First Reading

Reading from the Acts of the Apostles

Acts 20, 17-27

In those days, while Paul was in Miletus, he sent for the elders of the Christian community in Ephesus. When they arrived, he said to them:

“You know how I have behaved among you, from the first day I set foot in Asia: I have served the Lord with all humility, amid sorrows and tribulations that have come upon me because of the plots of the Jews. You also know that I have not withheld anything that might be useful to proclaim the Gospel to you, to teach you publicly and in homes, and to urge with all earnestness both Jews and Greeks to repent before God and believe in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now I am on my way to Jerusalem, bound in the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that the Holy Spirit warns me in every city that prisons and tribulations await me. But life, for me, is worth nothing. What matters to me is to finish my race and fulfill the mission I received from the Lord Jesus: to proclaim the Gospel of the grace of God.

For now I know that none of you, to whom I have preached the Kingdom of God, will see me again. Therefore, I declare today that I am not responsible for anyone’s fate, because I have not hidden anything from you and have revealed to you in full the plan of God’’.

Gospel

Reading from the holy Gospel according to John

John 17, 1-11

At that time, Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, so that your Son may also glorify you, and by the power you gave him over all humanity, give eternal life to those you have entrusted to him. Eternal life consists in knowing you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

I have glorified you on earth, carrying out the work you entrusted to me. Now, Father, glorify me in you with the glory I had before the world existed.

I have revealed your name to the men you took from the world and gave to me. They were yours and you gave them to me. They have kept your word and now know that everything you gave me comes from you, because I have communicated to them the words you gave me; they have received them and now recognize that I came from you and believe that you sent me.

I ask for them; I do not ask for the world, but for these whom you gave me, because they are yours. Everything that is mine is yours and everything that is yours is mine. I have been glorified in them. I will no longer be in the world, for I am going to you; but they remain in the world’’.