Commemoration of the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council; Octoechos Tone 1; The Holy Martyrs Probus, Tarachus and Andronicus; Our Venerable Father Cosmas of Jerusalem, Bishop of Maium and Composer of Canon. Our Holy Father Martin the Compassionate, Bishop of Tours.
Hebrews 13:7-16; John 17:1-13.
Read John 17:1-13
We are always walking in on something that is already going on. That can be hopeful or scary, fulfilling or disappointing. From the day we are born, people and activities, institutions and purposes are already there, active in ways that affect us. And we respond to opportunities to participate. Or not – that too is a kind of response. Even if we are excluded from participation, how we respond to that becomes an ongoing effect in our lives.
The theological term for God’s action always preceding human action is prevenient grace – grace the precedes. “In every good work, it is not we who begin…but God first inspires us with faith and love of Him, through no preceding merit on our part.” (Council of Orange, Canon 25) Faith, though a free act, results even in its beginnings from the grace of God, enlightening the human mind and enabling belief.
Jesus’s prayer in today’s gospel is a window into the workings of God prior to our faith in him. “Having”, “giving”, “receiving”, and “keeping” occur eighteen times. The Son had glory with the Father before the world was. The Father gave the Son authority, people, the apostles, work, and words. By that authority, the Son gives people eternal life; the Son gave the apostles the Father’s words. The apostles received the Father’s words and kept them. The Son kept the apostles and prays that the Father would continue to.
And now all that has come down to us. However challenging we may find walking into the various rooms of life to be, God and his work in us precedes us. “We love, because God first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) “Hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5)