Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
May 18, 2021
Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
Lectionary: 298
Reading I
From Miletus Paul had the presbyters
of the Church at Ephesus summoned.
When they came to him, he addressed them,
“You know how I lived among you
the whole time from the day I first came to the province of Asia.
I served the Lord with all humility
and with the tears and trials that came to me
because of the plots of the Jews,
and I did not at all shrink from telling you
what was for your benefit,
or from teaching you in public or in your homes.
I earnestly bore witness for both Jews and Greeks
to repentance before God and to faith in our Lord Jesus.
But now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem.
What will happen to me there I do not know,
except that in one city after another
the Holy Spirit has been warning me
that imprisonment and hardships await me.
Yet I consider life of no importance to me,
if only I may finish my course
and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus,
to bear witness to the Gospel of God’s grace.
“But now I know that none of you
to whom I preached the kingdom during my travels
will ever see my face again.
And so I solemnly declare to you this day
that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you,
for I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God.”
Responsorial Psalm
R. (33a) Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth.
or:
R. Alleluia.
A bountiful rain you showered down, O God, upon your inheritance;
you restored the land when it languished;
Your flock settled in it;
in your goodness, O God, you provided it for the needy.
R. Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Blessed day by day be the Lord,
who bears our burdens; God, who is our salvation.
God is a saving God for us;
the LORD, my Lord, controls the passageways of death.
R. Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I will ask the Father
and he will give you another Advocate
to be with you always.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said,
“Father, the hour has come.
Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,
just as you gave him authority over all people,
so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him.
Now this is eternal life,
that they should know you, the only true God,
and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
I glorified you on earth
by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do.
Now glorify me, Father, with you,
with the glory that I had with you before the world began.
“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.
Now they know that everything you gave me is from you,
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.
I pray for them.
I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me,
because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours
and everything of yours is mine,
and I have been glorified in them.
And now I will no longer be in the world,
but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.”
Reflection: THE TASK OF EVANGELIZATION
One of the significant themes in the gospel of John is the mission - God the Father is offering the gift of salvation through His only begotten Son, Jesus. However, the evangelist John presents Jesus as the one who draws his disciples as partners in the salvific mission of the Church. In today's gospel, Jesus entrusts his disciples with the task of continuing the work of evangelization. Jesus does this entrustment though his prayer to the Father which encompasses a wide range of elements. The prayer begins with the time that has arrived for the Son to glorify God, leading to the glorification that the disciples are called to embrace. This prayer also touches upon the aspect of the knowledge of God which comes from the Word that has incarnated in the world, challenging the disciples to testify to the world. The prayer concludes with a tone of unity of disciples which is needed to accomplish the task of the evangelization in the world. This calls for a sense of total abandonment to the Will of God, and a surrender to His plans. To this end, Jesus shows the path that he has trodden, and points us in the direction we are to journey as disciples in the world. All this is to be done in a true manner of giving-like God who gave us His Son Jesus, like Jesus who offered his total life kenosis, and the Holy Spirit who gives us all of the Father in abundance. God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit held nothing back.