These couple of days, the gospel has been from St John, telling of Jesus praying for His disciples before going to His passion and death. Today's is the last excerpt we'll hear, and in particular it presents us with Jesus praying not only that His disciples should be one with Him, but that all of us too are included. That they might be one with Him as He is with the Father - how often does that prayer and variations on it occur in these pages of the gospel ?

For Jesus it's evidently an urgent prayer, His deepest desire for the friends He's chosen to bring God's message to the world. It's a prayer of deepest love for them, and for us. Only love longs so desperately to be so united with another. Its intimacy is such that He speaks of the Father being "in Him", and He "in" the Father. Can we even begin to imagine or appreciate what He's wishing for us, what a depth of personal love?

He prays that we might be one with each other too, deeply love each other, since He's shared His own and the Father's love with us. And through all this, that people might learn to know not just about God, but to know God's love for them.

In prayer, in life, hopefully we sometimes can catch glimpses of this tremendous love, God's for us, and ours for each other. Jesus prayed that He Himself might be "in" us, as the Father in Him.