Category: Discernment

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Gospel Lectio Divina Prayer Scripture Uncategorized

Recognising Christ

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If we were to look for a role model among the followers of Jesus, it’s unlikely that Bartimaeus would be the first person to spring to mind. His circumstances, disability and poverty seem to put him outside the circle of possible role models.

But, as always the ways of the Kingdom turn our human values on their heads. With reflection we can see that there’s much more to Bartimaeus than appearances suggest. When he calls out to Jesus he has a clear idea of who he believes Jesus to be and of his own need of salvation. He calls out:

“Son of David, Jesus, have pity on me.”

His words show a man of faith, who knows his need of God, and is willing to take the risk of trusting that God. He is a man of courage and persistence, who refuses to allow himself to be silenced by the negative response from those around him. His persistence is rewarded when Jesus, ignoring the attempts to silence him, calls him over asking him:

“What do you want me to do for you?”

Jesus makes no assumptions or judgements about Bartimaeus or his circumstances, instead allowing him to speak freely and openly. When he does so Jesus recognises and names him as a man of faith saying:

“Go; your faith has saved you.”

Bartimaeus challenges us to ask ourselves where we recognise our need of Christ and if we have the courage, like him to cry out that need until Christ turns and sees us.

What helps you to recognise your need of Christ’s life changing presence in your life today?

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The Peace of Christ

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Today were celebrating the feast of St Luke, author of some of the best-known and most loved gospel stories. It’s not surprising then that today’s gospel focuses on the sending of the seventy-two to preach the Good News through the towns and villages.

Jesus gives them very specific instructions, telling them what to take and how to behave as they travel around the country. On their journey they are called to trust themselves completely to the providence of God and the kindness of strangers.

But he doesn’t send them out completely empty handed. He gives them a gift to pass on to the people they encounter:

“Whatever house you going to, let your first words be, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if people of peace live there, your peace will go and rest on them; if not it will come back to you.”

As we see communities torn apart by war and conflict across the world it’s hard to imagine a time when that peace has been more needed. This peace is no quick papering over of cracks. It requires that we do a certain amount of inner work to be able to receive it.

If we are to be people of peace, we have to allow our hearts to be changed. We need to risk letting the stories of the other change us. We have to be willing to let go let go of much that we cherish. We have to accept that we are not right about everything and to be willing to compromise.

Where is Christ calling you to change so that you can accept his peace today?

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Letting Go

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In today’s second reading St Paul tells us:

“The word of God is something alive and active: it cuts more keenly than any double edged sword…”

The truth of his words is borne out by the gospel

In conversation with a young man who asks how to inherit eternal life Jesus begins by taking him back to the basics of faith, telling him to keep the commandments. That’s not enough for the young man, he wants more. When he presses Jesus to say more he gets it. Jesus responds:

“There is one thing you lack. Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

His words are so challenging that the young man, who was very wealthy, walked away sad, unable to take that extra step. Jesus’ words also challenge us. As St Paul says they cut through the excesses and riches of our society to the heart of what is means to follow Jesus. Having more than we need, especially when others lack the necessities of life is not the way of the gospel. It’s not Good News for us or for anyone else.

Jesus’ words are as challenging for us as they are for the young man. Like him there’s much that we have to let go of, both materially and spiritually if we want to give ourselves completely to following Christ. It’s a call to put ourselves aside with all the sacrifice and denial that implies in order to be free to give ourselves completely to following Christ.


What do you need to let go of to be free to follow Christ wholeheartedly?

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Becoming childlike.

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In today’s gospel Jesus once again turns our ideas on their heads. In response to his disciples question about who is the greatest he challenges them to look at greatness in a new way. He doesn’t tell them to pay attention to the learned and the clever, the experts and politicians. Instead he tells them to look at little children and to model themselves on them:

“He said, ‘I tell you solemnly, unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. And so, those who make themselves as little as this little child are the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

This must have surprised the disciples, they, like us would not have expected to model their behaviour on the children around them. The opposite would have been true, then as now. The gospel calls us to examine that view. It invites us ask what Jesus saw in the children that he didn’t find in those adults concerned with position and status, and to look at what we can learn from them.

Children are open and trusting. They are curious about others and willing to learn. When they are involved in some activity they give it their whole attention, it absorbs them completely. They have an innate sense of fairness and justice. These are qualities that we seem to lose as we grow older. To watch that is a delight and a challenge. Reflecting on today’s gospel it seems to me that Jesus is asking us to look at where we can rediscover these attributes in our lives.


Where is Christ calling you to be open and trusting today?

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Hearing the call

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From the archives for the feast of St Therese of Lisieux. Today we are celebrating the feast of St Therese of Lisieux. She’s often been presented with an overlay of sentimentality and sweetness that undermines her great spiritual wisdom and insight. She was a women of great faith, courage, determination and discernment. This morning we had a reading from her autobiography, where she describes some of her struggle with vocation and its resolution. Reflecting on St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians:

“Love, in fact is the vocation which includes all others; it is a universe of its own, comprising all time and space – its eternal… My vocation is love… I had discovered where it is that I belong in the Church, the niche God has appointed for me. To be nothing else than love… That’s to be everything at once.”

Her realisation is the result of a deep and honest personal reflection. To reach it she must have paid attention to her deepest discontent as well as her deepest desires, searching the Scriptures to discover how God was leading her through both to discover and respond to God’s call. To go through that process requires great honesty and courage, it’s something we’re all called to.

St Therese’s discernment takes us right back to the very heart of our Christian call, the call to love. It’s a call that seems obvious, straightforward and simple. But, as St Therese herself could tell us the ups and downs of life soon shows us that the call to love is also costly, challenging and painful.

How is God calling you to discover the niche God has appointed for you?

