Raising his eyes to heaven, Jesus said: “Father, glorify your Son (…), so that, just as you have given him power over all humanity, he may give eternal life to all those you have entrusted to him. And eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn 17:2-3).
The Father has given His Son authority over every human being. We know what kind of authority this is: it is the “authority of love”. When the faithful bow their knees before Jesus, they bow before a King Who gave His life for them and thus gained power over their hearts. Rather than serving the Lord out of fear of His majesty, we cleave to Him with great love.
The Father has entrusted us, men, with His own Son, in order to give us through Him the most precious that He can give us: eternal life.
In the Son we recognise the Father (cf. Jn 14:9). The Son rescued the Father’s treasured possession – humanity – from slavery and preserved those entrusted to Him, so that “not one is lost except one who was destined to be lost” (Jn 17:12).
To know the one true God is to love Him. To know Jesus Christ is to love Him, because He was sent by the Father. All this is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, Who, sent by the Father and the Son, cries out in our hearts: ‘Abba, Father’ (Gal 4:6).
Thus, eternal life begins already here, in our pilgrimage in this world, when we recognise and respond to God’s love. Here still with limitations; there, in the beatific vision of God, without limits, according to the measure that God has prepared for us in His love and on the basis of our response to Him.