Last spring, one of my friends, who happens to be a missionary from FOCUS at my school, shared this reflection during a talk she gave at a retreat. Whether you are preparing to start another year of school or have been out of school for many years, I want to share it with you all now. For me, leaving the “Catholic bubble” of my home life to spend the school year at a state university challenged my faith in many ways. I know that for some of you, school is more of a “Catholic bubble” than being at home, and some of you haven’t been to school in quite a long time. Either way, the reflection I am about to share with you is applicable, because no matter your situation in life, you are called to be a missionary disciple to a world that desperately needs the message of Christ, yet so often rejects and despises the Word of God. 

This reflection comes from the Gospel of John, chapter 17, when Jesus is praying over his disciples at the Last Supper. It is quite long, but I encourage you to copy it down in your journal anyways, if you have one (if not, use a random notebook or printer paper or whatever you have on hand). Replace the blank spaces with your name and use your own pronouns. Then, if you can, take it to Adoration. Imagine Jesus praying over you, saying the words written here. Sit with Him a while, and ponder them. Then thank Him for His love, for choosing you to be one of His disciples, and ask Him for the grace to stay strong in your faith and to share God’s love with those around you.

“I revealed Your name to ______, whom you gave me out of the world. He/She belonged to You, and You gave him/her to Me, and he/she has kept your word. Now he/she knows that everything You gave Me is from You, because the words You gave to Me, I have given to him/her. And he/she accepted them and truly understood that I came from You, and he/she has believed that You sent Me.

I pray for ______. I do not pray for the world but for the one You have given Me, because he/she is yours, and everything of mine is yours, and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in him/her. And now I will no longer be in the world, but ______ is in the world, while I am coming to You. Holy Father, keep ______ in your name that You have given Me, so that he/she may be one just as We are. 

When I was with ______, I protected him/her in your name that You gave Me, and I guarded him/her….but now I am coming to You. I speak this in the world so that ______ may share my joy completely. I gave him/her your word, and the world hated him/her, because he/she does not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that You take ______ out of the world, but that you protect him/her from the evil one. He/She does not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate ______ in the truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, so I sent him/her into the world. And I consecrate Myself for him/her, so that he/she also may be consecrated in truth.

I pray not only for ______, but also for those who will believe in Me through his/her word, so that they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And I have given them the glory You gave Me, so that they may be one, as We are one, I in them and You in Me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that You sent Me, and that You loved them even as You loved Me.

Father, ______ is Your gift to Me. I wish that where I am, he/she also may be with Me, that he/she may see my glory that You gave Me, because You loved Me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world also does not know You, but I know You, and ______ knows that You sent Me. I made known to him/her your name and I will make it known, that the love with which You loved Me may be in him/her and I in him/her.”

May the God of all peace lead you to everlasting Life.

Amen.