end-times and carries them toward their consummation. Jesus, the Son to whom the Father has given all himself with a sovereign freedom by virtue of the power the Father has given him over all flesh. The Son, who made himself Servant, is Lord, the Pantocrator. Our high priest who prays for us is also the one who prays in us and the God who hears our prayer.”[iii]
 
“Finally, in this prayer Jesus reveals and gives to us the ‘knowledge,’ inseparably one, of the Father and of the Son, which is the very mystery of the life of prayer.”[iv]
 
What is unity? “The condition or state of oneness, especially among persons. What ultimately unites people is their common beliefs or convictions, and their common desires and affections. Union is the state of uniting different people. It is their state of mind agreeing on certain ideas and of will attaching its desires or love to certain objects that unify.”[v] Unity is centered in common belief (reason) and common action (will). We are united in truth, a common belief that we assent to and know to be revealed to us by God. We are united in charity as we unite our will with the will of the Father. Thus, when Christians live what they pray, “Thy will be done” they are united in the will of the Father. There is only one will of the Father, therefore when the Christian united his will with the will of the Father, and other Christians united their will, those Christians are united in the bond of truth and charity. Unity is practiced when we pray, and then live “Thy will be done.” Disunity is practiced when we say and live “My will be done.”

How does Jesus show unity between Him and the Church? “‘Christ bestowed unity on his Church from the beginning. This unity, we believe, subsists in the Catholic Church as something she can never lose, and we hope that it will continue to increase until the end of time’ Christ always gives his Church the gift of unity, but the Church must always pray and work to maintain, reinforce, and perfect the unity that Christ wills for her. This is why Jesus himself prayed at the hour of his Passion, and does not cease praying to his Father, for the unity of his disciples: ‘That they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us,…so that they world may know that you have sent me.’”[vi]
 
What is the unity of the Catholic Church? “We would think it is the belief in God and the communion or unity of believers in Jesus Christ. In effect, this unity bestowed by the Holy Spirit does not merely consist in the gathering of people as a collection of individuals. It is a unity constituted by the bonds of the profession of faith, the sacraments and hierarchical communion. The faithful are onebecause, in the Spirit, they are in communion with the Son and, in him, share in his communion with the Father: ‘Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ’ (1 Jn 1:3).”[vii] However, if we are to follow Christ and Jesus said He desired for us to be one with Him “…then, the communion of Christians is none other than the manifestation in them of the grace by which God makes them sharers in his own communion, which is his eternal life. Christ's words ‘that they may be one’ are thus his prayer to the Father that the Father's plan may be fully accomplished, in such a way that everyone may clearly see ‘what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things’ (Eph3:9). To believe in Christ means to desire unity; to desire unity means to desire the Church; to desire the Church means to desire the communion of grace which corresponds to the Father's plan from all eternity. Such is the meaning of Christ's prayer.”[viii]
 
What unity does Jesus ask of us who believe? “The union he asked for us who believe was above all union with the Father and with the Son, the sole source of our mutual union. We are mature as Christians when we achieve a personal encounter with God, which then overflows into our personal encounter with our brothers…Jesus wants our union with God and among ourselves to be something so perfect that it reflects the union that exists between himself and the Father.”[ix]
 
What mystery does the Church teach about unity with God? Saint Jose Maria Escriva says it best: “Now we can understand better how…one of the principal aspects of her holiness is that unity centered on the mystery of the one and triune God. ‘There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all’ (Eph. 4:4-6).”[x]
 
Search: Peace: Unity in One
 
What did Jesus reveal to us in order to be with God from the prayer in the Gospel Reading?Jesus revealed that in order to be in complete unity with God the Father, we must strive to love the same way the Holy Trinity shows mutual love. “Christ has revealed to us all we need to know in order to participate in the mutual love of the divine Persons – primarily, the mystery of who he is and what his mission is and, with that, the mystery of God himself (‘I made known to them thy name’), thus fulfilling what he had announced: ‘No one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him’ (Mt. 11:27). Christ continues to make known his Father’s love, by means of the Church in which he is always present: ‘I am with you always, to the close of the age’ (Mt. 28:20).”[xi] As members of the Church we are to continue to enter into the mystery of who Christ is. We do this through prayer and liturgy, a sacramental life, and catechesis. We unite to the mission of Christ, by doing the work of the Church, which continues the saving mission of Christ. This is done through the works of mercy, a life of charity, and evangelization.
 