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Expanding the boundaries.

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We are communal beings, despite the individualistic tone of our society we flourish in relationship and in community. Although it has an intensely intimate aspect our faith is a communal one. As St Benedict reminds us we travel to Christ and eternal life “altogether”, not alone.

All this is profoundly life giving, but today’s gospel points out that it also has a downside that we need to be aware of. When it stops being all inclusive community can descend into tribalism. If shifts from being a space where all are welcome, and there is only “us” to being a separatist space divided into “us and them”.

In today’s gospel, the disciples fall into this tribal trap. Shocked by seeing an outsider casting out demons in Jesus’ name they try to stop him, and then complain to Jesus. His response is unexpected. Instead of anger he replies:

“You must not stop him: no one who works a miracle in my name is likely to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us.”

Unlike his disciples Jesus is able to be open and inclusive, trusting the good intentions of the man’s intentions. He is able to see a bigger picture than the disciples, and reaches out, not to criticise the man, but to enlarge the disciples understanding of community and belonging.

In our challenging times when tribalism is on the increase we too are challenged by Jesus to expand our ideal of community until there is no “them and us”, but just an all inclusive us, journeying together towards the God of love.

What boundaries is Christ challenging you to expand today?

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First and last

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We live times where status matters. Whether our status is related to work, wealth, or online presence we see it self defining in some way. It can make us feel important, valued, seen or powerful. The temptation to seek status can be beguiling and misleading.

In today’s gospel the disciples fall into this trap. Discovering them arguing about who is the greatest among them Jesus takes them aside, offering a teaching that turns all their ideas about status and power upside down.

He tells them that the greatness they seek is not part of the kingdom. The way of the kingdom is not to seek to be first, but to choose to put others first:

“If anyone wants to be first, they must make themselves last of all and servant of all.”

It’s not what the disciples had left everything to follow him were expecting to hear. If we are honest about our own reactions his words they are just as startling to us today.

He calls us to a way of living that puts the needs of others before our own, to treat them as we would like to be treated. I wonder how life might change if that became the guiding principle of all our daily interactions and encounters? There is no doubt that such a change would be costly for us, and would require a daily effort. Alongside this challenge the gospel offers us the hope that it would also be an enriching and life enhancing experience.

How is Christ calling you to serve today?

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Space for love to flourish

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Today I’m reflecting on the first reading. From the 1st letter of St Paul to the Corinthians it’s a call to allow every aspect of our lives to be shaped by love:

“Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins, but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.”

St Paul captures the essence of love and why it is so essential to our lives. He expresses both the ideal we strive towards and the practicalities of how we make that ideal a reality in our daily lives. He reminds me that the call of love is always to seek the good of the other, to act with kindness and to to give the benefit of the doubt wherever we can.

We live in times that are quick to judge and condemn. Fuelled by the speed and anonymity of the internet it’s rare that we take the time to listen & understand views that are different from ours. Sometimes we rush into reacting before love has a chance to make its voice heard.

St Paul’s call to love is a call to re-evaluate all of that, to consider our response to disagreement in the light of the love we’re called to by the gospel. How that could reinvent the digital arena, and all our public engagement?

Often I think we find it easier to act with love in challenging, difficult situations than in the ordinary, mundane interactions of daily life. Yet it’s the daily small kindnesses and patience in bearing with one another that changes lives, easing burdens and allowing love to flourish.

Where are you being called to allow love to flourish in your life today?

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Finding Space.

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Today’s gospel is all about service. Leaving the synagogue Jesus goes immediately to Simon’s house where he cures Simon’s mother-in-law. Immediately she gets up and begins to serve them. The evening sees Jesus serving again, as crowds of people come to him seeking healing. It must have been a long and tiring day, and all of us know that feeling. The next morning Luke tells us:

“When daylight came, he got up and left the house and made his way to a lonely place.”

We read this as a break in the pattern of service, Jesus taking time out to pray in order to return to serving refreshed and renewed. On one level that is is true, but the Gospels often have many layers of truth. On another level Jesus’ act of taking time to be alone in God’s presence is also an act of service.

It is an act of self-care which allows him to draw all that he needs to carry on from God. It’s also an act of service to others, a reminder that part of what it is to be human is to need time to rest and recharge.

When the needs of the people we serve seem to be overwhelming we can feel pressured to keep going regardless of our own needs. Jesus doesn’t wait until every need is met, every person healed, every situation resolved before he takes the time he needs. He doesn’t expect us to do that either there is both an invitation and a challenge in that.

Where is Jesus inviting you to take time to pray in the midst of serving others?

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St Gregory the Great.

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Today we’re celebrating the feast of St Gregory the Great. The gospel poses the question at the heart of Christian life. Jesus asks his disciples what people are saying about him. It highlights Jesus’ humanity, like all of us he wonders what people think of him, and how much impact his message is having them. He gets a varied response from the disciples. Some people say he’s John the Baptist, or Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Brushing this mixed bag aside he asks the disciples:

“But you…who do you say I am?”

This question moves the discussion to a deeper level. Directed, not to the crowds who hear him in the market place or synagogue, but to the people who left everything to follow him. It requires a deeper response than the comments the disciples have passed on. I can imagine the silence that fell as the disciples realised this and pondered their response. As usual it is Simon Peter who has the courage to break that silence as he says:

“You are the Christ…, the Son of the living God.”

As the rest of the passage unfolds we see how life changing this response is for Peter, and for St Gregory the Great. It’s left me pondering my own response to the question. Yet, each time it arises it has the potential to be life changing for us too. Whenever it comes up we’re called to give it our whole attention so that we, like Peter and St Gregory, can answer it from the depths of our hearts.

Who do you say Christ is today?