John 16:23-28

Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete. “I have told you this in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but I will tell you clearly about the Father. On that day you will ask in my name, and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have come to believe that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”

Opening Prayer:  Dear Jesus, as the Church prepares to celebrate your Ascension into Heaven, allow me to listen to your parting words with a profound desire to treasure them in my heart. Enable me to enter into the Father’s heart and practice childlike confidence in his love for me.

Encountering Christ:

1. Whatever You Ask the Father in My Name, He Will Give You: Throughout his public ministry, Jesus spoke of his relationship with the Father from a place of total security in the Father’s love. A man like us, he lived his life in loving trust in the Father and in absolute reference to him. He experienced unshakeable certainty that the Father listened to his every prayer and would not deny him anything he asked. In the last hours of his life, when every word counted, what was foremost on his mind was his desire that his beloved Apostles might discover the joy of absolute reliance on the Father whom he had always known. He invited them to “cast out their nets” in faith, to dare to entrust their deepest needs and desires to their heavenly Father in his name.

2. Ask and You Will Receive, So That Your Joy May Be Complete: It is as though Jesus were begging us to ask him to grant our hearts’ deepest longings. His heart longs to give to us. He has created us capable of a relationship with him, and it is his greatest joy that we should choose this relationship. He loves to see his children finding and choosing the greatest source of joy that our hearts could ever find. He opens his heart wide and cries to us, “seek, beg, ask… and you will receive.” Our asking is the way we respond to God’s love, our heart’s reaching out in faith and trust, our conscious decision to rely on God rather than ourselves. And when we open our hearts in this way, asking God to lead us to the fulfillment of our deepest desires, we can be sure that he will lead us to the fullness of joy in him.

3. The Father Himself Loves You: At the Last Supper, as he spent those last, intimate moments with his Apostles, Jesus’ heart burned with the desire to share that which was dearest to him with those he loved. One of those things most on his heart was his desire that his own might know the Father as he did, that he might be able to transmit to them his unshakeable trust in his Father’s love. Gathered around the table in that upper room, Jesus shared with them just how precious they were to the Father. He wanted them to know that because they were his own, the Father looked upon them and saw his Son, loving them with the same love with which he loved Jesus.

Conversing with Christ: Dear Jesus, thank you for revealing the Father to me and for showing me the unthinkable dimensions of his love for me. Grant me the faith to act on your words and entrust my life and my deepest desires to the Father’s care. I want to discover what it means to live in childlike trust and to rely on God as my Father, not only in word but also in deed. Teach me, divine Master.

Resolution: Lord, today by your grace, I will present my most pressing needs and desires to the Father, asking him in your name to take charge of those areas of my life which it is hardest for me to entrust to him.

For Further Reflection: First verse of “God is Love,” by Chris Renzema:

How great this love

Oh, it's moving all my mountains

It's perfect love

It's casting out my fear

How great this love

Oh, it welcomes me like family

And anywhere I go

It meets me there