11 January 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
“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.” John 17:21
At the Last Supper, before he goes out to his Passion, Jesus prays not only for the apostles but “also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word”: that is, for us. And what does he ask? “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.” The unity of Christians is not a matter of good organisation; its source and model is the communion of the Father and the Son. And it has a missionary purpose: when Christians are one, the world can recognise that Jesus comes from the Father. Denha is the season of manifestation, and our unity is one of the ways in which Christ is still made manifest.
Paul shows us the opposite picture. In Corinth, “when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you”. At the very meal of the Lord the better-off eat their own supper first, and “one goes hungry and another becomes drunk”. Paul is blunt: “Do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?” To divide the Body at the table of the Body is a contradiction. Our parishes and families are not free of such divisions: rich and poor, old families and newcomers, groups that no longer speak to one another, quarrels even about holy things. Jesus' prayer is for us. The Holy Qurbana is the sacrament of unity, and we cannot receive it with a clear heart while we despise a brother or sister.
Theme: “That they may all be one.”
Jesus' prayer for unity, and Paul's warning against division at the Lord's table.
“How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!” Psalm 133:1
“For, to begin with, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and to some extent I believe it.” 1 Corinthians 11:18
Apply: Make peace with one person before your next Holy Qurbana.
“I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms.” Ezekiel 37:22
“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.” John 17:21
Apply: Pray daily for the unity of all Christians.
“he says, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”” Isaiah 49:6
“I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” John 17:23
Apply: Show kindness this week to someone outside your usual circle.
Unity is Jesus' own prayer and the Holy Spirit's gift.
A united Church makes Christ believable to the world.
Take-home resolution: Before the Unity Octave begins, be reconciled with one person and pray daily for Christian unity.
Dear friends, the Corinthians were a lively, gifted community, yet Paul has to write to them: when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you (1 Corinthians 11:18). At the Lord's supper the better-off ate their own meal while the poor went hungry.
Paul asks: do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? (1 Corinthians 11:22). The meal of unity had become a sign of division.
In the Gospel Jesus prays for us, who believe through the apostles' word: that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe that you have sent me (John 17:21). Our unity is meant to be a window through which the world sees God.
In a week the Church begins the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Let us start at home: one phone call, one greeting, one apology before we next come to the altar. Amen.
Children, before Jesus died, he prayed for you! He asked his Father that we would all be one big family. So be kind to everyone, even the child nobody plays with.
Lord Jesus, on the night before you suffered you prayed that we may all be one, as you and the Father are one. Heal the divisions in my family, my parish and your Church, and never let me despise a brother or sister at your table, so that the world may believe that the Father has sent you. Amen.
Today's readings set a broken table beside a prayer for unity. In Corinth, Christians who gather for the Lord's Supper shame the poor among them. In John, on the night before he dies, Jesus prays for all who will ever believe, “that they may all be one”. Division among Christians is not a small matter of manners. It hides from the world the God whom Denha makes known.
Setting.
Paul writes from Ephesus (16:8), probably in the mid-50s, to a young and divided community in a busy Roman port. Christians then met in private houses for a shared meal, with the Eucharist as part of the gathering. Many scholars think that the better-off arrived early and ate and drank in plenty, while poorer members and slaves, who had to work, came late to find little left. Immediately after this reading Paul gives the oldest written account of the Lord's Supper (11:23–26).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“For, to begin with, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you;” (11:18)
“Church” here is the people assembled. For Paul the church takes visible shape when they gather.
“When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper.” (11:20)
This is a shocking sentence. The rite may go on, and it is still contradicted by the way the poor are treated.
“Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?” (11:22)
To shame a poor brother or sister is to despise God's Church. For Paul the two offences are one.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that “the Eucharist commits us to the poor”, and it quotes St John Chrysostom: you have tasted the Blood of the Lord, yet you do not recognise your brother (CCC 1397). The Eucharist makes the Church (CCC 1396), so that what is done to the unity of the people touches what is done at the altar.
Setting.
John 17 is the long prayer that closes Jesus' words at the Last Supper. He has prayed for himself and for his disciples; at v. 20 the prayer widens to those not yet born. The Church's tradition has often called this the priestly prayer of Jesus. The reader of every age is meant to hear his own name in it.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word,” (17:20)
Faith comes through the word of witnesses. Each of us is in this verse.
“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.” (17:21)
The measure is impossibly high: the Father and the Son. And unity has a purpose outside itself. Division among Christians makes the gospel hard to believe.
“Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory,” (17:24)
He ends by asking for what every love asks: to be together. Heaven is described simply as being with him.
“so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (17:26)
These are the last words of the prayer: the Father's love for the Son is to live in us. Then Jesus goes out to the garden (18:1).
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism calls this “the prayer of the Hour of Jesus”, the priestly prayer (CCC 2746–2751), and says that the desire to recover the unity of all Christians is Christ's gift and a call of the Spirit (CCC 820). The Second Vatican Council teaches that division among Christians contradicts Christ's will and is a scandal to the world (Unitatis Redintegratio 1). St John Paul II took his encyclical's title from this verse (Ut Unum Sint, 1995). St Cyril of Alexandria, commenting on this chapter, sees our unity as a work of the Spirit and of the Lord's own body received in the Eucharist (in substance).
Does Paul say that “there have to be factions”? Does God want division?
No. The tone of v. 19 is sharp, close to irony, or else it reflects the view that the last days bring testing: such strains show who is genuine. Paul has just told them he does not commend them. Elsewhere he begs them to have no divisions at all (1:10).