Posts Tagged ‘call’
Download 4th Sunday Advent
Reflection Questions
- The 4th Sunday of Advent points excitedly to the next few days – the birth of Jesus. In the final days before Christmas how could you achieve a balance: writing christmas cards and preparing heart and home for Christ. Attending christmas parties and choosing space and silence for prayerful listening to God. Buying christmas presents and being a christmas presence? If you were asked to describe your joy at Christmas what would you say?
- Ahaz was King of the southern Kingdom of Judah. Isaiah was trying to encourage him not to enter a military agreement with Assyria. Both God and Isaiah hold a conversation with Ahaz. Go on, ask for a sign from God! He declines, most probably because he does not want any sign to change his mind. Is there any decision you have made which you stubbornly refuse to change your mind about yet feel God wants a conversation about it? If you were to ask for a sign from God to guide your future, what would you ask for?
- The ‘sign’ of a young girl of marriageable age (maiden) conceiving and bearing a son ‘Emmanuel’ has been interpreted as a great fulfilment of Gods birth among us in Jesus through Mary. When a sign is given it requires both ‘seeing’ and ‘understanding’. Ponder a ‘sign’ that has changed your life. How has the ‘sign’ of Jesus changed your life?
- Paul frequently introduces himself as ‘a slave’ of Christ Jesus. Being a slave is actually freeing for Paul. The emperor, idols, money, possessions… nothing and nobody is his Master. Only Jesus. He lives in love and for love alone. Jesus, who is God ‘enfleshed’ has the first call of obedience on his life. Can you glimpse Paul’s joy and freedom? What has God ‘sent’ (the meaning of the word ‘apostle’) you to ‘be’ and ‘do’? Are you free enough to say ‘Yes’?
- While we often remember Mary’s visit by the angel and her ‘Yes’ to God, we can easily miss Joseph also had a visit by an angel (message bearer) in a dream. Without Joseph saying ‘Yes’ Mary and Jesus could both have been killed! (public stoning was the penalty for pregnancy before marriage). Joseph ‘did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him’. Is your life open to being changed and disturbed by ‘an angel’? Have you ever pondered how vulnerable and uncertain is the experience that Mary and Joseph walk into with their combined ‘Yes’s’
- What is one action that you will do to be ‘livingtheword’ this week?
Download Reflection – 12th Sunday Yr B – Feast of John the Baptist
Reflection Questions
- The celebration of the Birth of John the Baptist is a very early christian celebration dating back to the 4th century. John is like a bridge, linking the Old Testament and the New Testament. He is the greatest of prophets pointing to the promised Messiah – Jesus. Today we are reminded of the importance of prophets and people who ‘point the way’. Are we willing to enter the discipline of prayer and having an open ear and heart? Undergo ‘desert training’ of purification and moulding? Are we willing to speak the ‘hard word’?
- Isaiah writes of 4 poems or songs of the ‘suffering servant’. The third song is presented today. Have you ever felt like you had ‘toiled in vain’, ‘spent all your strength’ felt as good for nothing and ‘useless’? Yet God has been gradually using these experiences to make you ‘sharp’. Sanding and polishing you into an arrow, storing you in his quiver, ready to be used to bring God glory. Consider the hard times of suffering. How has this strengthened and sharpened and polished you?
- What do you consider is your ‘calling’ from God. Are you thinking ‘too little’, just being a servant when in fact God wishes you to be a ‘light to the nations’?
- Paul is speaking to Jewish listeners in a town called Pisidia. They understood they were waiting for the promised Messiah, a descendant of David. Paul shares with them this long awaited person – Messiah – has already been and gone! Did they not know!? Many people ‘wait’ for salvation and healing of the world. Have you considered what they ‘wait’ for? Hope to ‘see’? Could they see this in your life?
- An incredible amount of silent work of the Holy Spirit takes place with Elizabeth and Zechariah and John. Naming their new-born boy ‘John’ breaks from custom and shows they are obedient (to the Angel and the Spirit) and open to the new way of God working. Painfully, John will not follow his Father and be a priest in the Jewish Temple. Instead he will leave the city and be part of the Qumran community in the desert. He will eventually emerge as a prophet calling God’s family to wash again in the waters of the Jordan – renew and start again the entry into the promised Land, this time truly becoming a ‘light for all nations’. Consider the experience of Elizabeth. Zechariah. John. Disciples of John. Jewish people. What part of John’s life can you identify with? What part do you rebel from?
- ‘What then will this child be’? Circumcision, 8 days after the child is born, marked ‘baptism’ and ‘belonging’ to God. Have you prayed openly to God for your children, brothers, sisters, for the grace of baptism and their ‘special calling’ to be stirred up and real? To become strong in spirit? What gifts do you see in them? Have you spoken to them about this?
- The desert has a special place in the memory of Jewish people. It was a place of God luring his chosen bride and people closer to him. It involved testing, proving, preparation. Could you create more desert time in ‘prayer’ so you can hear from God how you are to ‘manifest’ ‘show’ and live your life in the Church (Israel)?
- What is one action that you will do to be ‘livingtheword’ this week?