Summary: Jesus, looking to heaven, prayed for His disciples' protection through God's name, to unite them as He and the Father are united. He acknowledged His care for them and His imminent return to the Father, desiring them to experience His joy fully. Jesus asked not for their removal from the world but for their protection from evil, emphasizing their sanctification and separation from worldly values. He committed Himself to their sanctification, mirroring His mission to the world.
Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one.
When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.
I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.
Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.
As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”