24th January, 2010 Third Sunday of the Year - C
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I was really Impressed by the words of reflection given by Abbott Philip in his monastery community of Christ in the Desert, in New Mexico,… he writes, on the readings this weekend…
Today’s Gospel says so simply: my sheep hear my voice! No one can take them out of my hand.
SO, we are invited and challenged to hear the voice of the Lord Jesus today. It is by listening to His voice and recognizing His presence and believing in Him that we are saved.
[[pwk]]….But surely (just as importantly…. Just as essnentially……) listening to him and believing is not the end….. but only the beginning…… Sometimes we hear people….. speaking of “all we need to do is believe in Jesus as Lord….” It is certainly true that believing in Jesus as Lord is important…. But that does not make sense unless the kind of “believing” we are referring to is not just holding some ‘concept’ or intellectual understanding of who Jesus is….. but an ACTIVE kind of believing….. when (BECAUSE) of who we belive Jesus is….. it means we Believe in what he DID…. And we believe in his message…. And we accept that message … and LIVE IT…. In practical, concrete ways……. Otherwise…. If we just say… yeah, I do accept Jesus is God’s son… but don’t live in the reality of what that means for our lives… and how we act …. And our priorities…. Then it becomes a veryhollow platitude………… [[pwk]]
So… “we have to respond to that voice,…… though (true)…… only believing in Jesus gives us the strength to act from faith and live that reality…….
The first reading today, from the Acts of the Apostles, tells us about preaching the word of God. Only if we have heard that word ourselves can we preach it effectively. Again the challenge of this Sunday is to hear the voice of the Shepherd, to hear the voice of Jesus and to let it touch our hearts and our minds. If we ourselves are not converted, we shall never be able to inspire others by the truth of Jesus ……. We will never be able to draw others to the Lord.
I mean week in and week out … we preach that Jesus is Lord… and he makes us all brothers and sisters in God’s family….. believing this changes everything about how we act…. We don’t make distinctions in the dignity of the people we relate to…… because of this belief…. We try to avoid acting as if there are different classes of people…. Who are treated differently from others….. no we respect and treat everyone with the same dignity and love…. Or else we have totally missed the point of who Jesus is and what he was here to do…..
The second reading today, from the Book of Revelation, speaks of the countless numbers of people who hae borne witness to Jesus’ message, many of whom have paid the ultimate price for their belief in the values worth standing up for……
[[This is fitting on this Anzac weekend, where we remember those who put their own lives last… in the defense of family, friend and stranger… because of their beliefs in the lasting value of things….. We shall never forget this sacrifice… no greater love has a person than to lay down their life for their friends….. and also… there are many ways people lay down their lives.. the ultimate.. is the loss of their physical life… and in addition many have laid down the quality of their lives, due to the sacrifices they made…… their health and peace of mind, effected by what they sacrificed.. we remember them too…. ]]
Sometimes we surely ask ourselves: how do we listen to God and let His word transform us? There is no easy answer. We can read the Scripture every day and sometimes it seems not to penetrate us. We can try to meditate and at times, all we have is inner emptiness. We can ask God to possess and yet at times we sense only abandonment.
In all of this, we must persevere. We must continually ask God to touch our hearts and our minds, even when we find ourselves resisting Him. We must continue to read the Scriptures even when they seem not to touch us….. ….
We must continue with meditation, prayer and contemplation even when nothing seems to happen. Perseverance over many years of knocking at God’s door is the only answer. He may give us small glimpses at times or He may leave us in darkness for years. [[ we cannot demand how and when God touches our lives…. We let go in trust… and ask God for patience and wisdom…for God to act in God’s own time… which is different… so very different from ours]]
We are invited to hear the voice of our Good Shepherd. We know that He is with us, even when we walk in the valley of darkness. May our profound awareness of His presence lead us onward, believing that in the end, He will give us light and let us hear His voice. Let us sing alleluia to the Lord.
(Abbot Philip, OSB; with additions in brackets by Paul kelly
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REFERENCES:
· MONASTERY OF CHRIST IN THE DESERT. ABBOT’S HOMILY.
· FR. PAUL W. KELLY
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