Daily Gospel Reflection for May 25, 2023

Join us as we reflect, ponder, and pray together inspired by today's Gospel.

Reflection by Margaret Ann Stimatz

Today's Gospel: John 17:20-26

“Father, they are your gift to me.”

Who is Jesus talking about? You and me. This verse blows me away, for Jesus is claiming that you and I are gift to him.

In this room super-charged with love, he sits close to his friends. From his heart he prays aloud for those friends and for everyone who will believe in him until the end of time. Rising up from the depths of his soul, his prayer includes you and me. I keep reading it over and over: “Father, they are your gift to me.” He is God. He knows every single way that you and I fail him, prefer darkness to his light, and get sucked into the ugliness of sin. He knows our worst. Yet he says, “Father, they are your gift to me.” It is hard to believe. Some readers may not believe in the least that Jesus could possibly be referring to them.

Like my friend, Cara, a faithful, practicing Catholic, who earlier today told me that she hates herself. I doubt that Cara believes that Jesus sees her as gift. But whether she believes it or not, he does.

I relate to Cara. At one time I too struggled with self-hatred. Then I learned that self-hatred is a sin. I needed to repent and to start speaking the truth to myself over and over and over: God loves me. I didn’t feel like God loved me, but I needed to speak the truth anyway. I needed to agree with God, not with my feelings, my thoughts, my past. In hating myself, I was rejecting God and his truth. I was saying, “Jesus, you are wrong and I am right. I am no gift to you.”

Ponder:

Am I willing today to agree with God’s truth—that He sees me as gift—regardless of how I may feel?

Pray:

Lord, please help me bring to Confession any self-hatred that I have. Help me today to remind myself over and over that You love me. You see me as a gift.

Click to tweet:
Jesus knows every way that you and I prefer darkness to His light. He knows our worst, yet He says, “Father they are your gift to me.” #DailyGospel

Copyright 2023 Margaret Ann Stimatz

Since her reversion, Margaret Ann has been drinking deeply from the living waters of our faith. She has contributed to Catholic Mom since 2017 and is currently working to publish her first book, Honey from the Rock: Forty Reflections for Troubled Eaters.