Jn 16: 23b-28
On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete. “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but will tell you plainly of the Father. On that day you will ask in my name. I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.
I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father.”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Drawing into Relationship
Today’s Gospel tempts us to attribute some sort of magical quality to Jesus’ name. Whatever I ask of God I get, so long as I mention Jesus? Is Jesus just our contact who gets us past the bouncer?
A priest I knew growing up often said this: “Names are important. They’re how we hold onto each other in conversation.”
Names, then, aren’t passwords. They’re relationships—or, the point through which we enter into relation with one another. And Jesus, the Christ, is God’s very self desiring to enter into relationship with each of us, demonstrating love and mercy, drawing near.
Before Jesus, God was distant. But the good news of the Gospel is that God is very close indeed. The heart of St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises reminds us of this truth: a friendship with Jesus brings us into the heart of God’s dream for the world.
It’s not magic; it’s a relationship.
—Eric A. Clayton is the author of Cannonball Moments: Telling Your Story, Deepening Your Faith, and the deputy director of communications at the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.
Prayer
Loving Jesus, you continue to invite us into an ever deepening relationship with you. Open my ears to hear you, and open my heart to respond more fully to you.
—Jesuit Prayer team