A reading from the holy Gospel according to John
Jesus said to the disciples: “I have told you this in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures but I will tell you clearly about the Father. On that day you will ask in my name, and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have come to believe that I came from God.”
Jesus speaks to the disciples in ways that at the time must have seemed unclear and mysterious. Having spoken to them about his relationship to the Father through parables and figures of speech, he tells them that this will no longer be. Instead, he will tell them clearly. As the incarnate Word, Jesus is God in the flesh among them, who speaks truth into existence and is love itself. To help the disciples understand, Jesus says he will return to the Father to send the Advocate, who will teach them all things. “Whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you,” Jesus tells the disciples. The Father who loves them is the same Father who loves us and hears whatever we ask in Jesus’ name.
God, help me understand today’s Gospel. What is obscure, Jesus wants to make clear; what is spoken in figures of speech, he wants to make manifest. In returning to you, Jesus sends the Advocate to bring to the heart a living understanding of the relationship of the Son to the Father. Give me the grace, Lord, to receive the Advocate. Grant me clarity of mind to recognize that I am an adopted son brought into this same love that you make accessible every moment of the day and in the life to come in the eternal light of your face.
Be by my side today, Lord. Help me call to mind that I can ask anything in your name. As Jesus said to the disciples, so he says to me so that I remain in him: “Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.”
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.