Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 13th September 2015

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

At some point all those on the Gospel journey will be asked this question about the Christ. 'Who do you say I am?' It may come in the form of discussions with others, it may be the result of our own intellectual struggles with the doctrines of Christianity or it might be some question thrown at us by an unlikely source, one which throws us off balance and make us wonder just who this Jesus Christ is?

I used to tell my students that our theological studies had to encompass all aspects of faith or else it would lack the true authenticity of a real encounter, for as Saint Anselm said so wisely; we are on the journey of 'faith seeking understanding'. That would always mean an engagement with this question, for to know Jesus is what we are really seeking to do in our faith, but it is also a bit risky, for like those in Mark's Gospel we might come to all manner of answers, call him a prophet, a holy man, a teacher of wisdom, a healer and miracle worker, but then miss the essential truth, which as Antoine du St Exupery wrote in his work, 'Le Petit Prince,' is that it is with the heart that we see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.

Is that a cop out? An easy excuse not to answer the question Jesus puts, to those who follow him? No, because what is invisible means so much, it is the emotions, our thoughts, our beliefs, hopes, it is of course what we call love too.

This means that somehow the call of Jesus is an encounter, a call to a relationship where we begin to know and love him and others through him and with him. That is part of the wonder of Christian faith, it encompasses life in others, in people, in creation, it is not about an absent God, nor an angry deity, but about the one who more than anything loves us deeply and with great compassion.

This is the God who renounced his own life for the sake of all, who took up the cross daily, that little cross of dealing with others and who carried it on his shoulders even to death, where he hung on another cross, the symbol of our salvation and of love's triumph over death.

Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Chaplain for the Melkite Greek Catholics in Great Britain.