By Pater Inutilis

The present chapter is now the 5th in St. John’s gospel recording for us Our Lord’s words at the Last Supper. Christ, though, has given His disciples all they can bear for the moment (16:12), and now addresses His Father—but still out loud, that by this prayer of His they might yet believe the more (11:42). He will pray for Himself (vs. 1-5), for His disciples (vs. 6-19; 24-26), and for those who will believe, thanks to the preaching of these disciples (vs. 20-26).

God is infinite Being, Truth and Goodness. Glory is excellence known, proclaimed and admired. The perfection of the godhead each Person sees, and delights in, in each Other. This is the eternal glory of God; it is the Son’s too, by divine right. In the Son, though, this was obscured before men (but not the Father, Who loves Him—vs. 23 & 26), when He “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant… He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:7f). Now this “hour is come” (vs. 1). God Incarnate has wanted, and worked for, the glory of His Father. “I have glorified thee on earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” (vs. 4). To glorify God is to make known His perfections, and so provoke to love Him. “I have manifested thy name” (vs. 6 & 26; cf. 1:18). It is only right that the Son, too, receive divine glory before men, as within the Trinity: “And now glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with thee” (vs. 5). This will, of course, but redound to the glory of the Father (vs. 1). Our Lord’s Passion, when “He humbled himself,” is already a glorification (12:23 & 32f; 13:31f): it is a manifestation of God’s love. “In this we have known the charity of God, because he hath laid down his life for us” (I Jn. 3:16). How much more is not Jesus’ “exaltation” (Phil. 2:9-11) the answer to this His prayer? “And we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father” (1:14; cf. I Jn. 1:1-3). To acknowledge and embrace this glory is the last end of every rational creature. “Now this is eternal life: that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (vs. 3). “Father, I will that where I am, they also whom thou hast given me may be with me; that they may see my glory which thou hast given me,¹ because thou hast loved me before the creation of the world” (vs. 24). The glory of the Saints will be the same divine perfections received and radiated by them, even Christ Himself in them: “That the love wherewith thou hast loved me, may be in them, and I in them” (vs. 26).

This glory of God in Himself and in His Saints being the end of creation, it is what Jesus Christ prays for firstly, for Himself and for His disciples. For these, it begins already to the degree that they are with Christ. The Apostles have received His words, they have believed in Him (vs. 8). They cannot yet come with Him (13:33). Hence, “now I am not in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to thee” (vs. 11). This is “expedient” for them (16:7). And so, “I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world” (vs. 15). Their adherence to Christ in the face of the opposition of the world also glorifies Christ. “I am glorified in them” (vs. 10). This “world” is not that of verses 5 and 11, but that of verses 9, 14 and 16: “men” who serve mammon rather than God (Mt. 6:24), whose prince is Satan (14:30); or the principles inspiring these men (I Jn. 2:15f). It is not for them that Jesus is praying now (vs. 9)—though “if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just” (I Jn. 2:1). He is praying for the Eleven, those who are the Father’s and the Son’s (vs. 9 & 11). He asks: “keep them in thy name” (vs. 11), and “that thou shouldst keep them from evil” (vs. 15) and “sanctify them in truth” (vs. 17); and thus that they receive “eternal life” (vs. 2). “For them do I sanctify myself”—set myself apart as a consecrated sacrifice—“that they also may be sanctified in truth” (vs. 19)—set apart as His worthy ministers to the world (vs. 18). This will be their glory, and His. There is, though, “one of the twelve” (6:72) who is of the world: he has chosen to serve mammon (12:6) and so be Satan’s (13:24). Judas is “lost,” “the son of perdition,” as foreknown and foretold (vs. 12).

The Apostles sent into the world will bear much fruit (15:8 & 16), and Our Lord prays “for them also who through their word shall believe in me” (vs. 20). For them He asks an unity, like unto His with the Father in the same one divine nature (vs. 21 & 23). This can only be when the same one Son, together with the Father and the Holy Ghost, abides in each branch of the vine (14:23 & 17; 15:4f). The principle of unity is God Himself. But this unity will also be manifest to the world, an incentive to believe in Christ (vs. 21 & 23). To be visible humanly, Christ’s disciples will have to be one (10:16) in mind (II Jn. 10) and heart (13:35), in government (10:16; 21:15-17), and prayer and the sacraments (I Jn. 5:8).²

This whole “Discourse after the Supper” finishes with a fitting last word: “I have made known thy name to them” (vs. 26). To make known the Father is to glorify Him—and this is Jesus’ principal motive in all He says and does. The consequence, for those who receive this word, is an idea underlying this entire discourse: “that the love wherewith thou hast loved me, may be in them, and I in them” (vs. 26). This is charity: a love of God in Himself and of God in one’s neighbor. It’s God loving Himself in and through us. And so may be fulfilled His new commandment, “That you love one another as I have loved you” (13:34).

Endnotes

¹ In His divinity, by being the Son begotten (1:14), the Word spoken (1:1); in His humanity, by His coming to the Father (vs. 11 & 13), His Ascension (3:12f).

² “Careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. One body and one Spirit; as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all” (Eph. 4:3-6).