The Words You Gave to Me May 30

Piety

Jesus, how much have you told me that I fail to embody in my action. I have much more formation needed on the road ahead.

Help me to accept the words you spoke at face value and not put my meaning and interpretation in your mouth.

Help me to truly understand the words that you have given to me – not just the easy messages but the queasy messages as well because they are hard and challenge prevailing personal and cultural beliefs.

As Paul professed, we don’t know what lies ahead. However, we will go forth to the Ultreya you have planned for us. Amen.

Study
http://www.usccb.org/nab/053006.shtml

“Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood.” John 17:6-8

Today, we hear Jesus begin to deliver the climax of his last discourse to the disciples. In the next chapter, he is heading out to the garden to pray as the Passion unfolds.

There are passages in this prayer with amazing similarity to what Jesus has said before as well as passages that depart from the earlier preaching of Jesus.

Similarities go back to the beginning of John’s Gospel. Thinking back to the opening of the Gospel (John 1:1-5), we recall:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

While on one hand, Jesus reinforces all these messages, now Jesus also veers off his earlier messages. In the beginning, he told the disciples to “Follow me.” Now, as Jesus fulfills God’s work on earth, he encourages and urges the disciples to follow God. Eternal life is “know[ing] you, the only true God.”

Jesus is perfect communication. He took the word from God and passed it directly to the people of God. The words Jesus gave to the disciples were accepted and understood. Perfect communication with God is just another way to express piety.

Jesus is perfect knowledge because he informed all humanity so we can know God, the only true God and Jesus Christ. Perfect knowledge of God is another way toward formation.

Jesus is perfect life, coming to be directly through the actions of the Father and carrying out the mission of the Father – “by accomplishing the work that” the Father gave Jesus to do. Perfect life is apostolic action.

Right there from the beginning to the end of Jesus’ life as expressed in John’s Gospel are the three cornerstones of Cursillo. Who said this movement started in Majorca in the 1940s? Cursillo finds its perfection in Christ.

Action

If the weekend talking heads are any indication, the immigration debate is far from over.

Although the USCCB praised the legislation passed in the Senate last week, leaders in the House and in its Judiciary Committee have vowed to fight on issues of secure boarders and more.
The U.S. bishops view the immigration bill that passed last night in the Senate as a critical first step in reaching a comprehensive approach to dealing with the challenges of the nation’s immigration system.

“While the U.S. bishops’ Conference does not agree with each and every provision in the Senate bill, we applaud its comprehensive approach and believe it contains many of the elements necessary to help solve the problems associated with our country’s current immigration system,” said Bishop Gerald R. Barnes of San Bernardino, California, Chairman of the Bishop’s Committee on Migration.[1]

The U.S. bishops’ continue to support immigration reform legislation that requires 1) a workable and viable path to citizenship for undocumented people, 2) significant backlog reductions for family-based visas, and 3) a viable temporary workers program that protects both U.S. and foreign- born workers.

Keep urging the members of your hometown and home state Congressional delegation to support these principles.

[1] http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2006/06-107.shtml