“They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.” // John 17:16-18
The summer before I left for college did not go the way I thought it would. My dad, formerly a fun-loving parent willing to do anything for me, could think of nothing but all the life skills I had yet to master. I remember it as weeks of changing car tires that were not flat, replacing the wax ring in a toilet (I have not attempted that one on my own), and balancing a checkbook (back when people used to do that with a pencil). There were renewed reminders about how one should answer a phone (“Hello, Dosé residence, Kendra speaking”) and whether one should call boys (no) and that one must always keep an up-to-date Thomas Brothers map in the car (praise the Lord for GPS).
It almost feels like Jesus is having the same sort of soft-launch panic over His disciples in today’s Gospel reading (see John 17:11b-19), running over all the ways He has tried to prepare them for life without Him in the world, and lamenting the trials they will face.
But guess what? My dad is still there for me for advice and encouragement and occasional bathroom repair projects, even though it’s been decades since I lived in his home. And Jesus is even more of a source of strength for His disciples after His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension than He was when they were in His physical presence.
Of course, Jesus’ words are for us today as well. Just like a good dad, Jesus teaches us and sends us out into the world to be in it, but not of it. And just as I’ve passed my dad’s lessons along to my roommates and friends and, now, my oldest three kids in a fit of enthusiasm before they left for college, we are called to share the Truth we have received from Jesus with the world.
Sister, take some time to pray with the words of today’s Gospel. How is He calling you to share His Truth with others today?
Kendra Tierney Norton is grateful to be a wife, mother, and stepmother. She lives in the wilds of unincorporated Los Angeles County in a big old fixer-upper house with her husband and a varying number of their combined fourteen children, plus one fish, two cats, and twenty chickens. She likes to say that her goal is keeping Catholicism weird. To that end, she is the author of books including the Catholic All Year Compendium: Liturgical Living for Real Life with Ignatius Press and O Come, Emmanuel: Advent Reflections on the Jesse Tree for Families with Emmaus Road Publishing, the creator of the TV series Catholic All Year At Home on FORMED, and the CEO of Catholic All Year, an apostolate dedicated to helping parents live out their Catholic faith and pass it along to their children.
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