Sunday, May 24, 2009

Consecrated in Truth

Today, some U.S. Catholics will be observing the Seventh Sunday of Easter. Others will be observing the Feast of the Ascension.

Catholics here in the Archdiocese of New York are observing the Seventh Sunday. So, at the Mass I attended (the 12:45 p.m. Mass in English at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral), we heard a gospel passage in which Christ prayed to God the Father on behalf of his disciples.

From John Chapter 17:

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying:

"Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one.

"When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

"But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.

"I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one.

"They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth."

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