Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - June 10th 2018

"And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."(Mk 3:34-35)

The best of families or communities can go through great difficulties and get over them, that I think we can all understand, but what happens as it does occasionally, when family or community relationships break down, where an irretrievable point of no return seems to have emerged? How do we as Christians committed to that generosity of love, which Jesus commands us to show to others and ourselves, be active in bridging that chasm, healing the wounds?

It is a difficult question, made more so by the deep theological and spiritual understanding we have, that the Spirit is at work in us, as Paul wrote: " For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by the Spirit we cry,"Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children". (Rm 8:14-16)

I make an apology for the non inclusive 'sonship' translation there, but you need understand it is a difficult word and in the Greek refers to us all as being in the process of becoming true children, in the fullest sense, of God our parent beyond all parents. This indicates a real, full, reciprocal relationship but one that is organic and evolving, we shall only fully be known as children of God in the resurrection of the dead in the coming Kingdom. Until then we have a connection through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, this helps us look at brokenness in relationships and that disturbance sin can bring into our lives. It makes the story about Jesus' own aggressive family members rather poignant.

We see in Mark's account how familiarity brings not only contempt but misunderstanding, even malice! (Mk 3:20-25) Jesus lists a pretty solid list of negatives here, division, blasphemy, and a pretty strong sense of demonic sin, underneath that anger, aggression and hate.
What do you do in that type of encounter? Keep a sense of hope that things can be worked out, sins can be forgiven, reconciliation can occur, but and Jesus warns us; clearly there may come a point when we meet unmoveable obstinacy and obduracy. This perhaps is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, our refusal to move, shift, change our position, but remember Hope! We have a guide in the Eastern Church tradition that tells us God does not refuse to forgive, that possibility is open to us, but because in persisting in this sin we can cut ourselves off from the possibility of forgiveness. But there is Hope!

And what about family divisions? Sometimes we need to step back, to realise with bravery that our human family is only one part of a greater, bigger, wider, everlasting family. I said to a friend recently about my own journey, after a difficult time with relations: ' I now understand that 'family' are those related to you, but never solely that, 'family' are those you make part of your life and who make you part of theirs'. We have to give them up in some way, only to discover that they belong with others in our true family, that of God.

Lectio Divina

"What you are is God's gift to you, what you become is your gift to God." Hans Urs Von Balthasar , Prayer

"The inglorious weakness with which, in this century of collapse, you stand before the world unable to transform it: this weakness is already a part of the mystery of my own inglorious weakness, for when was I ever strong enough to renew the face of this exterior world? Thus, it is my will to give you a worth which does not properly belong to you, and to fashion you solely from the might of my heart, as Eve was fashioned from Adam's rib.

The source of your life, O Church, is both a demand and a promise. Live not from yourself: live solely in me and from me. Think of yourself no longer as of the one you used to be. Think no longer of your heart, but rather let my Heart alone be sufficient for you - the heart which I have planted in the center of your body. You ought, in this way, to be my Bride and my Body, and it is my will to redeem the whole world in you, exclusively in you. Be my handmaid. Renounce your will and nestle, like Ruth, at my feet. Become obedient even to death".

The Conquest of the Bride | Hans Urs von Balthasar | From Heart of the World