Thursday in the Seventh Week of Easter

[Scripture Readings: Acts 22:30, 23:6-11; Jn 17:20-26]

“Father, they are your gift to me.” St. Thomas Aquinas writes that it's the very nature of goodness to be diffusive, to give and to share.

God the Father spreads his goodness by giving two gifts to his Son. First, the gift of his glory, which is his own divine nature, given before the world began.

Second, the gift of our creation being given with each new person to the end of time. We are the Father's precious gift to his Son, for he loves us even as he loves his Son.

The goodness of Jesus is just as diffusive. He says, “I have given them the glory you gave me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me.”

Now it is our turn to be diffusive, to spread the goodness God has given to us by our love, prayers, good works and sacrifices for others.