Holy Father, keep them in your name

Acts 1:15-17.20-26
Psalm 103:1-2.11-12.19-20
1 John 4:11-16
John 17:11-19

My dearly beloved, today, we celebrate the Seventh Sunday of Easter year B and as usual, Jesus Christ calls us to himself expression his love for us to the point of rendering his priestly prayer to the Father for us and for our unity and wellbeing. The Gospel reading gives us an insight into the priestly prayer of Jesus Christ where he prayed for our oneness. "Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me that they may be one, even as we are one.’’ He prayed for oneness, for the unity of Christians and that none of them may be lost. Here, we see and experience the ultimate and unconditional love that Jesus has for us, not wanting us to be scattered, to be lost, but to be united in love. We are bearing witness to Jesus in a world that does not regard him for anything good, a world that has a contrary way of life opposed to the Gospel, a world that has rejected him. We, the followers of Christ should not, in any manner be influenced by the world's way of life. Because of greed and tilting towards the world's way of life, we have witnessed so many divisions between the Christendom, there is much division among Christians and by so doing, making a mockery of and speaking down to the prayer of Jesus for the oneness and togetherness of his followers. In our second reading today, we are given a way to remedy this situation of division that is gradually and steadily tearing us apart and making us so vulnerable and helpless before other religions. This remedy can be attained by just love; loving one another as Christ has loved us:

Brethren if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. Just as Christ loves us, our love for one another must be sacrificial, and sincere too. Without love, we cannot be the witnesses of Christ that we are all called to be, and so, to be an authentic witness to the gospel of Christ, and in order to achieve the goal of the mission of Christ entrusted to us, we must necessarily love one another. We must allow love to overwhelm and conquer us in everything we do.
This sincere love drives us towards the genuine display of a great sense of justice, of fairness and equity in handling the affairs of the Church and those of the society.

In the first reading, after Judas Iscariot had left the brotherhood by betraying his master, Christ, and eventually taking his own life, we hear how Peter, together with the other remaining apostles found a replacement for him (Judas Iscariot.) They had two candidates and from these two, one was to replace Judas. The apostles knew that this was a hard but necessary task for them, they understood the limitations of human reason and the mistakes in human choice making, they knew that they cannot do it all by themselves and through their own power, and so came the necessity to pray and hand the whole affair to God. They turned to God in prayer and eventually, a choice was made. Brethren, for every plan that we do not call God into, we fail woefully, we end up having F9 as our score, in all of them, but so long as we keep inviting God in prayers to our plans, we keep on excelling in all we do. Even Jesus himself was always praying to, and communicating with the Father before embarking on any mission, for example, before he began his public ministry and mission, knowing that he needed some people (men) to walk and work with him, he prayed to God for forty days and nights before choosing them. There is always a greater need for us to always pray and present our plans, our set out goals to God before carrying them out, just like the apostles did in our first reading and were blessed with success, satisfaction and fulfillment. Have you realized that the times you succeed in the things you have done is because God was involved. What plans do you have for the remaining part of the year? What are you waiting for? Why not take them to Jesus to help you actualise them? The apostles did so and they succeeded, you can also do so and success will await you.

-PadreCharlesLwanga