Matthew 12:14-21

 

Here is my servant whom I have chosen,

my beloved, the favourite of my soul. 

I will endow him with my spirit,

and he will proclaim the true faith to the nations. 

He will not brawl or shout,

nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. 

He will not break the crushed reed,

nor put out the smouldering wick

till he has led the truth to victory:

in his name the nations will put their hope.

 

 

One of the ways that we can guard against our hearts becoming hard is by reading the Scriptures with the focused aim of drawing from them a deeper insight into the mystery of Christ.  This is what Matthew was doing in today’s reading: he was drawing deeper insight from the writing of the prophet Isaiah.  He saw that Jesus was latent in the Old Testament and was able to recognise those Scriptures which testified about him (as above).

 

(from Bible Alive)

As we become one with Jesus Christ in baptism and the life of faith, we are taken into his intimate relationship with God the Father. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, we share in the love that exists between the Father and the Son.   We don’t enter this relationship primarily through intellectual understanding. When we adore the Holy Trinity we are caught up in a heart knowledge that is far more simple and profound, and we enter into the relationship and learn far more than we can ever understand intellectually. Through this sharing we become like 'little children', like the 'babes' Jesus talks about, and we begin to experience truths that are far beyond our imagination. 

Matthew 9:32-38

 

The Gospel is essentially a message, the kerygma.  It involves us witnessing to the truth that Jesus, who suffered, died and rose again from the dead, is the Lord of history and the Lord of our lives; and that in believing in him and accepting his lordship we are born again, and through baptism we enter into Christian life.

 

The Lord wants to equip us to be effective workers in the harvest field so that we can have the freedom and the confidence to lead others to Christ.

 

 

Chris

(from Bible Alive)

Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

Earlier, in Luke’s Gospel Jesus sent out the twelve disciples to heal disease and teach about God’s kingdom. Here he sends out a much larger group, ahead of Himself in pairs to every town and place He himself intended to grow. Being sent in pairs reminds us of the value of team work . In order for communities to grow and flourish the gifts of many are needed. Synergy is needed. This happens when individual talents and harvested and aligned as in the beauty of a choir singing in perfect harmony, or a sports team at the peak of their performance.

Synergy is like a power of the Spirit that rewards collaborative efforts. It is when we can dream and strive for the possibility of things before they happen. Synergy promotes collaboration, not competition or exclusion.

Jesus gathered his followers around him, men and women, who were enthused by his vision. He sends his followers out in pairs so that they can support each other. In all our different roles we too are sent out ahead of him as parents, ministers of various kinds, politicians, educators, social workers, nurses.....

In any team, a parish council, a ministry group, a choir we need a kind of synergy. We are all responsible for our Church, not just a select few. We all have different roles to play, we all have responsibilities. When we promote collaborative teams and strive for synergy, we embrace each others' stories and work for the common good. Then exciting things are possible.

Jane Mellett

The greatest mystery of Christian truth is that in the Godhead there are three Persons, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.  Faith allows us to accept this revelation; faith allows us to rejoice in it and enter into it.

 

A famous icon by Rublev depicts the Trinity as three angels around a table with space reserved for another guest.  We are that guest, because by the grace of baptism we are invited to immerse ourselves in the mystery and glory of the triune life of God.

"O Eternal Trinity, God, you are an abyss, a deep sea; you have given yourself to me – what greater good could you give?  By your light you enlighten our minds, as by your light you have brought me to know you."  Saint Catherine of Siena

Chris

(from Bible Alive)

John 17:1-2, 9, 14-26

 

Jesus’s high-priestly prayer brings us into the very heart of the Trinity.  The Blessed Trinity is a unity of the union of three divine Persons in one divine God, a divine unity joined for eternity in a communion of profound love.

 

Our Lord and Master focused not on himself but on pleasing his Father and protecting us by his prayer.  He united himself to his Father’s will: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me” (John 4:34).  He submitted entirely to it: “not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42).

 

As we keep Jesus’s word, we shall experience the love of the Father and the Son: “he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him” (John 4:21).

 

The Father and the Son dwell in the hearts of all those who believe and obey Jesus’s word and they dwell in the Father and the Son.  This divine indwelling is given to us by the Spirit at our Baptism.

 

Chris

(from Bible Alive)

I rather liked this meditation by Dr Luigi Gioia OSB; I found it on sayittogod.com:

 

<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VM5FLg7v3tq5N7JH7l1Fu3oh8bNRVZwtdLSdDkidtdc/edit#heading=h.3be0nja0quwa>

 

God bless

 

Chris

The new creation is established through Jesus’s resurrection.  Jesus himself is the first-born of God’s new creation.  When Jesus died, he took with him to the cross the sin and fallen nature of all of humanity.  

 

Humanity’s fallen nature is that nature in which the self-life has been allowed to rule and control us.  It is a nature that, in the end, cannot have union with God, because the self-life refuses to let God take central place – it is my will that I do, rather than God’s will.  Jesus, throughout his life, revealed a true human life which was completely surrendered to the will of the Father.  

 

However, the cross was necessary because the power of the self-life, and of self-will, needed to be put to death.  It was brought to an end on Calvary.

 

The resurrected Jesus is now the source of a life that is entirely one with the will of God.  For that same life to be manifested in us today, it is essential that we have union with both the death and the resurrection of Jesus.

 

The key element is our willingness to let go of the self-life and the self-will that can so dominate our lives.

 

Chris

(from Bible Alive)

In a verse preceeding today’s Gospel the disciples ask Jesus why he will not show the whole world who he is. It’s an excellent question. Surely this whole faith – journey experience and relationship with God, would be far easier if there were fireworks and clear instructions.

 

Jesus’s response to the disciples is ‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.’

 

These are the opening words of today's Gospel, It reminds us that what is required first is an inner relationship with God, so that God can come and make a home with us: ‘ we will come to them and make our home with them.’ It is there that we discover who Jesus is.

The peace (shalom) that Jesus gives to the discipls has a much richer meaning than we might first think. This ‘shalom’ is not simply a good wish for a nice evening, it is rather a peace which this world cannot offer. It is a peace that comes from a loving relationship with God, a peace of body, of mind and of spirit.

 

Jesus is asking the disciples to be an unending witness to God’s love.

They (and we) must be for others what Jesus has been for them. In this way we and the world will come to see who Jesus really is.