The Feast of Ss Edmund Campion, Robert Southwell and Companions | Friday 1 December 2023

Today is Friday 1 December, the feast of Saints Edmund Campion, Robert Southwell and Companions, in the 34th week of Ordinary time.

Pause. Slow down. As you hear Bifrost Arts singing, ‘O God, Will You Restore Us”, can you make these words your own?

O God, will You restore us, and grant us Your salvation?
I will hear what God proclaims
The Lord our God proclaims peace
Kindness and truth shall meet
Justice and peace shall kiss
“Here is the fast I choose –
To loosen the bonds of the oppressed and break their chains
Let righteousness and justice go out before you
Then you will call out and I will hear”
Near indeed is His salvation to those who call on Him
He will incline is ear and hear their prayers
Truth shall spring out of the earth
and Justice will rain down from heaven
The Lord will guide you on a righteous path
His vindication will shine down forth as the dawn
Your people will be called repairers of broken walls
making straight the path to proclaim His reign!




Today’s reading is from the Gospel of John.

John 17:11-21

And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

 ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

We eavesdrop on a mighty prayer. Jesus’ intimate conversation with God, His Father, in the hours before His arrest. How must he be feeling in the pit of his stomach at what lies ahead? Every fibre of his being filled with dread. And, in the depth of those feelings, he turns to prayer.

What a prayer! Jesus is praying to His Father not only on the disciples’ behalf, but on our behalf too. We’re in there! How does it feel to know that the Lord understands our struggles on the faith journey, and feels that struggle deeply enough to pray for us?

As you hear the passage again, listen out for how Jesus prays very specifically for his disciples.

You could use his prayer as a model for your own prayers for others. Whom do you know in need of God’s protection today, for example?

As this time of reflection draws to a close, you might want to ask God to help you to pray in a deeper way.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.