Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons: 25 July 2026

Dream of Solomon - Luca Giordiani

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 109

I find it difficult to visualise the Kingdom of Heaven, but I believe that is a very good thing. Jesus gives us many different images of what it is like in terms of comparison and we hear some of these in our gospel today, but there is no one, solid, definable image except of the completion of all things in a glory we can only glimpse. I thank the Lord for that lack of definable clarity, because I am sure if there was, some religious people would be busy making a check list of those who are not going to be allowed in. and this is also contrary to what Jesus teaches, it is not for us to judge!

'Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth'.(Mt 13: 49,50) If that seems a bit stark its only because we are being guided back to looking after our own and others need for salvation, mercy and love, not worrying about what will take place!

As I still recover from my knee operation I have good and profitable times to reflect on what matters in my faith life, particularly what the essentials might be and what is a distraction to growth with the Lord. I find that particularly on social media, there's a bit too much of cafeteria religion about, people having very strong opinions on aspects of our faith without too much grounding in the wider reaches of theology, doctrine, scripture and the living tradition we hold dear as Catholics.

This lack of depth and a type of intensely personalised religious belief needs to be challenged more often. In some of the statements I have read there is more than a trace of what Jesus condemns, namely loading heavy burdens of faith on people's shoulders, projecting onto others their own fears and uncertainties, and causing division amongst good people often without any deep or clear understanding of the faith they purport to represent. We need to heed the warnings of Jesus such as that we find later on in Matthew 23:23 'Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices-mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law-justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former'.

I recognise more and more that we cannot look back to recreate some better past, nor can we live in some bubble isolated from the rest of humanity, for now it is time we set our faces towards the only One who knows the truth, and trusting in the help of the Holy Spirit and the abiding presence of Christ our good Lord we pray in the words of Solomon ;" Give your servant, therefore, a listening heart to judge your people and to distinguish between good and evil. For who is able to give judgment for this vast people of yours?"( I kings 3:9)

The Church has great need of people with listening hearts and the gift of discernment to help spread the Good News . That is what we are about, this is the faith of the Church. It is as the letter to the Romans puts it so well :' We know that all things work for good for those who love God,* who are called according to his purpose.

What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? (Rn 8: 28,31) And so let is go forward trying to discern the Kingdom of heaven in the treasure of our fields of faith, in those pearls of great price we discern in the lives of those we care for, and in the nets of the Lord who gathers us in towards an eternity that awaits us!

Lectio

The Bright Field

R S Thomas

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

Fishers of Men

Alfred Noyes

Long, long ago, He said,
He who could wake the dead
And walk upon the sea-
"Come, follow Me.

Leave your brown nets and bring
Only your hearts to sing,
Only your souls to pray,
Rise, come away.

Shake out your spirit-sails,
And brave those wilder gales,
And I will make you then
Fishers of men."

Was this, then, what He meant?
Was this His high intent,
After two thousand years
Of blood and tears?

God help us, if we fight
For right and not for might.
God help us if we seek
To shield the weak.

Then, though His heaven be far
From this blind welter of war,
He'll bless us, on the sea
From Calvary.