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Chris (email link at the bottom of each page)

Who do you say that I am?

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Haggai 1:15–2:9 • Psalm 42(43):1–4 • Luke 9:18–22

image from http://heartsofcompassioninternational.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-hear-from-god-part-1.html

A Chinese proverb says that a person who asks a question is a fool for five minutes, but one who does not ask a question remains a fool forever. There are a number of key questions in life which we ignore at our peril. What is the purpose of life on earth? What happens after I die? Is death the end or is there an afterlife?

In today's Gospel reading we encounter another important question, the answer to which sheds light on each one of these existential questions. It s the question that Jesus put to his disciples and continues to put to every man and woman on the face of the earth. He asks you and he asks me: “Who do you say that I am?" (v. 20). The answer to this question is the gateway to unravelling the meaning of life and to solving the mystery of what happens after we die. The answer to this question is crucial for our lives on earth and our eternal destiny.

When Peter uttered his famous declaration that Jesus is 'the Christ of God', Jesus realised that a Watershed had been reached in the disciples' understanding of who he is.  It was  recognition that Jesus is more than a prophet; he is more than a great teacher: he is the Son of God.  What revelation has made known is that Jesus Christ was God made man.  The very Lord, Creator and King humbled himself by becoming a human being: he was made one of us, became one of us, and lived like one of us.

To be able to grasp this truth and allow it to shape our lives requires a grace of revelation – mere flesh and blood, the power of our own reasoning, cannot grasp this most sacred and profound of Christian truths. The following words were spoken by St Augustine many centuries ago, but they still have a tremendous impact today: “[Jesus] was created of a mother whom he created. He was carried by hands that he had formed. He cried in the manger in wordless infancy, he the Word without whom all human eloquence is mute.”

Jesus assumed our humanity that we might become God. (St Athanasius)

 

 
 
Chris
 
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Chair of St Peter (Feast)

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Today we pray especially for Pope Francis, thanking God for the gift of his ministry.  We pray that he would walk in the shoes of the humble fisherman.  Like St Peter, the Pope is only a man.  He needs our support, our best wishes and most of all our prayers.
 
We pray also that, like St Peter, the grace of revelation would lead him as he holds out the life-giving teaching of the gospel.
 
Lord God and Father, you built your Church on the rock of St Peter’s confession of faith.  May nothing divide us or weaken our unity in faith and love.
 

Chris

from Bible Alive

 

1 Peter 5:1–4 • Psalm 22(23) • Matthew 16:13–19

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Amen. Come, Lord Jesus, come

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Clouds, low sun, rays, Come Lord Jesus

Luke 21:20-28

The disciples’ admiration and appreciation of the beauty of the temple has prompted Jesus to make a long discourse about the destruction which he foresees will happen to Jerusalem, and which in fact did happen when the Romans marched on the city and destroyed it in AD 70. As is typical in prophecy, Jesus presents the events of Jerusalem’s fall and the end of the world side by side. At one moment he is describing the fall of Jerusalem in graphic detail, at the next his thoughts have turned to the end of the world. The suffering and destruction of the earlier event mirror the suffering and destruction of the much-larger-scale catastrophe which will signal his return to this earth.

We need to take Scriptures like today’s reading very seriously indeed. The same Luke who recorded the beauty of the nativity scene also gave us today’s apocalyptic vision of the end of the world: people fleeing to the mountains, nursing mothers being warned of a time of dread, many falling by the sword, nature in a state of uproar and tumult, and grown men fainting from sheer terror. lt will be a time of great chaos and suffering; it will be a time of great testing and trying

The Church today teaches that this time will indeed come but we do not know when: “The Church Will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom Will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 677).

Jesus warns that these events will cause the faith of many to be shaken. But in forewarning of these events, his purpose is to assure his disciples that they are part of God’s overarching plan for the world. When they see these cataclysmic events taking place, they will know that his plan is being fulfilled and that Jesus will soon return. Jesus wants us to rest assured in the knowledge that God is in control and his purpose is being fulfilled.

Lord Jesus increase my hunger, thirst and longing for your return. Join my prayer to the prayer for your Church, the Bride: ‘Come, Lord ]esus come.”

Chris 

From Bible Alive

Apocaylpse 18:1—2, 21—23; 19:1—3, 9 • Psalm 99(100):2—5 • Luke 21:20—28

 
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God's Delight

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Matthew 11:25–30
 
“I delight in you” GOD
 
Today’s Gospel is a particularly beautiful one.  It reveals a wonderful truth about God and his nature, expressing it in a way that no mere human mind could.  These words of Jesus come directly from the Father’s heart.
 
The passage is effectively in three parts: the Father’s delight; the relationship between Father and Son; and the grace of revelation.  Jesus teach us that God the Father delights to pour out a gift of revelation on his children.  “Revelation” in this context means receiving a blessing, an insight or fresh understanding which enables us to enter more deeply into the mystery of God.
 
In the Christian faith there are no new truths, simply the ancient revelation of the Scripture, the Creed and the teaching of the Church; and it is in these truths that we immerse our minds and hearts.  As we do so, the Holy Spirit opens our minds and hearts to see the hidden depths: a new meaning, a fresh interpretation or a word of nuance which touches us deeply and moves us to love and worship God.
 
This grace of revelation can come to us in many ways, but of course as we reserve time and space to pray and to study the Scriptures – as we are still before the Lord – we can experience it in a special way.  We are allowing our hearts to open to the grace of revelation; we can see this as the desire of the Father’s heart.
 
By making ourselves receptive to revelation from God we can know God’s joy and rejoice in his plan of salvation.  Today we have an opportunity to experience the delight of our heavenly Father as we penetrate the mystery of his Son, and receive the grace of revelation that brings us peace, joy and happiness.
 
Praise the Father, the good and holy Creator who blesses his children with the grace of revelation and the gift of deep and lasting joy.
 
Chris
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