aeternus

Today we heard in the Gospel Jesus’ High Priestly prayer where He lifts His eyes up to heaven and pours out His heart interceding between humanity and His Father in Heaven. With this beautiful prayer he is trying to teach us what IS and what IS NOT important. He is teaching us about LOVE. Unselfish, unblemished, pure, holy LOVE! Boy, if we could just get our simple little minds around this concept and see the big picture of our lives only through this perspective of love!

Jesus knows His time is short and so he prays to His Father in earnest to watch over the souls of the Earth and to protect them from the evil one. As Jesus was Divine, He was also man, and in His humanity He knew just how hard it was going to be for us all. He says that as He is consecrated in the Father, so may we be consecrated in the Father through Jesus. This consecration, of course, is through love.

Jesus says to His Father:

“They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth…. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, 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.”

Is this not the best news of the day?!! Let us not think of the world and its backward ways, but think of the truth and the beauty which is Jesus Christ our most perfect Savior in love. He tells us we do not “belong” to this world. That is the truth and it is to be trusted. If we realize that our souls are only on a journey and one day we will all be One in the Father with Jesus, what could trouble us? When you encounter any trouble today, just keep saying in your mind… I do not belong to this world, I do not belong to this world, I do not belong to this world…

Really truly this is great news.  Chapter 17 of John’s Gospel is just so “Carmel” as it talks about all the best Carmel subject matter like “perfection” and “not belonging to the world” – I’m psyched!

Here is yet another beautiful view of a pond on the grounds of Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina. I have a few more to share…