St. Norbert's Church - Sunday Reflections

Once more we hear words from Scripture which assure us that God is still with us, even when Jesus has gone out of our sight. For so many people, the story of Jesus is beyond their belief. For us who believe, it is a story of God's love for us that will continue for as long as we live and for as long as this world exists.

Through the whole of the Old Testament, the Jewish Scriptures, we hear prophets exclaiming about God's love: He reaches out to the poor, He chooses the least of all, He seeks out those He has chosen, He chooses all peoples, He looks for the insignificant and calls them to Him.

We modern people are like the peoples of all times: we find it so difficult to believe that there is one God and that this One God loves us and seeks us out to call us to live His life with Him.

In our first reading today, from the Acts of the Apostles, we heard of the choosing of Matthias to take the place of Judas. This early group of twelve, apostles, was an important structure for the early Churches. Later it disappears as a group of twelve and simple becomes the group of those who lead the various Churches. The early believers had no doubt that God would guide them. Some doubted, for sure, the assembly of believers in general trusted that God would show the way. God had always shown the way. For us God has always shown the way. God shows the way now. The way is always seen in the believers assembled together with their leaders. Sometimes it is seen in the gathering of the leaders together as an assembly.

We who come later can see this slow formation of the Church Jesus founded. It is like any new life: it does not step fully formed from its beginnings.

The touchstone for this faith is found in the second reading today, from the First Letter of John: Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God.

If someone has no faith, that person cannot be part of the assembly seeking God's will. It is only a fraud. Through the centuries there have been plenty of frauds. Even today in our parishes, in our dioceses, in the Church at large, there are frauds. Yet we must be cautious about identifying others as frauds. None of us is perfect. None of us is without sin. If we separate ourselves apart and claim to have the whole truth, this is normally a sign of being in error.

So the Gospel of John today speaks of this searching for the truth: Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.

Let us commit ourselves to the truth, to seeking the truth, to seeking the truth together. There are times when we may be convinced that only we have the truth, but may we not embrace that path. Only God has the truth, only Jesus and only the Holy Spirit�and this is always found in the Church in union with the whole Church.

Christ died for us that we might live. Christ rose for us that we might live for ever. Christ lives for us now so that we, His Church, may reflect His love in this world by our love for one another and our faithful seeking of truth together with all other Christians.