I pray not only for these,
but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
so that they may all be one
Jesus prayed for the unity of all of the future generations who would believe in his name. He did this because unity was more than a slogan or a superficial state of mob mentality, more than being together in a send crowd tending in vaguely the same direction. Unity was not a merely saccharine sentiment that might be produced by singing around a campfire. The union for which Jesus prayed was more than this, and required more of those who desired it.
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (see Ephesians 4:1-3).
The unity for which Jesus prayed would allow his disciples to work side by side with one another in spite of their individual shortcomings on the one hand and the opposition from the world around them on the other. It could only come as a supernatural result of his prayer for us in the form of the gift of the Spirit himself. Our frail humanity was not and could not be the guarantee of this union, but only the "glory" Jesus himself provided to make it possible.
And I have given them the glory you gave me,
so that they may be one, as we are one,
I in them and you in me
Jesus himself was profoundly one with the Father in heaven. He was never alone, even if all his earthly friends abandoned him in his hour of need. It was this union with his Father, the union who himself was the Spirit, that was now to be the basis for our own union by the bond of peace. It would only be in this way, by reproducing the fidelity of the Son for the Father by the gift of the Father to the Son, that we ourselves could be brought to perfection. And the visible shape of this perfection was unity, the "one" in "one holy catholic and apostolic".
that they may be brought to perfection as one
As it stands in our own day our visions of this supernatural unity among believers are often heartbreakingly brief. We may sometimes see evidence of it among small groups of committed disciples but it hardly defines members of the Church at scale. On the one hand, no wonder we aren't compelling witnesses. But on the other, there is a sense of hope to this, in the sense that there is a promise available and unclaimed. We can be sure that the will of Jesus for his bride is a real world possibility, and one which does not depend in the first place on our own perfection. Our starting place must be to desire for ourselves what Jesus first desired for us.
I made known to them your name and I will make it known,
that the love with which you loved me
may be in them and I in them.
Jesus wants to open wide the doors to his Father's love for us again today. He wants to lead us to where he himself lives in union with the Father so we can see the full glory he wants to reveal. Only then can that same glory can shine through us and transform the Church into a more visible sign of unity in the world. To the degree that happens we become compelling witnesses to the world that Jesus came from the Father.
When he said this,
a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and Sadducees,
and the group became divided.
The Pharisees and Sadducees demonstrated how worldly attempts to form common cause break down without grace and truth at the center making true unity possible. The disagreement and dispute became so serious that there was a legitimate concern that Paul might be torn to pieces. We see this lack of ability to come together all around us in the world in our own day.
May Jesus make his Church a place that is more and more united in truth, in Jesus himself, walking together on a pilgrimage where the destination is nothing less than the glory of the face of the Father. All who experience strife and discord have a hunger to see this and to taste it. And it is with precisely this that we as disciples are meant to entice and invite the world.
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