Message of Abbot Paul - Tuesday 29th November 2022

Jesus founded an inclusive Church. No one was rejected, as we saw in yesterday’s Gospel, when Jesus recognised the deep faith and humility of a foreigner, a pagan centurion, whose servant was gravely sick and on the point of death. Jesus was constantly being accused of entering the homes of sinners, tax-collectors and prostitutes, and of eating with them. Jesus said to the criminal dying beside him, whom we call the Good Thief, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” St Paul was the chief persecutor of the Church, when he was called to faith by Jesus on the road to Damascus and chosen to be the Apostle of the Gentiles. Jesus was close to women. Famous examples are the sisters Martha and Mary of Bethany, and Mary Magdalene, the first witness of the risen Christ and the Apostle of the Apostles. The early Church was founded in many places on the faith of women, such as Lydia of Philippi, leader of the Christian community in that town and known as the Equal of the Apostles. Philip baptised an Ethiopian eunuch, who no doubt took the faith back to his native land, one of the oldest Christian Churches that still exists.

 

​Last night we held a Parish Council meeting to organise our study morning on the Synod this coming Saturday, 3rd December, beginning at 10am in Hedley Lodge. All are welcome. No one is excluded. We were looking at a few paragraphs of the Document for the Continental Stage that came from Rome and distilled the contributions of all the countries of the world. Paragraph 40 is very short but well worth reading. “Despite the cultural differences, there are remarkable similarities between the various continents regarding those who are perceived as excluded, in society and also in the Christian community. In many cases their voice has been absent from the synod process, and they appear in reports only because others speak about them, lamenting their exclusion.” Powerful words.

 

​Today’s Gospel comes from Luke, (Lk 10: 21-24). Here it is:

”Filled with joy by the Holy Spirit, Jesus said:

  ‘I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do. Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’

  Then turning to his disciples, he spoke to them in private, ‘Happy the eyes that see what you see, for I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see, and never saw it; to hear what you hear, and never heard it.’”

Jesus says that everything has been entrusted to him by the Father and that means you and me as well. We have been entrusted to Christ, for he is the Saviour of the world. Safe in his arms, as he bestows on us the Father’s love and the grace of the Holy Spirit, we can rest assured that we, too, are included in the kingdom of heaven and have our place in the Father’s heart.