Jn 17:11b-19
[Raising his eyes to heaven, Jesus said,] 11“Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are. 12When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely.
I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. 15I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. 16They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. 17Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. 18As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. 19And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”
Keep them in your name. We are given a glimpse of how Jesus prays: not for himself, not about himself, but for the disciples he has called his own and whom the Father has given him.
My mother would tell us that whenever she prayed, it would be for us, her children, whom God had given her, that we would always be safe.
This is the purpose of the prayers of the faithful at Mass. The intentions are for others: for the less fortunate, for those who have no one to pray for them. We must pray for those who are very much in the world—the outcasts, the poor, and the nameless. “Keep them in your name. Keep them from the evil one. Consecrate them in the truth.”
Bless others and you will be blessed yourself. To pray for others is to pray for yourself.