What is the unity between Jesus and God the Father? “Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father in relation his only Son, who is eternally Son only in relation to his Father: ‘No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’”[xii]
 
“Following this apostolic tradition, the Church confessed at the first ecumenical council at Nicaea (325) that the Son is ‘consubstantial’ with the Father, that is, one only God with him. The second ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in 381, kept this expression in its formulation of the Nicene Creed and confessed ‘the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father’.”[xiii]
 
What does “consubstantial” mean? “The Greek expression adopted at the Council of Nicaea is ‘homoousious,’ which is translated into English as ‘con-substantial.’ The Eternal Son, who was born of the Virgin Mary, is neither ‘like’ the Father nor ‘practically the same substance’ as the Father. The Eternal Son enjoys the very same substance as the Father. The Son possesses fully the Godhead of the Father. So today, the Church again confesses in the English rendition of the Creed that Jesus Christ is ‘consubstantial with the Father.’”[xiv] For many years, the English translation of the Nicene Creed said at Mass said “one in being with the Father” until 2011 when the Church changed it to the more literal and correct language “consubstantial with the father. The main reason is “one in being with the Father” does not translate “consubstantialem”. “The expression is too vague. Since God creates and sustains all that exists, everything in some sense can be said to be one in being with God. Not that everything is the divine nature but that everything outside of God remains dependent on the divine nature for its borrowed existence. The sameness that the Eternal Son enjoys with the Father is not like that. Instead, this sameness arises from the specific substance or nature of the Godhead. Catholic faith holds that each of the three Divine Persons share one and the same divine nature or substance. Just as the mystery of the Blessed Trinity stands at the heart of our belief, so also it grounds our salvation.”[xv] Humans are made in the image and likeness of God, we “borrow” or “share” in the substance of God, but we are not in essence or in substance God. We share in the divine life and have the divine life dwelling within us through our baptism, but we are not the divine life. God the Father cannot lose His essence or His substance; nor can Jesus, the Son, lose His essence. Humans, through mortal sin, can lose or give up the divine life that they share in. The divine life can be gained and lost, and gained again. We are only sharing in the divine life, we are not the divine life itself; it is a complete gift. Saint Thomas Aquinas says it best, “God became man, so that man can become like God”. The collect for the feast of the Incarnation says, “O God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and still more wonderfully restored it, grant, we pray, that we may share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.”[xvi] During the Liturgy of the Eucharist “the Deacon, or the Priest, pours wine and a little water into the chalice, saying quietly: By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”[xvii] How is it then that we share in divinity, share in the very nature or essence of God? It is only through the Son who shared in our humanity, so that we are able to share in His divinity.
 
How does God help keep us in unity with Him? He has given us the Holy Spirit. “Before his Passover, Jesus announced the sending of ‘another Paraclete’ (Advocate), the Holy Spirit. At work since creation, having previously ‘spoken through the prophets, the Spirit will now be with and in the disciples, to teach them and guide them ‘into all the truth.’ The Holy Spirit is thus revealed as another divine person with Jesus and the Father.”[xviii]
 
How is the Trinity unified in this mission? The Holy Trinity has always been the model of unity. The Holy Trinity is an external exchange of love. Father the lover, Son the beloved, and Holy Spirit, the shared loved. The people of God are called into this love and have been called since the beginning. God worked to unify the people of Israel. He brought them out of slavery and exile time and time again. He then sent His only Son to unify the whole world. Finally, He sends the Holy Spirit to keep the Church His Son, Jesus Christ, founded from perishing into Hell. “The Spirit is sent to the apostles and to the Church both by the Father in the name of the Son, and by the Son in person once he had returned to the Father. The sending of the person of the Spirit after Jesus’ glorification reveals in its fullness the mystery of the Holy Trinity.”[xix]
 
