Message of Abbot Paul - Thursday 22nd September 2022

Abbot Paul • September 22, 2022

Yesterday was St Matthew’s day and so the feast day and birthday of our Br Mateo here in Peru. He was born the year following our arrival in Peru in 1981. We had a special lunch with his favourite foods (majado de yuca and ají de gallina) all washed down with fresh maracuya juice and pisco sour, a particular favourite of mine. I’m afraid you’ll have look those up, as I’ve no time to explain! Then this evening, after supper, there was the birthday cake, with a programme of songs and poems. Peruvians take birthdays very seriously, even in monasteries! These celebrations are great at bringing people together. I’ll add a few photos. The rest of the day was taken up with interviews, quite tiring, and a long class with the novices and postulants, great fun.

Our Gospel today comes from Luke, (Lk 9: 7-9), in which Herod expresses his curiosity over the identity of Jesus. Who can he be? Luke tells us that he’s puzzled, when hearing about the wonderful things that Jesus is doing and wonders whether, in fact, this might be Elijah or one of the other prophets of old returned to life, or even John the Baptist. But then, Herod had had John beheaded, so who could Jesus be? Herod had heard so much about Jesus and was now curious to meet him. Sadly, curiosity doesn’t necessarily lead to faith and, in the case of Herod, it certainly didn’t. We pray that our curiosity about Jesus and our Christian faith will lead us to grow in our love of God and our commitment to the Gospel and to Jesus.

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