A GREAT SADNESS

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Monday 11 August 2014

A GREAT SADNESS

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: Jesus said to them, “the Son of Man will be handed over … put to death ... and on the third day rise again.“ And a great sadness came over the. (Matt 17:22-27)

Reflection. The Vatican Council, in one of its documents, asks, “What is this great sorrow” that people feel? There is a context to life in which we become aware of impermanence, a sense that everything we do is provisional. It may work. It may last. But we cannot be sure. The Council goes on to proclaim what the Church sees as permanent and unchanging; that is, God’s love for his people and his desire that they respond to the relationship he offers and so fulfil the purpose of their existence. So in the midst of his mission, when the disciples are getting used to being with him and are enjoying the “status” of being close associates of the famous prophet, Jesus suddenly reminds them of the reality. This adulation, this frenetic activity, will not last. People will grow tired and drift away. The authorities will find a way of getting rid of this troublesome fellow who is disturbing us. No wonder “a great sadness came over them”

      

Prayer. Lord Jesus, deepen within us a sense of the beauty of life and of our world and at the same time a sense that it will all pass and it is only the threshold of something far more wonderful that we can only glimpse.  Amen

David Harold-Barry SJ