Dear Friends,
United with each one of you in prayer and love. I have remembered you in my Mass today. The Mass Intention, was for the soul of Ellie Forker, RIP.
Gospel Reading from Saint John 7: 40-52.
Some in the crowd who heard these words said, “This is truly the Prophet. ”Others said, “This is the Messiah.” But others said, “The Messiah will not come from Galilee, will he? Does not scripture say that the Messiah will be of David’s family and come from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?
So a division occurred in the crowd because of him. Some of them even wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why did you not bring him?”
The guards answered, “Never before has anyone spoken like this one.” So the Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?
But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed. ”Nicodemus, one of their members who had come to him earlier, said to them, “Does our law condemn a person before it first hears him and finds out what he is doing?”
They answered and said to him, “You are not from Galilee also, are you? Look and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”
In today’s Gospel the people of Jerusalem are arguing about Jesus. They speak from partial knowledge, and form their own opinions based on self-interest, without regard for the truth.
We see also that the Pharisees condemn the crowds ignorance of the law, but Nicodemus points out that they themselves unfairly judge Jesus contrary to the law.
When have you wrongly judge, someone? Or when have you been a Nicodemus, and was shouted down? How did you feel about the injustice done to you or someone else?
The question set before us today is whether we are open to the message of Christ, which should change our lives every day, or will we be like the authorities who wanted to protect their comfortable existence and so continue in their imperfect ways?
United in love and prayer with you all
Fr John