Accepting the graces of our past
John 17:11B-13,17-19
Lifting up his eyes to heaven,
Jesus prayed, saying: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given
me, so that they may be one just as we are one… Consecrate them in the
truth. Your word is truth. As you sent
me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for
them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”
Do you ever look back at your youth
and shake your head in disbelief at some of the things you did? Heck, sometimes, I shake my head at some of
the things I did yesterday! I often
think of that classic scene from the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed are walking home
from a dance and it’s very romantic. The
moon is hanging low, love is in the air, and the young couple is lost in
conversation. Suddenly, an older man
watching them from his front porch shouts, “Ah, why don’t you go on and kiss
her?!” Jimmy Stewart yells back, “I’ll
show you some kissing that’ll put some hair on your head!” Then the old guy says, “Ah, youth is wasted
on the young.” What a great line, “Youth
is wasted on the young.” As we reminisce
over our life, we may feel some of our youth was wasted when we were young. As he neared the end of his life, St. Thomas
Aquinas received a glimpse of the Beatific Vision; he saw God. That experience prompted him to say,
“Everything I have written is like so much straw compared to what I have
seen.” Maybe Aquinas looked back at his
life an shook his head at what he had written.
Whenever I hear today’s gospel
passage, I smile. When I was ordained I
had a small card made to remember the occasion.
On the back of the card I had quoted this gospel from John 17: “Consecrate
them in the truth. Your word is
truth. As you sent me into the world, so
I sent them into the world. And I
consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in
truth.” Now I think: Seriously? That’s the best Scripture verse I could come
up with for my ordination?? Of course,
there are no “bad Bible verses,” but couldn’t I have picked a more catchy
quote?
I think we have to be very careful
not to be too hard on our youth, not to be too critical of our past. We can be guilty of “chronological snobbery,”
where we judge the past too harshly because of all the mistakes we made and how
much more we know today. Maybe back in
the day we did the best we could with the graces God had given us, and that’s
okay. Be careful not to fall into the
temptation to wish you could go back and change your past. Indeed, isn’t it precisely all your choices –
both the good and the bad – that have made you the person you are today?
Maybe it was everything Aquinas had
written – all that straw – that prepared him to glimpse the Face of God. Maybe it was all the mistakes the old bald
guy had made as a kid that helped him see that youth is wasted on the
young. Maybe John 17 is the best
Scripture quote for an ordination card, at least it is for my ordination card,
“Consecrate them in the truth.”
Praised be Jesus Christ!
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