Was Jesus speaking only for the unity of just the apostles? No. Jesus’ final prayer was for the apostles, and all those who would be called throughout history to follow His mission. “Jesus unites them to the mission he received from the Father. As ‘the Son can do nothing of his own accord, ‘but receives everything from the Father who sent him, so those whom Jesus sends can do nothing apart from him, from whom they received both the mandate for their mission and the power to carry it out. Christ’s apostles knew that they were called by God as ‘ministers of a new covenant,’ ‘servants of God,’ ‘ambassadors for Christ,’ ‘servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.’”[xx]
 
What does each of these titles tell us about the role of the Church? 
 
Is it possible to have perfect unity here on earth? No, it is not possible because we reach full oneness with God only in the beatific vision in heaven. This does not mean we can feel some unity here on earth, and we should not stop striving for unity with Him. “Nevertheless, absolutely perfect union exists only in heaven; on earth it is impossible for it not to feel the limitations of the creature. Still, it is a goal toward which we need to strive without ever tiring, by continually calling for divine help. ‘Come, Lord Jesus’ (Rev. 22:20; 2^nd reading) is the last cry of Scripture and the unceasing sigh of the Church, as it awaits the final return of the Lord, calling upon him continually to come to sustain and strengthen the unity of her children.”[xxi] As mentioned earlier, “Prayer…reminds us that unity, ultimately, is a gift from God, a gift for which we must ask and for which we must prepare in order that we may be granted it.”[xxii]
 
We pray in the Our Father, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We do strive for unity and peace. We also strive to have earth be as much like heaven as possible, but this earth, this temporal life will never be heaven, eternal life. Humanity can share or borrow from divinity, but humanity will never be completely divine. In like manner, earth can share or borrow in the likeness of heaven, but will never completely be “heaven on earth.” There is a false teaching called liberation theology that claims that we can have “heaven on earth”.
 
What is liberation theology? “Originating in Latin America, liberation theology has held as its main concert the exploitation of the poor, but it also seeks to defend the rights of minority and ethnic groups and to support women’s liberation. It is, therefore, a theory of deliverance from the injustices caused to people by the power structures of modern society. It is a new approach to theology, and its leaders urge a reinterpretation of the Christian faith to concentrate on the main task of the Church today, to deliver people everywhere from the inhumanity to which they are being subjected, especially by those in political power. Accordingly all the main doctrines of historical Christianity are to be reassessed and, if need be, revised. Christ becomes an inspired human deliver of the weak and oppressed; God’s kingdom centers on this world, and not on the next; sin is essentially social evil and not an offense against God; the Church mission is mainly sociopolitical and not eschatological; and objective divine revelation is subordinated to personal experience.”[xxiii]

[i] CCC 2746
[ii] CCC 2748
[iii] CCC 2749
[iv] CCC 2751
[v] Hardon, Modern Catholic Dictionary pg. 553
[vi] CCC 820
[vii] 9, Ut unum sint
[viii] ibid.
[ix] Divine Intimacy Vol. II, pg. 235
[x] J. Escriva, Homily on “Loyalty to the Church”
[xi] The Navarre Bible Commentary, St. John pg 209
[xii] CCC 240
[xiii] CCC 242
[xiv] Fr. Romanus Cessario, Magnificat, February 2011, Vol.12, No. 12, pp. 5-8
[xv] ibid.
[xvi] The Roman Missal – Mass of the Day, Feast of the Incarnation
[xvii] The Roman Missal
[xviii] CCC 243
[xix] CCC 244
[xx] CCC 859
[xxi] Divine Intimacy Vol. II, pg. 236
[xxii] John Paul II, General Audience, 17 January 1979
[xxiii] Hardon, Modern Catholic Dictionary