WHO I AM FOR YOU?

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What does the Gospel tell us? Jesus wasn’t just asking a rhetorical question. He wanted a response to his question who am I for you? He had spent time with people and some have accepted him. Peter’s was the remark of faith. Faith is in the person of Jesus before any creed. Our faith is based on Jesus not on the church. It is knowing Jesus from the inside – knowing who he really is with the knowledge of the heart.
The name of that openness to God’s love on the part of the people is “faith.” Is our faith just like a birthmark or a way of life and love? For some it is just a birthmark. A label for birth, marriage and death. It has become more like this in the church in many ways allows this. The church is the body of people here for Christ, concerned intimately with whatever concerns people.
Who is Christ for me? The question that will ground our faith. Christ is bigger than the church, and God is bigger than Christ. We are here for partnership with the Lord in bringing on the reign of God.
What would that look like? That people who care for each other and particularly for the old, the child, the weaker, the unborn and the refugee. The church is the community where the weakest are welcomed.
The son of the living God is the one who heals, cures, wants us, and is the human face of God. We are that too – he has no body now on earth but ours!

Excerpt from Gospel Reflection by Donal Neary SJ from www.sacredheartmessenger.com