Year C / Eastertide / Week 7 / Sunday
Readings: Acts 7.55-60/ Psalm 96.1-2b, 6, 7-9c, 9 (R/v 1a and 9a) / Revelation 22.12-14,16-17, 20 / John 17.20-26
Sisters and brothers, have you considered the power of prayer?
Jesus teaches us not to underestimate it. He says, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you" (Matthew 17:20). This is why St Paul instructs Christians to “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests" (Ephesians 6:18).
No matter who is praying, the conviction behind the prayer, or its purpose, God alone answers prayers. His answers are not always a ‘yes’ to what we ask for but they are always in our best interest. When we pray that God’s will be done, we give God permission to do what God needs for us. So be careful what you pray for!
Prayer is communicating with God. Consider how we praise and worship God, share our lives with God, and entrust ourselves to God. Consider what we ask for in prayer: petition and protection, wellbeing and happiness, forgiveness and redemption. Consider even more what we want to hear from God – that God loves us.
And haven’t we experienced God communicating with us? Mothers in particular readily testify to the power of prayer. They know God answers their prayers for so many things, so many people. A healthy delivery. Their children’s success, and sometimes, conversion. Their family’s well being. Their peace of mind.
There is however one prayer all mothers, ours included, pray for: that we remain close to Jesus by living good Christian lives. They pray we remain united with God.
Jesus makes this same prayer for unity in today’s gospel passage. “Holy Father, I pray not only for these, but for those also who through their words will believe in me. May they all be one.” He prays this for his disciples and those they will baptise – and for us too. Jesus’ prayer “that all may be one” expresses the unity, the communion, he and the Father share.
A mother I know prays this same intention. Out of love, she prays for her children to remain one with God and Jesus. Indeed, where there is love, there is unity with God and one another.
Unity is what our world is urgently in need of. So much of our world is spoiled, soiled and stained because people divide, even tear, each other apart. Stubborn family members refuse to forgive. Hateful words end long-standing friendships. Self-righteous believers divide our church by judging who Jesus will save and will not save. Countries use tariffs to dominate and divide. Conservatives and liberals fighting each other for their selfish agendas harm, pain and destroy civil society.
What is needed are actions that unite. Building bridges instead of putting up walls. Reaching out and welcoming instead of turning away and shutting out. Listening to understand instead of lying to demonize. Forgiving to reconcile, not hating to ignore and hurt. As Christians, we’re called to do all these.
For Pope Leo, Christians must “want to be a small leaven of unity, communion and fraternity within the world.” We must want to be like Jesus who unites and brings peace to all. He adds, “We want to say to the world, with humility and joy: Look to Christ! Come closer to him! Welcome his word that enlightens and consoles! Listen to his offer of love and become his one family: in the one Christ, we are one.”*
Readings: Acts 7.55-60/ Psalm 96.1-2b, 6, 7-9c, 9 (R/v 1a and 9a) / Revelation 22.12-14,16-17, 20 / John 17.20-26
Sisters and brothers, have you considered the power of prayer?
Jesus teaches us not to underestimate it. He says, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you" (Matthew 17:20). This is why St Paul instructs Christians to “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests" (Ephesians 6:18).
No matter who is praying, the conviction behind the prayer, or its purpose, God alone answers prayers. His answers are not always a ‘yes’ to what we ask for but they are always in our best interest. When we pray that God’s will be done, we give God permission to do what God needs for us. So be careful what you pray for!
Prayer is communicating with God. Consider how we praise and worship God, share our lives with God, and entrust ourselves to God. Consider what we ask for in prayer: petition and protection, wellbeing and happiness, forgiveness and redemption. Consider even more what we want to hear from God – that God loves us.
And haven’t we experienced God communicating with us? Mothers in particular readily testify to the power of prayer. They know God answers their prayers for so many things, so many people. A healthy delivery. Their children’s success, and sometimes, conversion. Their family’s well being. Their peace of mind.
There is however one prayer all mothers, ours included, pray for: that we remain close to Jesus by living good Christian lives. They pray we remain united with God.
