Fr John’s Reflection 19th Sunday of the Year
19th Sunday of Ordinary Time – 11th August
Listen! I have been reflecting over the last month on how our relationship with God is fundamental not only to our prayer but the way we live. I think some of the difficulties that we find in our prayer are that we concentrate on whether we are achieving a closeness which permeates all our interactions. There is often a trusting solely in our own efforts or in seeking a silver bullet which will make sense of who we are seeking to enter into a relationship with. Often these can have echoes of the first question asked by the disciples where they approach Jesus and ask where do you live and he says come and see. This is where our searching for God becomes an activity that we undertake amidst many other activities. We acknowledge its importance but somehow we are the person who chooses when and where we will pray and what will be at the forefront of our lives. Yet as we enter deeper into prayer we recognise interplay between what we consider important and what God considers is important. While we can be engaged in many things which help us to know about God at the heart of our prayer God wishes to know us. The gentle art of letting down our defences and taking off our masks to be truly known can cause us fear and anxiety wondering if we are truly known will we ever be the same. Yet in reaching out to us God helps us to discover it is from this place of being truly known as our true self that we can discover the call which is unique to each person. God calls us to be ourselves and in knowing ourselves we discover what it is that we can devote our lives to. Ultimately this is at the heart of the pilgrimage journey that we take. We are called to be companioned along the way where we discover the God who walks with us. Rather than searching outside ourselves for this relationship, he draws us deeper into the place that God already calls home. We are not called to be aliens in a foreign land but rather fellow travellers who accompany each other on the way. As Jesus concludes when Thomas asks him what he is called to do Jesus points to himself and says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” By searching each day for where God is always present we can see that God’s grace is not beyond our reach or outside the realm in which we live. He walks with us, talks with us and breaks bread with us. May your hearts burn within you as you listen to His voice.
Fr. John Armstrong
