Reading I: Acts 1:12-14

These verses form a link between the ascension story and the election of Matthias. They presuppose the Lucan scheme, in which the Ascension is depicted as an event distinct from the Resurrection, and the coming of the Spirit as yet another distinct event, forty and fifty days respectively after Easter.

The “Upper Room” was certainly historical (see the Last Supper account and Peter’s return to the house of John Mark’s mother in Acts 12:12).

There are four lists of the Twelve in the New Testament: Mark 3:16-19; Matt 10:2-4; Luke 6:14-16; and the present passage, Acts 1:13. They contain slight variations in both the names themselves and in their order.

Even between the list in Luke’s Gospel and that in Acts there is one variation: in Acts, John is placed before James, probably because he is to appear later in Acts as Peter’s right-hand man.

By adding “and children” after “women,” the Western text took “women” to mean “wives.” Some think that the Western text was correct in its understanding of “women.” We know from Paul that Peter and other apostles were married (1 Corinthians 9:5).

This is the last appearance of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the New Testament. It is striking that our last picture of her should be as a member of the believing community engaged in waiting and prayer.

Granted the Lucan schematization, which separates the Resurrection, exaltation, and coming of the Spirit, today’s reading is eminently suitable for the period between the liturgical observance of Ascension and Pentecost.

This period Karl Barth once designated a “significant pause.” It is a pause between the actions of God, a pause in which all the community can do is to wait and pray.

It may seem paradoxical, but although the Spirit came, in Johannine language, “to abide with you [the community] for ever,” the Church nevertheless has to pray constantly, Veni, Creator Spiritus.

The gift of the Spirit is never an assured possession but has to be constantly sought anew in prayer.

Responsorial Psalm: 27:1, 4, 7-8*

A somewhat different selection of verses from this psalm is used on the second Sunday of Lent in series C. The first and third stanzas are the same, but the second stanza is new and the refrain is different (with Alleluia as an alternative, as always in the Easter season).

These changes throw the emphasis on the idea of waiting for God to act (the refrain) and on the notion of life in a praying community in the pause between Ascension and Pentecost.

Reading II: 1 Peter 4:13-16

The theme of waiting for the Spirit, which used to be expressed in the old epistle for this Sunday (1 Peter 4:7-11 in the Roman Missal and the Anglican and Lutheran books) is unfortunately lost in this selection. One wonders what is gained by the change.

This passage, unlike the old one, takes us into the second half of the letter, which appends to the baptismal homily a warning of imminent persecution. It comes from a period (under Nero? Domitian? Trajan?) when it was beginning to be considered a crime to be a Christian.

Christianity was by now recognized as a religion distinct from Judaism but was not classified as a religio licita. Consequently, Christians now had to suffer “for the name” at the hands of the state.

Gospel: John 17:1-11a

This reading is taken from the so-called high priestly prayer attributed to the Johannine Christ at the Last Supper. Some commentators, including Westcott and Hoskyns, have preferred to call it the “prayer of consecration” because in it the Johannine Christ is consecrating himself for his redemptive death.

He is offering himself to the Father as an obedient sacrifice, for in John “hour” means the hour of the Passion. Also, he prays that through his death the Father and the Son may be glorified—in other words, that the Father’s redemptive purpose may be accomplished in the Son.

This redemptive purpose is defined as the giving of eternal life to those whom the Father has “given” to the Son. A parenthesis or a sort of footnote by the evangelist himself further defines eternal life as knowledge of the Father and the Son. In the Johannine concept of eternal life, the emphasis lies not on that life’s duration but on its quality—a life in communion with the Father and the Son.

After the parenthesis the prayer resumes with the theme of glorification in the typically Johannine spiral fashion. But the idea is enlarged to include the earlier life of Jesus, prior to the Cross, and the further thought that the glory Christ receives at his exaltation is a resumption of the glory of his preexistant state.

Thus, the glory of the Cross cannot be seen in isolation but must be held together with the whole incarnate life, of which it is the ultimate expression, and with the preexistant life, which was a continuous act of God’s self-communication and revelation.

In its second paragraph the prayer continues to look back on Christ’s earthly work, especially the revelation that he had given to his disciples.

In the Johannine scheme, this must specifically refer to the farewell discourse at the Last Supper, since it is here that John gives Christ’s teaching to the disciples, though it may also include, to some extent, the signs in which the disciples saw his glory (John 2:11; cf. 6:68-69).

But it is the words of Jesus that constitute the main content of his revelation. These words are the words that the Father had given to him through his constant communion with the Father. In receiving these words as the words of the Father, the disciples have come to believe that Jesus is sent from the Father, that is, their response to the revelation that they have received takes the form of a christological affirmation.

All this is couched in Johannine language, yet it accurately reproduces what is true of the Synoptic tradition, and indeed of the historical Jesus. Historically speaking, Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God. This was the message that he had received from his Father in his baptismal call. And when men and women responded to it in faith, they “confessed” him, that is, acknowledged his divine mission.

The last part of our excerpt turns from Jesus’ ministry to the fate of the disciples after Jesus’ departure. Having received Christ’s revelation, they no longer belong to this world, but they still have to live in it.

This expresses in Johannine language the same idea as the Synoptic Jesus’ eschatological saying (Mark 14:25) at the Last Supper: “I will never drink of the fruit of the vine [implying that he was to leave them and that they would stay behind] until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God [that is, his glorification].”

In that saying he consecrated himself in his departure from them as the effective means of their participation in the kingdom of God.

Then, exactly following the pattern of the Johannine discourses, the prayer comes full circle, ending as it began. The opening words spoke of the hour of passion; the conclusion speaks of Jesus’ coming to his Father.

Copyright © 1984, 2006 by The Order of St. Benedict, Inc., Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. Used by permission from Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota 56321