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Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 25 January 2015


Tigris River, Mosul  Wiki Image, NGerda

Tigris River, Mosul Wiki Image, NGerda

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Listening to the reading from the Prophet Jonah we cannot fail to be moved! God saw the sorrow and repentance of the people of Nineveh, and spared them in this story. Today IS ignored the cries of the people in Mosul and destroyed the existence of the Christian community! The irony cannot be lost on us; now people claiming to do this in God’s a name are destroying Mosul/Nineveh! But in Jonah’s story the big difference it is about coming together not rending asunder. All the people believed in God’s mercy, they all repented of their sinful ways, and all came together united in penance, symbolised by sackcloth and ashes. What a contrast with the divisions caused by violence and evil present there now!

Is there anything we can do? Of course there is, we cannot ignore these issues or stand idly by. We are a called to proclaim the Kingdom of God near at hand. Paul reminds the Corinthians that part of our task is to repent of sin, to change our lives, remembering that time is passing quickly, but that also means building up relationships, reaching out in mercy to others.

Christians now have to face national and global issues such as endemic poverty, unjust persecution of peoples, the destruction of our planet and all that lives on it and so on. Our task is to be fully informed of what is going on, and to be pro-active, continually making known these facts as well as doing something constructive to help the various situations and needs. For evil flourishes in the darkness and half-light of fear and misinformation, the truth, hard though it is, sets us free.

The same theme of the imminence of the Kingdom comes in Mark’s story of the calling of Simon and Andrew. I’m not sure I like the fishers of men image too much, just look at it from the fishes' point of view, a fisherman means pain, death, destruction. I believe Jesus uses it as a metaphor to call the fishermen disciples to follow him, so it their image not necessarily ours. We need to substitute the metaphor with our own calling!

Whoever we are, whatever we do, we proclaim the love of Christ and of his Kingdom. Jesus calls us to follow him, firstly by a change of heart, repenting of our old bad ways: then we will become his disciples, drawing others to him.

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