Jesus makes this same prayer for unity in today’s gospel passage. “Holy Father, I pray not only for these, but for those also who through their words will believe in me. May they all be one.” He prays this for his disciples and those they will baptise – and for us too. Jesus’ prayer “that all may be one” expresses the unity, the communion, he and the Father share.
A mother I know prays this same intention. Out of love, she prays for her children to remain one with God and Jesus. Indeed, where there is love, there is unity with God and one another.
Unity is what our world is urgently in need of. So much of our world is spoiled, soiled and stained because people divide, even tear, each other apart. Stubborn family members refuse to forgive. Hateful words end long-standing friendships. Self-righteous believers divide our church by judging who Jesus will save and will not save. Countries use tariffs to dominate and divide. Conservatives and liberals fighting each other for their selfish agendas harm, pain and destroy civil society.
What is needed are actions that unite. Building bridges instead of putting up walls. Reaching out and welcoming instead of turning away and shutting out. Listening to understand instead of lying to demonize. Forgiving to reconcile, not hating to ignore and hurt. As Christians, we’re called to do all these.
For Pope Leo, Christians must “want to be a small leaven of unity, communion and fraternity within the world.” We must want to be like Jesus who unites and brings peace to all. He adds, “We want to say to the world, with humility and joy: Look to Christ! Come closer to him! Welcome his word that enlightens and consoles! Listen to his offer of love and become his one family: in the one Christ, we are one.”*
Praying like Jesus can bring these about. It makes real what love does. It unites and unifies. It reconciles God and humankind and restores them to right relationship.
Praying like Jesus humbles us to follow his teachings and live in God’s ways. Praying like Jesus lets him lift up our gaze to God instead of looking down in confusion and despair. Praying like Jesus lets him help us to forgive like he does and be at peace with God and others.
Praying like Jesus forms our hearts to be like Jesus’ heart - meek and humble. This enables us to live and serve like Jesus. Then, we can touch the unclean, bless the unbelievers, feed the hungry, embrace the poor, chastise the powerful and so bring about God’s reign on earth.
Indeed, our prayer can make the unity Jesus prays for real and alive in our midst.
In a world that confronts, challenges, even chides us, for wanting a relationship with God, to pray like Jesus demands we take a long hard look at what must really matter in our relationship with God and with one another. It must be communion. If not communion, what then?
Communion is why Jesus the Good Shepherd seeks out the lost sheep and brings it home. It is also how Jesus brings us together to receive him in communion, side by side with those we judge sinner, those we call enemy, those we despise, those who have hurt us, those we pray to God we don’t want to meet ever again in our lives.
If Jesus’ action to include others – even more, save them – disturbs you, give thanks. Because this is how he cracks open our hard hearts, tears down our walls that exclude and divide, broadens our fixed mindsets and narrow-mindedness and corrects our self-righteousness. He does this to save us from sinning.
Jesus does because too often we bluff ourselves that he is praying exclusively and only for you and me, for the chosen and baptised, for the obedient and saintly to be one with God, for us Christians only.
Jesus is not. On earth, he prayed for all to be one with God, especially, the most wretched, the most despised, the most unredeemable. Now ascended, he sits at the Father’s right hand and continues this prayer because everyone is God’s beloved, God’s own.
This is why we should consider the power of prayer. Be it here at Mass, on Fridays at the Devotion to the Sacred Heart, as family at rosary or friends on retreat, we communicate to everyone the power of God, even more, his presence when we pray. Often, this power invites others to pray too. I noticed this when onlookers pass us by as we’re celebrating Mass here at Sacred Heart or outside, by the road, at Mary’s Shrine. They’d stop and look. Some will pray. Then, they’ll move on. Whether they’re Christian and non-Christian, seeing them do this, I’m reminded that we’re all together united in God’s holy presence.
Isn’t this the power of prayer we should imitate Jesus and ask God for – that all may be one? If you agree, let us pray for unity and peace. Shall we?
*Pope Leo, Homily, Inauguration Mass, 18 May 2025
Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
Photo: The Archdiocese of Los Angeles
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