Message of Abbot Paul - Friday 25th June
Message from Fr Paul for Friday, 25th June 2021
A great thank you to everyone who prayed for us during our Annual Conventual Chapter. It was a positive, helpful and enjoyable experience for all who took part. It was rather special that the second day was held on the Solemnity of the Nativity of St John the Baptist, the Forerunner and personal Prophet of Jesus. Chapter has to be a prophetic witness to the depth of our Community’s monastic vocation and vision for the future. Pray that we may always be faithful to our Benedictine calling, tradition and roots, while at the same time adapting and renewing our life together to flourish and grow in the future.
As yesterday we had a special Gospel reading for the feast, we didn’t read the conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount. In today’s Gospel, (Mt 8: 1-14), Jesus has come down from the mountain and he’s surrounded once more by large crowds, eager to be healed or to hear his word. Matthew writes, “After Jesus had come down from the mountain large crowds followed him. A leper now came up and bowed low in front of him. ‘Sir,’ he said ‘if you want to, you can cure me.’ Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him and said, ‘Of course I want to! Be cured!’ And his leprosy was cured at once. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Mind you do not tell anyone, but go and show yourself to the priest and make the offering prescribed by Moses, as evidence for them.” The first personal encounter that Jesus has after coming down from the mountain is with a leper, who asks for healing, but in a calm, polite manner. There’s no demanding on his part, simply the humble plea, “Sir, if it is your will, you can heal me.” No sooner than he has asked that Jesus stretches out his hand and touches him, saying, “Of course, why would I not want to heal you? You are healed.” Jesus does not fear to touch a leper. It is a new creation, the gift of a new life. Whenever I read this short account of the healing of the leper, I always think of Michelangelo’s glorious fresco of the Creation in the Sistine Chapel, in which God gives life to Adam. How often have you and I said after recovery from an operation or some serious illness, “I feel like a new man or a new woman”? Jesus doesn’t want attention drawn to himself, so he tells the man to go and show himself to the priest and fulfil the offering of thanksgiving prescribed by Moses in the Law. In other words, Jesus wants the thanks and glory given to his heavenly Father, not to himself. What a model of humility Jesus is for us all.
Today, then, let us pray for the healing of those who are sick or plagued by suffering of any kind. Let us also pray for the gift of humility, that, like Jesus, we may never draw attention to ourselves, but always give glory, thanksgiving and praise to our Father in heaven.
