Luke 9:18-24
12th Sunday Ordinary Time
Gospel Reflection for the 12th Sunday Ordinary Time Year C – June 23rd 2013
Full scripture for this Sunday is available on our parish website. Daily Scripture is also available. Our parish Prayers of the Faithful for this Sunday are made available on the Dublin Diocesan website.
SCRIPTURE
First Reading
It is the Lord who speaks: Over the House of David and the citizens of Jerusalem I will pour out a spirit of kindness and prayer. They will look on the one whom they have pierced; they will mourn for him as for an only son, and weep for him as people weep for a first-born child. When that day comes, there will be great mourning in Judah, like the mourning of Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. When that day comes, a fountain will be opened for the House of David and the citizens of Jerusalem, for sin and impurity.
Zechariah 12:10-11. 13:1
Gospel
One day when Jesus was praying alone in the presence of his disciples he put this question to them, ‘Who do the crowds say I am?’ And they answered, ‘John the Baptist; others Elijah; and others say one of the ancient prophets come back to life’. ‘But you,’ he said ‘who do you say I am?’ It was Peter who spoke up. ‘The Christ of God’ he said. But he gave them strict orders not to tell anyone anything about this.
‘The Son of Man’ he said ‘is destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death, and to be raised up on the third day.’
Then to all he said, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross every day and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, that man will save it.
Luke 9:18-24
REFLECTION
Taking up a cross- a theme of Jesus. The first reading hints that the end is never what we think it is. People were in exile, they knew that they had done wrong…God will find fresh springs of water for them. The cross will be the destiny of Jesus, but not the end. It will be love to the end but not the end of his life among us. We are people always with a future. Alleluia people. Because of Jesus who is alive now. Do we really believe this?
Jesus Making Sense
One way is to ask how do you identify with him? What aspects of his life now appeal? What of Jesus makes sense for you?
There is a need to find the real Jesus. Often we hear people say ‘I am spiritual but not religious’. But the big truth of our faith is that God became one of us and took on skin and flesh. He got tired, he got upset, he wept, he laughed…all the things that we do. When we feel at our wits’ end in our lives, the risen Lord is the new beginning. We can feel like that often and in the middle of the darkness is the light. Each of us finds Jesus in our own lights and darkness, as his word reaches to us there.
The end is…?
The cross – should it have a figure? It should be empty with the triumph of the resurrection. The first crucifixes had on them the risen Christ. He will suffer and enter into his glory. The end is never what we think it is. Everything in life may lead to Jesus, and he brings everything in life into his light.
Lord, in your light, we see light.
Donal Neary SJ
Gospel Reflections 