Jesus’ ‘priestly prayer’ sums up creation, salvation

Article 178 - Catechism of the Catholic Church Series

Paragraphs 2746-2758

What people often miss when reading or reflecting on the Priestly Prayer of Christ in Saint John’s Gospel (17:1-26) is the fact that it contains, unlike the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus’ longest recorded prayer. Highlighted by scholars as one of the most profound theological and spiritual documents in the entire New Testament, Jesus prays this prayer after He finishes His final instructions to the disciples and before He is betrayed, arrested, and crucified.

 

Jesus prays:

1. “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your Son, so that your Son may glorify you, 2. just as you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him. 3. Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ. 4. I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. 5. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began. 6. “I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7. Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, 8. because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. 9. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, 10. and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. 11. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are. 12. 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.13. But, now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. 14. 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. 15. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. 16. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. 17. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. 18. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. 19. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth. 20. I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21. so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. 22. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23. I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me. 24. Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25. Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me. 26. 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.”

 

Perhaps this lengthy “Priestly Prayer of Jesus” should be referred to as “The Lord’s Priestly Prayer,” while the “Lord’s Prayer” should be referred to as “Christ’s Prayer to the Father” or “The Our Father.”

The Catechism speaks of this “Priestly Prayer of Jesus” as “the longest transmitted by the Gospel embracing the whole economy of creation and salvation, as well as his death and Resurrection” (CCC 2746). In this prayer, we discern that “Jesus fulfilled the work of the Father completely; his prayer, like his sacrifice, extends until the end of time. The prayer of this hour fills the end-times and carries them toward their consummation” (CCC 2749). We see here that “everything is recapitulated in Christ: God and the world; the Word and the flesh; eternal life and time; the love that hands itself over and the sin that betrays it; the disciples present and those who will believe in him by their word; humiliation and glory. It is the prayer of unity” (CCC 2748). As the traditional hymn for Trinity Sunday puts it: “Undivided unity, Holy God, mighty God, God immortal, be adored!”

The Catechism continues: “The Son, who made himself Servant, is Lord, the Pantocrator. Our high priest who prays for us is also the one who prays in us and the God who hears our prayer” (CCC 2749). What is the Pantocrator? Pantocrator means ruler of the universe – Priestly King of the universe!

Hence, Christ’s “priestly prayer fulfills, from within, the great petitions of the Lord’s Prayer: concern for the Father’s name; passionate zeal for his kingdom (glory); the accomplishment of the will of the Father, of his plan of salvation; and deliverance from evil” (CCC 2750).

In short, Jesus’ lengthy “Priestly Prayer” “sums up the whole … of creation and salvation. It fulfills the great petitions of the Our Father” (CCC 2758).

Father Hillier is director, diocesan Office of Pontifical Mission Societies, the Office for Persons with Disabilities and Censor Luborum.