‘father, i pray not for the world’
Commentary
May 28th 2013
‘Father, I pray not for the world, but for those whom you gave me, because they are yours.’ These words, spoken by Jesus in the ‘sacerdotal prayer’, show that even he did not pray for all human beings but only for those God had entrusted to him. And yet, in the same Gospel, we find: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.’
These two passages from the Gospels can seem contradictory, but they are not. Jesus prayed for his disciples, and they with Jesus prayed and worked for the world. For in order to help the world there first has to be a powerful core constituting a force. At first, Jesus focused his work on himself and his disciples. Then, the disciples went out through the world to transmit the force contained in the core they had formed.