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Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 27 September 2015


Fr Robin Gibbons

Fr Robin Gibbons

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

One of the good things about being a priest serving one of our immigrant Eastern Catholic communities is that there just isn't the money to provide a full stipend, so in time honoured fashion I earn my daily bread in academic life as a theologian. This allows me to work in ways that I would never have thought possible years ago and it has been part of my secondary vocation to the cause of ecumenism.

One delight is helping teach the many men who are training for the permanent diaconate - an ordained ministry that has always been part of the East but recently has seen a real growth in Roman Catholicism. They bring to the Church of God their experience of work and married life; I find it refreshing to be with them but also to be part of their journey and I sense that they give me far more than I can give them.

Reflecting with them recently on the upcoming Synod of the Family and also the very different needs of the Church as experienced by ordinary people we talked about another form of ecumenism, one that I think Mark's Gospel picks up and one which these future deacons know so well.

Jesus says: "Anyone who is not against us is for us" - that phrase is a huge challenge to any of us in the Christian community, because it again asks us to recognize Christ at work in situations that may at first seem outside of our experience. Those with families, with big work commitments can bring to ministry their understanding of people on the margins of faith, in other words to exercise the wider ecumenism of reaching out to the 'other', to those of good will, those of truth, to know and accept them as our brothers and sisters in Christ.

This attitude of inclusivity, openness to what is good can never be easy but it is about one fundamental of our faith that they and we belong to Christ.
Nevertheless Jesus also asks us to beware and tackle those who deliberately destroy people's faith, willfully and destructively. These evil people are to be warned that in God's time vindication and justice will be given out, the cry of the little ones has been heard and it is God these destructive people will face. We should not fear, for it is the fire of God's love that will purify us all!


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

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