Commemoration of the Holy Fathers of the first Six Ecumenical Councils; The Synaxis of the Holy Archangel Gabriel; Our Venerable Father Stephen the Sabbaite; Our Holy Father Julian, Bishop of Kenomane
Hebrews 13:7-16; John 17:1-13.
Read John 17:1-13
It’s impossible to be in two places at once. Every parent is acutely aware of this limitation. Through technology, multitasking sometimes gives us the illusion that we can be, but at the cost of how present we can be with the people we are with.
God, though, is omnipresent. He is “everywhere present and filling all things.” Unlike humans who are limited by physical location, God is not confined to any one place. But now divinity and humanity are forever united in Jesus Christ.
Looking ahead to his death, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost, Jesus prayed, “And now I am no more in the world, but (the apostles) are in the world, and I am coming to thee.” St. Paul wrote, “(We) are…built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:20-22)
How can our ascended Lord also be where we are? Through the Church. How can our ascended Lord be where others outside the Church are? Through us being with them. Jesus prayed for the Apostles, “that they may be one, even as we are one.” Our unity with the apostolic witness to Christ is so that those, “who were far off and…those who were near,” may no longer be, “strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” (Ephesians 2:17-19)