JESUS GAVE HIM TO HIS MOTHER

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Tuesday 16 September 2014.

JESUS GAVE HIM TO HIS MOTHER

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: Jesus said, ‘Young man, I tell you to get up.” And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother.” (Luke 7:11-17)

Reflection. Jesus enters ‘a town called Nain’ and meets a funeral procession. He pauses, goes up to the body on the stretcher and tells the young man on it to get up which he immediately does and Jesus ’gives him’ to his mother. All the people are overwhelmed and recognise ‘that God has visited his people.’ It is an awesome story in its simplicity and for a moment the people grasp what has happened. If God has raised up this one man can he not raise up every person and all creation too? This is one of the many ‘signs’ that Jesus gave. Our problem is that we read it, hear it, wonder at it and then move on to the next thing in our lives. We cannot hold the mystery to which we are called. We can’t make the connection between this divine ‘visit’ and what I am going to do today, at work, in a meeting coming up, in my family, in politics. We just don’t connect. The struggle we have each day is to let our faith in. It knocks on the door but it is less disturbing for me to keep it a little at a distance..

  

 

Prayer. Lord Jesus, you ‘stand at the door and knock’ (Rev 3:20) and I prefer to keep you waiting outside. Help me to open the door of my life that you may enter and be with me.  

David Harold-Barry SJ