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.
Jesus asked the Father protect his disciples just as Jesus himself protected them when he was present with them. The goal of this protection was "that they may be one" and the possibility of its realization was the same when Jesus was present as it would be after his departure, that being "the name that you have given me". The name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is only one name, hence we do not say 'the names of'. We know that when the Scriptures refer to a name they refer to something more than the syllables that are spoken to address a person. The name conveys the whole identity of the person. Thus, the name of the Triune God brings with it the life that God himself enjoys including his unity. On earth Jesus drew his disciples into unity by his being a living revelation of his Father. They were able to witness the interplay of love with his Father that marked the entirety of the life of Jesus. This drew them up out of their personal squabbles, their merely human commitments, and their pride, making friends out of those who would not naturally have affection for one another.
I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you,
and they will not spare the flock.
And from your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth
to draw the disciples away after them.
We see the reason Jesus prayer was so necessary in the prophetic words of Paul. From their own group men would come and pervert the truth thus putting the unity for which Jesus prayed at risk. And we see also in Paul that this unity was no mere dogmatic conformity, but was rather something deeper. Truth was a fundamental prerequisite. But it did not stop at cold definitions or doctrinal statements but resulted in true brotherly affection.
They were all weeping loudly
as they threw their arms around Paul and kissed him,
for they were deeply distressed that he had said
that they would never see his face again.
Just as Paul did we too will face challenges in the world. Some of them will be so overwhelming that we might wish that Jesus had prayed to take us out of the world. But he preferred that we remain to be his presence in the world, to be in the world but not of it. To that end he prayed for us that we would be protected from the chief architect of disunity in the world, the Evil One. He made it clear that on our own apart from this prayer of his we would be susceptible and at risk. Rather than leaving us in this condition he prayed that we be consecrated by truth and for truth, set apart from all lies, and protected from the Father of lies. Jesus himself set himself apart for the Father and for truth and he prayed to share this consecration with us. It was in fact a priestly consecration fully realized when he offered himself to the Father. And in this world of marked by sin and idols competing for our allegiance the consecration in truth always comes by way of sacrifice. The deepest truth is love, which means to be a gift to others. And in our world this means being the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies. It means taking up our crosses and following Jesus himself. This consecration for which Jesus prayed applied in a special way to the ministerial priesthood. But we remember that we are all called to be priests, offering our lives as spiritual sacrifices unto God for the world.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship (see Romans 12:1).
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light (see First Peter 2:9).
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