A Reading from the Gospel According to John
This was the gospel reading from Mass yesterday. I read it no less than three times to myself, fighting off more and more tears each time.
“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.” (John 17:6-11)
It didn’t much help matters that one of my students, Rana, a sprightly little thing, cradled my hand in one of her little mitts afterwards. At the end of Mass, she turned around and whispered “Goodbye, Chris” in about the softest, most tender voice imaginable. I know she didn’t intend the finality of it, because “goodbye” is one of the few English words Rana has mastered. The whole scene weighed on my heart.
Not exclusively in a bad way, though, if that makes any sense.