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Sunday Reflection with Father Robin Gibbons: 6 September 2015


23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Anxiety is not a good thing for any of us, it disturbs us, niggles us, makes inroads into our peace of mind and can, if bad, really mess us up! All my life that little anxious streak has emerged at all kinds of odd times to wreck my peace and equanimity. It's no use saying to an anxious person, 'it will be alright', rather what they need to hear is the forceful and strong words of Isaiah: 'Courage! Do not be afraid', as the prophet rightly knows, the voice giving us that advice is not based on human reason or support, but on one thing alone that is beyond anxiety, the being who is the source of all rest, love and peace beyond all understanding, the Lord our God.

Is that too much of a dream? Given the awful daily stories we he hear and see about migrants, battle weary refugees, the poverty stricken peoples, not to mention the sufferings of our natural and animal world, imprisoned by human greed and unkindness; we might think all hope is gone! Then our anxiety grows in the face of all the problems. Yet we cannot and must not let go of one of the building blocks of faith, as the psalmist tells us; 'It is the Lord Keeps faith for ever, who is just to those who are oppressed'.

In Jesus we find the one who opens new ways new hopes; his call, 'Ephpthatha', 'be opened', is not only command of healing to the one who was deaf and possibly dumb, but it is a healing call to us all to let Christ open our ears and mouths, to listen to the cries of his world and to proclaim the truth.

Our deafness and dumbness is too often connected with the critical issues of our times, when we refuse to listen to the cries of the anawim, the little ones of the world who include both people and other living creatures and when we do not speak out on their behalf. Paul reminds us that the Christian cannot make distinctions between categories of people, instead we have recognize that our position in life is at one with the poor and needy. These are they whom Christ reminds us are his presence in our world, for the least , the poorest , the meanest are those in whom we find Him, our Lord and God.

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

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