But we are. And people are experiencing this unplanned hiatus in differing, often contradictory, ways. On the one hand, lots of folks are saying they’re getting “stuff” done around the house or at the office - deep cleaning, reorganizing, sorting, filing, discarding, reminiscing. On the other hand, lethargy is setting in. There’s lots to do but we don’t do nuthin’ at all. The days go by like a rat race at a snail’s pace.
 
            We are eager, chafing at the bit, to get going again. At the same time, many of us are also anxious, fretful about the restart. Will my job still be there? What if it isn’t? What if it is and now it’s too hard!! Have I lost my edge? Have my skills been blunted? Now that I haven’t tackled these tasks in almost three months, do I still want to invest my time and energy in them?
 
            I had friends, associates, acquaintances with whom I spent my time. Will they be there when we can re-connect? Will seeing each other again be awkward? Will they still like me? Will I still like them?
 
            Our first reading, from Saint Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, paints a picture of a community “on pause.” In his Gospel, Luke had depicted Jesus’ return to the Father as taking place very late on the night of the Resurrection. In Acts, he briefly recounts the Ascension as taking place after forty days of meetings with, and teachings from, the Risen Lord. There’s no reconciling the two differing accounts ... and no need to do so. His emphasis in both stories is on the mission the Risen Lord Jesus has given his closest friends and the power He has promised them to fulfill that task.
 
            This morning, we find them - not out and about, launching this great project - but, rather, huddled together in the same room where they had shared Supper with Jesus for the last time before His crucifixion and for the first time after His resurrection. It was a special place, filled with cherished memories both sublime and painful. However, it also holds them bound. They were both literally and figuratively locked in.
 
            Saint Luke lists the people present, some by name, others by type. The room is crowded, almost stifling. They are praying, intently, anxiously, in a state of confusion. This is the prelude to the wonder of Pentecost. Saint Luke will be hardly able to find words to express what happens when their prayers are answered. But that’s not today’s story. Today’s story is about a people a people at prayer. They do not understand what they’re praying for, but they’re praying. They are a people “on pause.”
 
            The reading from Saint John’s Gospel forms part of the “High Priestly Prayer of Jesus.” It’s too bad, in a way, that we are not provided with the whole passage from John 17. But what we have will suffice for us to understand both what Jesus is saying and how the Church intends for us to absorb His message.  And, once again, we are in the midst of a community “on pause” - except we know they are ... and they do not. Saint John is so clever!!
 
            Writing around the year 95 AD, John is not presenting news about the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. It is by now a thrice-told tale. He is revisiting things his readers already knew and cherished. He is turning those events over and over, to make them catch the light in new, surprising and inspired ways.
 
            He gathers the main characters in the Upper Room for the Last Supper. But then he leaves out the well-known details of the Eucharist and substitutes another self-offering of Jesus. In deep humility, the Master washes the disciples’ feet. He says it is an example for them to follow. What follows the foot-washing is a long monologue in which Jesus summarizes and interprets His own message. This interpretation applies not to the Twelve gathered around the Passover table but to the community of John. They are facing persecution from outside its ranks and betrayal and division within. We heard some of those reflections last Sunday. 
 
            Jesus turns, then, from teaching His disciples to praying for them. You can hear in His prayer faint echoes of the Our Father and several other well-known passages from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. In His own time, Our Lord was praying about what would happen “next” for His friends, after the Supper, after the arrest, after the crucifixion, after the burial, after the resurrection, after He was gone. His friends do not understand what He’s praying for, but He’s praying. In John’s day, He is praying through His own ongoing Body, the Church - praying for what is happening right now, in A.D. 95, and what will happen next. In both historical moments, things would be different “after.”
           
            Saint John lets us listen in as Jesus dialogues with His Father. Although the prayer is addressed to God, it is we who are intended to hear it.
 
            It begins with praise and glory. Believers are God-centered, not self-centered. There is life after hibernation. There is life beyond our issues. God is “wonderful in all His works.” Saint Francis of Assisi, were he here now, would probably have called this dreadful virus “Sister Covid.”
 
            Centering oneself on God brings with it “authority.” The authority is a tool for accomplishing God’s work. Saint John does not specify what that work might be beyond the vague intention “that they might have eternal life.” We need to be careful here not to put on Jesus’ lips a wish for the concept of Heaven created over centuries by art, poetry, music and drama. That is a man-made convention. The “life” intended here is what Jesus had described in another part of John’s Gospel as “more abundant” or “full.”
 
            Those of us who were in grade school at least through the late sixties remember that the very first thing we had to memorize in Catechism Class was the answer to the question, “Why did God make me?” The answer is so simple that first graders could understand it completely, yet so profound that it captures all of Sacred Scripture in one sentence. We were made “to know, love and serve God in this world so as to be happy with Him in the next.” This is the “more abundant life.”
 
            This life is rooted firmly in the here and now ... with an eye toward eternity - not the other way around. In case we miss the emphasis, Jesus says pointedly of His friends, “they are IN the world.” In the very next sentence - unfortunately omitted from our reading - Jesus says, “I don’t ask you, Father, to take them OUT of the world ...!” His prayer was about the ongoing journey of His followers after His resurrection and ascension. John wants Christians seventy years later to hear the words as a prayer for themselves. The journey still continues.
 
            The second reading, from the First letter of Saint Peter, provides a snapshot of how that prayer might apply to a particular group of Christians at a particular time. He says they might “suffer for being a Christian.” They are momentarily “on pause.” But the harsh glare of the Imperial Court of Rome has focused on this tiny new religion. The road is about to get very rough indeed. Like Peter’s audience, we face an uncertain, perhaps dangerous, future.
 
            So we are “on pause.” Christ has prayed for us. He prayed for us twenty-one centuries ago in that Upper Room. He prays for us still.  He prays for us both WITHIN the Church and AS the Church. We are not sure what He’s praying for, but He’s praying.
 
             Like the Apostles gathered in the Upper Room at the Last Supper, who did not understand that the bloody crucifixion of their Friend was only hours away, we do not yet know what our new “normal” will be,  what struggles it will entail.
 
            Like those same Apostles and their companions, huddled for protection and support in that same Upper Room days afterward, we are anxious, uncertain, bewildered and expectant, all at once. To them came an astonishing transformation. The Holy Spirit changed their lives, tapped their hidden potential, bolstered their courage, gave them purpose and launched their mission. They were momentarily “on pause,” but the journey was about to continue. 
 
            The Holy Spirit will do the same for us. The “eternal life” for which Christ prayed on our behalf begins here and now, in the midst of pandemic, while we are “on pause.” Jesus does not pray to take us out of this battered world. We will “know, love and serve” by picking up the pieces.
 
            Press “play.”