Jesus' Prayer, Stephen, and Flight 93. Let's Roll. (Bible Study Recap)

+JMJ+
Eve of the Ascension
Pope Saint Paul VI

Howdy,

"That we may, Abba, Father, be one, as You and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are One, in Jesus' Name. Amen."

A favorite prayer of mine…in fact, I pray it every day. And I'm confident it will be answered. When? I don't know.

When we prayed over Acts:55-60 — the death of Stephen — I was reminded by two things that I heard this past Monday — Memorial Day:

"…in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me."
And In his homily, Father Jim Doran spoke about the final minutes of United Airlines Flight 93, September 11, 2001. Here's the last part of the transcript of the tape:

~~~~~~
Passengers calling from the plane are informed by people on the ground about the synchronized suicide hijacking attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Flight 93's passengers and crew decide to storm the cockpit.

One of the more storied calls comes from passenger Todd Beamer of New Jersey, who has a long conversation with a GTE Airphone operator, Lisa Jefferson. The call was not taped.

"Are you ready?" a fellow passenger asks Beamer toward the end of the call. "Let's roll," Beamer replies, according to Jefferson's previous account.

Run on cockpit

The passengers' counterattack on the cockpit begins at 9:57 a.m., the recording reveals.

"Is there something?" a hijacker asks in Arabic. "A fight?"

"Yeah," another replies.

Hijackers grab an axe to scare away the passengers who might peer through the cockpit door's peephole.

Jarrah makes a hard turn to the left, banking the plane. For the next minute, he rapidly pitches the plane from side to side, left to right, over and over again.

"Oh, Allah. Oh, Allah. Oh the most gracious," an Arabic voice inside the cockpit says.

Outside the cockpit, voices are heard saying, "In the cockpit. In the cockpit."

A hijacker says in Arabic, "They want to get in here. Hold, hold from the inside. Hold from the inside. Hold."
At 9:59 Jarrah points the plane's nose down, then jerks it back up. There are sounds of shouting and breaking glass.

"Is that it? Shall we finish it off?" a hijacker asks in Arabic.

"No. Not yet. When they all come, we finish it off," another hijacker responds in Arabic.

'Roll it!'

The passengers then make another run for the cockpit.

"In the cockpit! If we don't, we'll die," a male passenger says.

Seconds later, another passenger yells, "Roll it," a possible reference to a drink cart passengers might have used to ram the cockpit door.

"Cut off the oxygen," one of the hijackers says in Arabic, repeating the order three times.

Jarrah resumes pitching the plane from side to side.

Inside the cockpit the hijackers decide to crash the plane. "Pull it down. Pull it down," an Arabic voice says. The jetliner heads downward and rolls upside down.

"Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest!" one of the hijackers shouts over and over. (emphasis mine)

The tape ends at 10:03 as the plane nose-dives at an estimated 580 mph into a reclaimed coal field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, about 80 miles from Pittsburgh.
~~~~~~

Okay. So Jesus was right, both in Stephen's day and in ours.

So, what do we do?

We pray. That we may be one. Hey, Stephen's prayer worked for Saul! And Jesus taught us how to do it in this Sunday's Gospel!

Lots more — the Holy Spirit blessed us with a fruitful session.

May He, and the Father, and Jesus continue to bless you always.

Your humble scribe,

Kelly <---scott better="" br="" hahn="" it="" says="">
~~~~~~~~~

Points to Ponder, by Doctor Scott Hahn

Perfection as One

Jesus is praying for us in today's Gospel. We are those who have come to believe in Him through the Word of the Apostles, handed on in His Church.

Jesus showed the Apostles His glory, made known the Father's name, and the love He has had for us from "before the foundation of the world."

He revealed that He and the Father are one (see John 14:9).

Jesus is the "first and the last" (see Isaiah 44:6), the root of David (see Isaiah 11:10; 2 Samuel 7:12), as today's Second Reading declares.

Wrapped in clouds and darkness as God was at Sinai (see Exodus 19:16), He is "the king...the Most High over all the earth," as we sing in today's Psalm.

Exalted at God's right hand, as Stephen sees in the First Reading, the Lord calls to us through the Church, His Bride.

He calls us to "the tree of life," to communion with God. This is the goal of His love, His saving purpose from all eternity - that each of us enter into the life of Blessed Trinity, be "brought to perfection as one" with the Father and Son in the Spirit.

The story of Stephen, the first martyr, shows us how we are to answer His call.

Listen for the echoes of the crucifixion: Stephen, like Jesus, sees the Son of Man in glory and dies with words of forgiveness and self-offering on his lips (compare Acts 7:56-60; Matthew 26:64-65; Luke 23:24,46).

We, too, are to commend our spirits to the Father, to pray and offer our lives in love for our brethren, awaiting His coming in judgment. We renew our vows in every Mass, coming forward to receive the gift of His life.

We answer His call by crying out a call of our own: "Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!"

And in our communion we answer our Lord's prayer: "That they may all be one, as You, Father are in Me and I in You."