The Gospel readings for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for this 7th week of Easter are best taken together. They make up the seventeenth chapter of St John's Gospel. They present us in prayer form the concerns that were in the heart of Jesus as he was about to leave the Supper Room for Gethsemane and Calvary.

While he prayed for "all people" he prayed in particular for those present in the Supper Room and all those others who worked with him in his mission to make present the Kingdom of God among the men and women of first-century Jerusalem, Judea and Galilee.

Strikingly, however, he prayed explicitly for those generations to come and who would believe in him because of the words of the disciples present in the room and of their successors. In short, he prayed for you and for me, believers as we are in him. He prayed that we would be united, and that is very important in this divided world. He prayed too that we would see him clearly, personally in his glory in heaven. What a thought it is to have in our minds for the day.

When we tell our friends that we are praying for them, they are happy. We are delighted and consoled when we know that they are praying for us. What a boost it is for us when we realize that Jesus prayed for us and is praying for us. How real are those words of the hymn, "What a friend we have in Jesus!"