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A person can accept what Christ has done without knowing how it works; indeed, he (she) certainly won't know how it works until he's accepted it. - C. S. Lewis
(Believe, and you shall see . . . )
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NM 12:1-13; PS 51:3-7, 12-13; MT 14:22-36
R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we
have sinned.
Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my
offense. Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me.
For I acknowledge my offense; and my sin is before me always: “Against you only have I sinned; and done what is evil in your sight.”
That you may be justified in your sentence, vindicated when you condemn. Indeed, in guilt was I born, and in sin my mother conceived me.
A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me. Cast me not off from
your presence, and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
USCCB Lectionary
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Reflection on the Scriptures |
(About today's Gospel) Two things jump out at me in particular: the invitation and the rescue. First, Jesus does
invite Peter to do something really amazing, and I think we are invited to do extraordinary things, too. Through the Incarnation and his life on earth, Jesus showed us what humans are meant to be. We are meant to be loving, forgiving, compassionate, and merciful. We are meant to question and challenge figures of authority who seem to have forgotten that leadership means service to others, not protection of privilege and influence at all costs. Finally, we are meant to
remain faithful to our deepest convictions and our central identity as beings created in the image and likeness of God. This might seem daunting, but I doubt most of us see it as miraculous. Human history and today’s news, though, are rife with stories of war, murder, deceit, and the worship of wealth and power. So when you look at that long tale, the humanity that Jesus invites us into really is extraordinary.
Second, there is the rescue. As I already mentioned, living in the way we are meant to live looks pretty daunting when we consider some aspects of the social and political reality in which we are trying to live, as well as the human jealousies, selfishness, and pettiness that
each and every one of us is all too familiar with. So, we can probably count on failing or falling short with quite a bit of regularity. But God reaches out to us, like Jesus reaching out to Peter. Our focus on living the life that Jesus has revealed to us sometimes falters, but if we are open to and strive for that life, we won’t be allowed to drown. God doesn’t write us off every time we fail to live up to our deepest identity, thank goodness! Instead, God
continually invites and reaches out to us when we need it, pulling us at our core and pushing us to be who God desires us to be.
- by Craig Zimmer Creighton Online Ministries
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Revelations of Divine Love
- by Julian of
Norwich Chapter
2
“A simple creature unlettered.—Which creature afore desired three gifts of God”
My Curate was sent for to be at my ending, and by that time when he came I had set my eyes, and might [16] not speak. He set the Cross before my face and said: I have brought thee the Image of thy Master and Saviour: look thereupon and comfort thee therewith.
Methought I was well [as it was], for my eyes were set uprightward unto Heaven, where I trusted to come by the mercy of God; but nevertheless I assented to set my eyes on the face of the Crucifix, if I might; and so I did. For methought I might longer dure to look evenforth than right up.
After this my sight began to fail, and it was all dark about me in the chamber, as if it had been night, save in the Image of the Cross whereon I beheld a common light; and I wist not how. All that was away from the Cross was of horror to me, as if it had been greatly occupied by the fiends.
After this the upper part of my body began to die, so far forth that scarcely I had any feeling;—with shortness of breath. And then I weened in sooth to have passed.
And in this [moment] suddenly all my pain was taken from me, and I was as whole (and specially in the upper part of my body) as ever I was afore.
I marvelled at this sudden change; for methought it was a privy working of God, and not of nature. And yet by the feeling of this ease I trusted never the more to live; nor was the feeling of this ease any full ease unto me: for methought I had liefer have been delivered from this world.
Then came suddenly to my mind that I should desire the second wound of our Lord’s gracious gift: that my body might be fulfolled with mind and feeling of His blessed Passion. For I would that His pains were my pains, with compassion and afterward longing to God. But in this I desired never bodily sight nor shewing of God, but compassion such as
a kind soul might have with our Lord Jesus, that for love would be a mortal man: and therefore I desired to suffer with Him.
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