Reflection for the readings for the Second Sunday of Easter and the Gospel of John, 17:1-11a, May 17, 2026, for Give Us This Day (Liturgical Press). Used with permission. Learn more and subscribe at giveusthisday.org.

Today’s Gospel from John, also known as part of the “Priestly Prayer of Jesus,” reminds me of a question Jesus asks his disciples in Luke chapter 17 about servants who have done all that is asked of them: “Would you be grateful to that servant for doing what he was commanded? . . . So should it be with you. When you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘we are unprofitable servants, we have only done our duty.’”

Here in John’s Gospel, before he is to be betrayed and enter into his Passion, Jesus offers up a prayer to his Father in heaven: “I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.” While his prayer appears at first to be the plea of the unprofitable servant for his own glory—a human emotion we all understand—it quickly turns into a petition for those entrusted to him: those who kept God’s word, “truly understood,” and “believed.” But this prayer is not a petition at all. It’s an intercession. Jesus knows he is leaving. Being glorified, he asks that those he loves and leaves behind may also be glorified.

In Luke’s Gospel, we never hear the unprofitable servant’s perspective: We don’t know how he or she feels about the work they’ve accomplished, or the colleagues they accomplished it with, or the people they’ve done it for. Meanwhile, in John, we encounter not only a human and divine Jesus, we witness a mature example of what service looks like, whether it’s the end of our work days, or the end of our lives.

Image: Detail from The Ascension by Jorge Cocco Santángelo, featured on the cover of the May 2026 edition of “Give Us This Day.” More at https://jorgecocco.com/,