Tag: Sunday Reflection

Jesus remains with us in the suffering and the poor, but most especially in the Eucharist. Christ also entrusts us with the responsibility of representing Him to those that do not know Him through our words and deeds.

Christians are not perfect people. They are imperfect people who have doubts despite their belief in the Savior. And it is still these imperfect people that Jesus chose to carry His word to those that do not know Him. The imperfect Church must carry the light of the unblemished lamb to every corner of the earth.

The disciples’ sadness at Jesus’ second departure was alleviated by the joy and hope that the Paraclete He promised to send gave them. In the same way, Jesus remains in us, in an intangible manner, so that we experience Him through faith and He can be present to all people at all times.

The Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is Jesus’ gift to us to comfort us, to breathe life into His Word, to inspire us with wisdom and prudence, and guide us in our battle against the spirit of this world.

Meeting the physical need of shelter is important, but even more important is the offer of love and an eternal dwelling place that God offers us – heaven. This is the home all of us must aspire to.

Jesus is the only way to God, a way that is traveled through suffering and trials. By recognizing God in Jesus, we also find ourselves doing His work, taking up a ministry suited to our abilities to draw His lost children back to Him.

“How do we get used to the voice of the Shepherd? Choosing a passage from the Bible at random and trying to find a personal message in it, is a practice like taking a lottery ticket, and is practiced around the world. It cancels out the personal process of discernment. The random usage of the Word of God is more likely to satisfy human curiosity. Even the Evil One tempted the Lord using scripture quotes. Since that realization came, I have started a process of discernment of listening to the voice of the Lord in the Scriptures, based on the global values that the Scriptures give us.”

The Good Shepherd’s voice is the only one which can make sense of our entire existence, including our painful past, of our traumatic experiences and of our failures. It is the only voice which opens our present circumstances to a positive future without fear, no matter the challenges in front of us.

“When trials and disillusionment occur, no matter whether we are newly baptized or ‘old Catholics’, that is the time to gather in the community, to re-read our life in the light of the Scriptures and to break the bread together. It will take time, but I guarantee that eventually everything will fall into place” writes Fr Paolo Consonni in this Sunday Reflection.

The disciples on the way to Emmaus resemble those of us who expect the spectacular from God. We are cowed down by the evil of the world and fail to recognise that the Messiah accompanies us in the greatest miracle on this journey through life – the Eucharist.