YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE

PRAYER MOMENT  

Thursday 3 April 2014

YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE

Pause. Be still and enter within into the presence of God.

Reading: “You study the scriptures, believing that in them you have eternal life; now these same scriptures testify to me, and yet you refuse to come to me for life.” (John 5:31-47)

Reflection. A sentence out of the King James Bible, the first authorised English translation (1610), stays with me, “he came unto his own and his own received him not.” It is quaint but it is marvellously evocative. The whole of John’s gospel is a commentary on these words and, approaching Holy Week, we are conscious of the cost of this non-acceptance. The Jews retreated to what they felt was sure ground; Moses. But Jesus points out that “it was I Moses was writing about.” It makes no difference. They rejected Moses (Exod. 32:7-14) and now they are going to reject him. We talk about “the Jews” but they stand for humanity and men and women go on rejecting Jesus. Every day our news media illustrates this. Yet the struggle goes on because there are those who do not reject him, and in their lives show that they yearn to receive him.   

Prayer. Lord, you came among us. Fill us with a desire to open our doors to you. May men and women struggling for peace welcome you into their hearts. Amen.

David Harold-Barry SJ