Tuesday of 7th Week of Eastertide
Acts 20:7-27
Jn 17:1-11
“And eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
I am writing this reflection in Rome, the Eternal City. Here, the ancient and the modern exist beside one another so naturally that you almost stop noticing it. Modern trains move beneath ancient streets. Crowds pass obelisks, statues, fountains, and ruins that have stood for centuries. Rome does not hide its past. It carries it into the present.
Being here makes the word ‘eternal’ feel tangible. We use it to describe cities, monuments, and empires that have endured across generations. Yet in today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks about eternity in a way that goes far beyond what history or stone can preserve.
Jesus speaks these words in John 17, on the final night before His arrest and crucifixion. He has already shared the Last Supper with His disciples. He has washed their feet. Judas has already gone out to betray Him. In only a few hours, Jesus will be arrested, tried, and led toward the Cross.
It is in this moment that Jesus lifts His eyes to heaven and says: “Father, the hour has come: glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify you…”
The hour is not simply the moment of His death. It is His Passion, His Cross, His Resurrection, His Ascension, and His return to the Father. What appears to be humiliation and defeat will become the revelation of God’s glory.
God’s glory stands in sharp contrast to the glory remembered in Rome. Rome remembers emperors, military victories, monuments, and power preserved in marble and stone. Jesus reveals glory through self-giving love, obedience to the Father, and faithfulness carried even to the Cross. In this prayer, Jesus also reveals that everything returns to God. The Son glorifies the Father, and the Father glorifies the Son. The whole mission of Christ points beyond itself toward the Father. His life, death, resurrection, and ascension are not isolated events, but part of the restoring of all things to God, who is their beginning and end.
Then Jesus says something striking: “Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Jesus does not describe eternity as merely an inward feeling, nor does He speak of it only as something waiting after death. Eternal life is already present because it begins now in faith, communion, and abiding in God. It is also future hope because it continues beyond death in the resurrection.
In conclusion, Rome reveals how deeply human beings desire permanence. We build monuments, preserve history, and call cities eternal. Yet Jesus points to something greater than what stone or empire can sustain. Eternal life is not found in what survives through history, but in knowing God through Christ. Everything we have and are, must point beyond itself to the eternal God, from whom all life comes and to whom all things return.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Stacey Fernandez)
Prayer: Father, teach me to seek the kind of life that comes from You alone. As Your Son glorified You through love, obedience, and sacrifice, help my own life point back to You. In all that I do, may I learn to remain in You more deeply, trusting that eternal life begins even now, in communion with You. Amen.
Thanksgiving: Lord Jesus, thank You for the gift of this time in Rome, where history, beauty, and faith meet so visibly. Thank You for reminding me that what is truly eternal is not found in monuments or empires, but in knowing You and remaining in Your love.
OXYGEN 
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