Daily Gospel Reflection
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May 25, 2023
Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying:
“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.”
Today, Jesus prays for you and me. At the end of his most intimate conversation with his Father the night before his Passion, Jesus remembers, petitions, and thanks the Father for entrusting us to his care.
Most importantly, he expresses his desire for communion with us, that we may not merely overhear his prayer as outsiders but participate in its offering by becoming so close to him as to become one with him in the same way that he is one with his Father. You and I are gifts given by the Father to the Son and returned by participation in Christ’s sacrifice to the Father in an eternal cycle of generative, cruciform love.
When we are consoled by the reminder that our lives are gifts—that we are “worth more than many sparrows” (Matt 10:31)—we position ourselves as receivers.
Today’s gospel, however, reminds us that we are not merely the recipients of grace and glory but are ourselves received by Jesus as gifts from the Father. We cherish our givenness in every sense of the word by cooperating with grace to imitate the divine giver. For the kind of transcendent unity Jesus desires for us can only be achieved through true repentance and acts of self-sacrificial love.
Then, let us pray with Jesus to be drawn into deeper communion with him and with all who seek him, especially when we find it most difficult to discern his presence in our divided hearts and world. Amid our desolation, may we, following the words and example of St. Teresa of Calcutta, nevertheless come to “know how much God is in love with [us]” and, in turn, “live [our] live[s] radiating that love.”
Prayer
Loving God, you call us your beloved daughters and sons. May your Spirit inspire us to believe this. Help us to believe this in our neighbor so we may truly all be one in Christ. Grant this in the name of Jesus, your Son, and our Brother. Amen.
Saint of the Day

St. Gregory VII was one of the great reforming popes of the Church. He turned the political order upside down, going so far as to excommunicate kings, and suffered greatly because of his convictions.
He was born in Italy in the 11th century and baptized with the name Hildebrand. He had an uncle who led a monastery in Rome, and went to live with him to receive an education. He was such a bright student that he was asked to become an aide to one of his teachers, John Gratian, who was elected to the papacy.
Hildebrand continued serving the papacy even after his mentor died and others were elected to the see. He was placed in charge of economic affairs and restored order to the city and brought stability to the Vatican’s treasury. He was great friends with another reformer of the time, St. Peter Damian.
Many saw Hildebrand as being a powerful man behind the curtains, and were not surprised when he was chosen as pope in 1073. He chose the name Gregory VII in honor of his mentor, who had the name Gregory VI.
Many of the kings of Europe at the time were poor rulers, corrupt and cruel, and many of the leaders in the Church were no better. Positions of status in the Church were sold or given as gifts; clerical celibacy was disregarded and many priests lived openly as married men. Gregory spent the rest of his life driving these impurities from the Church.
After his election, he immediately went to work opposing married priests and those who used Church positions to be wielded as a prize. His decrees struck to the heart of a system of power and favoritism that ruled the day, and he was thrown into political machinations from all sides. He had few allies, and was even kidnapped for a short time once while he was presiding over Christmas Mass.
His defining act was to excommunicate Henry IV, emperor of Germany. Eventually, Gregory was forced into exile, where his health began to fail; he died in 1085. On his deathbed, he forgave all of his enemies. “I have loved righteousness and hated sin,” he said with his dying breath. “That is why I die in exile.”
A symbol of the reforming and justice-seeking pope stands on the exterior of the Eck Hall of Law, and his image is used here with permission from Catholic.org.
Pope St. Gregory, you died in exile for seeking justice and righteousness above everything else, pray for us!