Consecrated In Truth

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed, saying: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one. 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. But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. 

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. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the Evil One. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.” (John 17:11-19)

The “Our Father” has great meaning when it is prayed.  I always focus on “deliver us from evil.”  How does that happen?  The Evil One is always prowling and tempting.  How do we resist this creature?  Answer: always seek and demand the truth!  Otherwise, we fall into the Evil One’s clutches.  

Jesus knew the truth.  He knew that those who speak the truth will be hated.  He knew that the Word of God was the truth.  Do we know the truth such as: we must be one as Jesus and the Father are one?  

Unfortunately, too many of us are divided in our thinking and loyalties.  Therefore, those of us who are divided do not know the truth. We are not one with the Son and the Father.  We do not share their joy. Rather, we feel the need to hate each other.  Jesus weeps when we refuse to be consecrated in truth and hate overwhelms love and compassion.

Deacon David Pierce