"Now I'm leaving the world and going back to the Father". For Jesus, this is His great joy but His disciples don't see it that way. For them, they're 'losing' their Master and friend, and they're going to have sorrows and troubles while this world rejoices - Jesus has just told them so. But He also promised a joy to come, a joy that will be complete when they've received from the Father what they've learned to ask for in Jesus' own name. Not only will He bring their prayers to the Father, but He wants them to go directly to the Father themselves.

Throughout the gospels, Jesus often refers to the Father, and is presented as praying to His Father. Especially in the four long chapters of St John's gospel before the story of the Passion, we hear Jesus not only talking intimately about His Father but also hear His own personal prayer, asking and praying for His friends.

His intimacy is to become theirs (and ours too). It's because the Father Himself loves them (and us) because they came to love Jesus and believe in Him as God's Word. As this is Jesus' wish for us, perhaps we might ask how seriously we take His word in our prayer, by daring to speak directly to our Father? How rich is the "Our Father" we say so often! But how often do we savour it?