He's really into you

Deep down, all of us want to be loved.

Many of us long to fill an empty place within our hearts that we sometimes keenly feel but never seem to be able to touch.

Yet often we are confused: seeking sensual pleasure and excitement yet never being fully satisfied or laying our deepest hopes on human shoulders that can never bear that burden.

Perhaps no one has expressed this desperate quest of the heart as well as St. Augustine: "Unlovely I rushed heedlessly among the lovely things..." (Confessions X,27)

Nor perhaps has anyone expressed as well as Augustine the ultimate answer to this quest: "...O Lord.... thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee." (Confessions I,1)

Yet the actual fulfillment of this quest of the heart has never been more wonderfully expressed as in today's Gospel (John 17:20-26), when we hear from the very lips of the One in whom we find that perfect fulfillment, that absolute contentment, that complete communion, that infinitely intense love, and deepest ecstasy: Jesus our Lord, our Savior, and our Lover.

"I pray not only for these,
but also for those
who will believe in me through their word,

so that they may all be one,
as you, Father, are in me
and I in you,
that they also may be in us,

that the world may believe that you sent me.


"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.


"Father,
they are your gift to me.

I wish that where I am
they also may be with me,

that they may see
my glory that you gave me,

because you loved me
before the foundation of the world.


"Righteous Father,
the world also does not know you,
but I know you,
and they know that you sent me.


"I made known to them your name
and I will make it known,

that the love with which you loved me
may be in them
and I in them."