ACC ~ John 17 v11c

A PRAYER OF THANKS FOR THE HOLY NAME

DIDACHE:

We give you thanks, Holy Father,

For your holy name which you

have caused to dwell in our hearts,

And for the knowledge and faith and immortality

Which you have made known to us

Through Jesus your servant;

To you be the glory forever. …

Remember your church, Lord,

To deliver it from all evil

And to make it perfect in your love;

And gather it, the one that has been sanctified,

From the four winds into your kingdom,

Which you have prepared for it;

For yours is the power and the glory forever.

DIDACHE 10.2-5.[1]

JESUS IS CERTAIN HIS PRAYER WILL BE ANSWERED

HILARY OF POITIERS: John, who especially brings out the working of spiritual causes in the Gospel, preserves this prayer of the Lord for the apostles that all the others passed over. Notice how he prayed, namely, “Holy Father, keep them in your name. … While I was with them, I kept them in your name: those whom you gave me I have kept.” That prayer was not for himself but for his apostles. He was not in sorrow for himself [1] since he asks them to pray that they won’t be tempted. … And when he prays, he prays for those whom he preserved, so long as he was with them, whom he now hands over to the Father to preserve. Now that he is about to accomplish the mystery of death, he begs the Father to guard them. The presence of the angel who was sent to him (if this explanation is true) is no doubt significant. Jesus showed his certainty that the prayer was answered when, at its close, he commands the disciples to sleep. [2] The effect of this prayer and the security that prompted the command, “sleep,” is noticed by the Evangelist in the course of the passion, when he says of the apostles just before they escaped from the hands of the pursuers, “That the word might be fulfilled which he had spoken, ‘Of those whom you have given me, I lost not one of them .’” He himself fulfills the petition of his prayer, and they are all safe. But he asks that those whom he has preserved the Father will now preserve in his own name. And they are preserved; the faith of Peter does not fail: it cowered, but repentance followed immediately. ON THE TRINITY 10.42. [3]

[1] Hilary here speaking of the cup Jesus asked to pass from him.

[2] Hilary may be reflecting a variant in Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts of Jesus’ prayer.

[3] NPNF 2 9:193*; CCL 62A:495-96.

[1]AF 261-63.