The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. John
Thy word is truth . The gospel which I preach, as I received it of Thee, is not shadowy, as was the old Law, but is in spirit and in truth. See notes on chap. xv. 3. For “ the Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth were wrought by Jesus Christ.”
Morally. Learn here how holy a Christian ought to be, especially a “Religious” and Apostolic man, who wishes to make others holy, so as to be like the Apostles, and even like Christ, and to be diligent in imitating their most holy practices and deeds. “ Christianity,” says S. Gregory Nyssen, “is the imitation of the Divine Nature.” For a Christian ought to imitate, as much as He can, the holiness of God in Christ, so that Christ may always shine forth in his words and actions, and that any one who sees or hears him, may think that he sees and hears Christ. Holiness is a turning away from the world, and a turning to God and Christ, and union with them. Accordingly the Apostles converted the world, more by their holiness and burning love than by their preaching. Nay, they thundered with their mouth, because they flashed forth in their life, as Nazianzen said of S. Basil. See my sketch of S. Paul, prefixed to the Acts of the Apostles.
Ver. 18. — As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so I also have sent them into the world. This is a fresh reason for Christ commending His Apostles to the Father, to preserve and sanctify them. For as Thou hast sent Me into the world to restore and sanctify it, so do I send My Apostles through all nations to sanctify them. They need therefore great holiness, so as not to be ensnared by their allurements, or overpowered by their persecutions, and also that they may sanctify them who are utterly depraved by their vices. Sanctify them therefore, O Father, more and more every day, that they may be able to sanctify numerous others.
Ver. 19. — And for their sakes I sanctify Myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth. 1st. S. Augustine uses the word sanctify in its proper sense. I as the Son of God sanctify human nature which I have assumed, that by it I may sanctify the Apostles. As S. Augustine says, “When the Word was made flesh, He sanctified Himself in Himself; Himself the man, in Himself the Word, because the Word and the Man is one Christ. But He says it for the sake of His members ; and for these I sanctify Myself, that is, them in Me, because in Me they are even Myself. That they also might be sanctified. What meaneth this, ‘ that they too’? but that they may be sanctified even as I, and in the Truth which I Myself am?”
2d, and correctly, " I offer Myself to Thee as a Holy Victim,” i.e. within a few hours I shall offer It upon the Cross, so that they may by It “ be sanctified in the truth,” that is, that by Thy word which is truth, and no shadow, they may be sanctified, be truly Thine, and devote themselves, for Thee, to Apostolic labours ; in order to convert all nations to Thee, and thus by the sufferings they endure, even martyrdom itself, they may offer themselves to Thee, just as I do Myself. So S. Chrysostom, S. Cyril (at great length), Rupertus, S. Thomas, Jansenius, Maldonatus, Toletus, Ribera, and others.
Ver. 20. — Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their words . Up to this point Christ prayed for the Apostles, and for those who were immediately con-. Now He prays for the whole Church, and for all future generations of Christians, for He is their Father and Patriarch, King and Prince, Pontiff and Hierarch. All these (says Toletus ) did Christ as man behold in the Divine Essence, as distinctly and perfectly as though they were present, or perhaps it was by infused knowledge. For it was this latter that pertained to Christ as man, inasmuch as He was merely a wayfarer (viator) ; whereas the sight of the Divine Essence would be His, not as journeying, but as beatified. So Suarez. With that knowledge then He beheld us one by one, and all the faithful who would hereafter be born, and for each and all He asked and obtained from God the grace which was fitting for each. And it is by the force of this prayer, that the faithful, each in their own day, obtain all their blessings from God. He prayed then for all the Martyrs, all the Doctors of the Church, for all Virgins. He brought them all severally to the birth as His own Benjamins, and therefore every Christian should offer unbounded thanks to Christ for those His labour pains, and repay love for love, blood for blood, death for death.
Ver. 21. — That they may be all one . By one faith, hope, charity, and concord. Learn hence how united Christians should be amongst themselves, and how far removed are they who disseminate discord and strife, from the mind of Christ.
As Thou , Father , art in Me , and I in Thee , that they also may be one in Us. For God is love, and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God in him. 1 John iv. 16. By faith then and love we are united to God and Christ, and afterwards mutually to each other as to members of Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church. The word “as” does not mean identity, as the Arians held, but merely resemblance . For the Father and the Son are one by the same numerical
Essence and Godhead, we are one by having the same quality; namely, love and concord. But by this we are so united to God as to possess Him, and be in turn possessed by Him. Hear the author “ De Salutaribus documentis ,” assigned to S. Augustine
[probably Paulinus of Aquileia] : “ If we are pleased at possessing anything in this world, it is good for us to keep in our minds God who created and is the Possessor of all things, and to have in Him all that we holily and happily desire. But since no one possesses God, save he that is possessed by Him, let us become the possession of God, and He will become our possession. For what greater happiness can there be in the world, than to have our Lord and our Redeemer counted as our own, and whose inheritance the Godhead deigns to be? For we enjoy every blessing from Him if we live from Him, and in Him. For what, I ask you, suffices a man, if the Creator Himself does not suffice him ? What does he seek further, whose Redeemer ought to be his sole joy, and everything to him ? By love therefore we are so united to God as to be made one Spirit, that so all earthly desires in us may be swallowed up, and our whole mind be so raised up by its affections to God, as to be, in a way, deified. Just as a drop of water poured into generous wine is absorbed in it, and as iron when heated passes into heat, though the nature of the iron still remains, and as the air illumined by the sun turns into light, so that it seems to be nothing else but the light of the sun.” And S. Bernard ( Sermon lxxi. on Cant.) says, “Who is He that cleaves perfectly to God, save He who, abiding in God, as beloved by Him, has in like measure drawn God into himself by loving Him in return ? And thus when men cleave to each other on all sides, being bound up in their mutual and intimate love for each other, I should not hesitate to say that in this way God was in man and man in God.”
This union they feel and enjoy, who with Magdalen pass a contemplative life. For in that life the loving soul flows away from itself, and reduced, as it were to nothing, falls back, and is absorbed into the abyss of eternal love, and being utterly dead to itself, lives only to God, knowing nothing, and caring for nothing except Himself. For it loses itself in the boundless solitude and depth of the Godhead, but to lose itself thus, is far happier and far more for its own good, than to find itself. For stripping itself of everything human, and arraying itself in everything which is Divine, it is thus transformed and changed into God. O truly blessed is the soul, which has laid aside all its own. O truly blessed is the soul, which casting off every action which springs from itself in its power of memory, strips itself of all its imaginings, in its understanding feels and cherishes the brilliant rays of the Sun of righteousness, in its faculty of desire feels a certain glow of calm love, or the action of the Holy Spirit flowing with rivers of eternal sweetness, like some real fountain. For when it is set free and detached from all things else, and it exists in its own simplicity, and is cleansed as a bright mirror, the Lord is wont to enlighten it with the rays of His own Divine brightness. For when God Himself is acting, man is only passive. For when the powers of the soul are resting, and not engaged in their own proper actions, and set free from any outward impressions, God Himself speaks, and disposes, and impresses those powers of the soul just as He pleases, carrying on within a most glorious work. And therefore, O most generous, O most noble soul, keep thyself pure and free, rush not ahead for every variety of sensual pleasure, but restrain thy senses, dwell in thine own thoughts, turn thyself ardently to God, and immersed a thousand times daily in the abyss of the Godhead, be careful to swim up and down therein. Pant for that supernatural union of the spirit with God, fly back to God from whom thou derivest thy being, for He is the uncreated Light, and the Light also of eternity.”