A reading from the holy gospel according to Saint John. Jesus looked up to heaven and prayed. Oh father, most holy, protect them with your name which you have given me. That they may be one even as we are one. As long as I was with them, I guarded them with your name which you gave me.
I kept careful watch, and not one of them was lost. None but him who was destined to be lost in fulfillment of scripture. Now, however, I come to you. I say all of this while I am still in the world that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the word has hated them for it.
They do not belong to the world anymore than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but to guard them from the evil one. They are not of the world anymore than I am of the world. Consecrate them by means of truth. Your word is truth.
As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. I consecrate myself for their sakes now that they may be consecrated in truth. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise be to you, lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen. The these two readings this morning come about as close to sentimentality as we ever get in the readings from Saint Paul or from the gospels, the good news of our lord. We have here the tearful farewells as Paul leaves his faithful ones in Ephesus. We are told they threw their arms around him in tears. Now that's not the usual picture we have of Saint Paul.
And here today, and we've had this reading for several days, our blessed lord is at the end of his sojourn on earth, and he is praying to his heavenly father in behalf of his apostles. That they may be one as he and the father are one, and that they may continue their lives and their mission consecrated in truth. In truth. Notice that emphasis on truth. Whereas today, it's what we deemphasize.
Action today. Now we all have to act. We're living in this world. Notice how our lord and he's he he understands us. He says, they're in the world.
He said, my disciples are in the world and they need your protection. And don't we all? Within the last forty eight hours as of yesterday, it fell to my unusual, unusual privilege, first to baptize a baby, an infant, on Sunday, and then to give the last rites yesterday to mister Bickerton. Mister Bickerton died yesterday at the age of 90 or more. Now in my career as a priest, I have baptized very few infants, and I have given the last rites to extremely few, maybe three or four.
And as ordained in '35, I've never been involved in this. This was just an emergency. Now when you put these two things together, in my well chosen remarks on the occasion of the baptism Sunday, I told the people, I said, this baby, genius as it is, doesn't understand everything that we're saying. I guess the parents disagreed with that, but that's generally true. Infants don't understand English very well.
I said, these words are addressed to you and for you to refresh your memories of your baptism, where somebody made these commitments for you. And then I pointed out how this rite of and this always you see, I can't be detached from it. It gets through to me. Here's this little tiny baby just almost born, and the church in that baptismal rite today already has the baby having having lived perfect past tense, having lived its life and appearing before God. In other words, being wheeled down the middle aisle of the church in a coffin.
What's in between? A lifetime. A lifetime. And then when you see the end of a life that began over ninety years ago, when the church is coming with her rights, the man's completely helpless. He can't even talk.
And the church comes with the sacrament of extremonction to do for you what you can't do for yourself. And in between, you have a life. What kind of a life? How have you lived it? The infant, we have the symbolism of the we always have had, the symbolism of the of the light and the symbolism of the white garment.
And we tell the little baby, as I say, it understands every word, of course, now you accept this white garment and carry it immaculate through your life. Accept this candle and carry the light of truth through your life. And then, all of a sudden, seventy years, eighty years, ninety years, three years, seventeen years, they're over and that person stands before God. Now what is to keep us going in this life? I am profoundly impressed with the pressures that surround every man and woman who occupies a position in life today.
They cannot afford to be too distracted, I might say, with religion. They have their living to make, and making a living is tremendously distracting, we might say. Is it distracting? Distracting means to pull from. And a man or a woman hold and at that at that baptism Sunday, I believe practically every one of those young mothers there are working mothers.
I I mean, outside the home. And here they're trying to run homes, they're trying to hold down a job, they're they're they're producing babies, they're trying to bring up their children, and now we tell them carry this light of truth, carry this garment. How do they do it? And the thought struck me right here this morning as I stood there and with the the opening prayer of this mass. Here we are, a handful of parishioners of in in this parish, and here we are beginning the day consecrating this day to god.
Do we think that we are here representing the hundreds and hundreds of other parishioners who probably won't give a thought to God this morning as they pile out of bed? Because their minds are all busy with all kinds of things which they have to be busy about. The man and the woman thinking of all the things that this day brings, that they must do, that they must not do, what they have to do for this person and so on. They don't have time to think of God. And we're here praying for them.
The church prays. We are part of the mystical body of Jesus Christ. We're not solitary. The church on our blessed lord understood this very well, that you are in the world. You're in it.
Have you ever taken a plunge into a swimming pool? Do you know how what it needs to be in a swimming pool? And our lord says, but don't be of it. Don't be the pool. Don't be the water.
But you can avoid being surrounded right up over the crown of your head. So when you put the the beginning of the Christian life, which is a transformation no. It's not just an initiation rite. That is a horrible downgrading of a baptism, which is our new creation. They're not my words.
They are the words of the church, that this is a new creation, this baby that has been baptized. And this new creation that you dedicate to God and the life is supposed to be lived lived immaculately, how many of our lives are lived immaculately, how often do we carry the light of truth and yet that's what what we profess to be and to do. And a lot of people do try to do it. Don't you ever forget it. The number of anonymous saints, I think, is a multitude.
Plenty of people are trying to do it, but they're trying it under difficulties. They are in the world, and our blessed lord prays, as Saint John records it, that they be not of the world. Now this is a very trying situation, and yet that's what we're called to. We're not called to live in a vacuum or in an ivory tower or we're not called upon to be separate. How can a parent separate himself or herself from the responsibilities of motherhood or fatherhood?
And let me tell you, single people too have plenty of their responsibilities in the mystical body of Jesus Christ, whether they're in religious orders or out of them. We are we all have a job to do. But we mustn't let the job be our master. We mustn't be enslaved by anything except Jesus Christ. The name of the father and of the son, holy spirit.
Amen.