Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 12 February 2017

Feb 10th, 2017

Good Shepherd at Mausoleum of Galla Placidia

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time Feb 12th 2017

I've heard the phrase 'we live in a post-truth age' a lot recently, as though in this strange and changing age of politics and world order, the values I hold as truthfulness doesn't matter. It's been made more prominent by several instances in the wider media of events being accommodated to fit a particular narrative without due regard for accuracy or facts. It has even occurred in the Church, where critics of Pope Francis have openly chosen to portray him in a very one sided light, particularly with reference to his exhortation Amoris laetitia, following the Synod on the Family, which asks clergy in particular, to treat with care and great pastoral concern those whose marital relationships fall outside the norms of ordinary church life. There are those who see this as a diminution of the teaching of Jesus on divorce, such as we find in the Gospel today.

However, you and I know that Scripture must not be utilized as a pawn or tool of particular viewpoints, but must be seen in a wider, open and pastoral context, where truth and justice form the bed rock of Christ's friendship. He himself said he came to save sinners; his greatest admonitions are for those who use religious laws to break others or lay unnecessary and heavy burdens on others. The most poignant moments in the Gospel are about the mercy of God, not judgment!

As a pastor I know my route is not to take the gentle road of ease, or to follow the highway code of strict law, but to take risks in order to reach out to those who feel cut off from Christ's love. The Good Shepherd knows the healthy and safe flock is accounted for, but his pressing engagement is to climb the cliffs and mountains to forge the dark crevices of life to seek out and carry home the lost sheep!

For despite my ministry as priest, I too at times am one of the lost sheep, like all sinners I know the need for an expansive all encompassing mercy, the total forgiveness of a God is who closer to me than any other living person. Those last words of Jesus in Matthew 5.37 are crucial, we must be people of truth, our yes must mean what it says, yes and our no, no! God is not post truth, God is TRUTH itself and the truth will set us free, for as Paul says: we speak God's wisdom, mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory, (1Cor 2:7)

Reflective Prayer

Father, your truth is made known in your Word.
Guide us to seek the truth of the human person.
Teach us the way to love because you are Love.
Jesus, you embody Love and Truth.
Help us to recognize your face in the poor.
Enable us to live out our vocation to bring love and justice to your people.

Holy Spirit, you inspire us to transform our world.
Empower us to seek the common good for all persons.
Give us a spirit of solidarity and make us one human family.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

This prayer is based on Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth)