To Continue in Oneness | Gospel Reflection

“I am coming to you,” Jesus says to God in his prayer for the disciples from whom he is separating. It is a sublime moment as he speaks of his leaving the world, and his disciples in it, and (re)uniting with God. He is coming and going and coming to us—all at the same time. There is an uncanny sense of repetition, something that has happened before but is entirely—joyfully—new.

Jesus says he is sending his disciples into the world, just as He, Himself, was sent. His prayer is for unity. He asks God to keep the disciples from “the son of destruction.” Destruction means breaking apart, fragmentation. He wants them to continue in the oneness: the purpose of all these comings and goings. How that resonates for us now.

Jesus knows the disciples—and we—have work to do in the world. He prays that they—and we—be “consecrated in the truth.” And the truth is that our belonging to God is based on loving God and loving one another. We are made sacred with our shared commitment to these principles. We hold the sacred in our human connections: loving partnerships, teachers and students, parents and children. We see that here, in Pray-It-Forward, as we congregate to offer love and hope to one another, to share our belonging to something greater than ourselves.

We saw it in a cookout last weekend, with three generations of family, all in different development periods, individuals in ever- changing arrangements: mother and father, alone for a moment, as grandparents played with grandchildren; father and beloved youngest son, just returned from his sophomore year at BC; the three little ones buzzing around like bees, each returning at some point to the flower of mother or father.

It was an occasion of much reminiscing. Our daughter about her college days, and the beginning of her relationship to our son-in-law, the two of us about our marriage in May, in springtime years ago, that had led to all of this. As the groups shifted and rearranged, it was almost as if there were small bubbles of oneness that would then break apart, only to reform in different ways.

That night I dreamt there was a book that documented all that had happened in the day. When I awoke, I felt so satisfied— but then grew anxious as I remembered that the book had had empty pages.

I realized it was Monday, a new day. When Meg awoke, she said “shouldn’t this be Sunday? I feel like we need to rest!”

But there was more time yet for us to live in the world, to love and serve it.

Jack Miller and Margaret Woodruff are members of the C21 Center's Pray It Forward community. They wrote the above reflection for Wednesday, May 20, 2026. It is shared with their permission. 

Learn more about Pray It Forward here.