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Kilnamanagh-Castleview Parish
(opens in a new tab)Official Parish Page for the Parish of Kilnamanagh-Castleview.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus asks his disciples a question which has never lost its force:‘Who do you say that I am?’Peter answers: ‘The Christ of God.’It is the right answer. Yet Jesus immediately shows him what that answer means. The Christ will suffer, be rejected and be killed, and on the third day he will be raised.Peter has confessed who Jesus is. Now he has to learn what it means to follow him.That question remains just as relevant for us today:‘Who do you say that I am?’It is easy enough to give the correct answer from the Catechism. We can say that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, our Lord and Saviour. All of that is true. Yet Christ’s question goes deeper. Who is Christ for me? What place does he actually have in my life? And if I say that he is my Lord, how can that be seen in the way I live?These questions are particularly appropriate for us as we prepare to begin our parish novena this evening, ‘The Franciscan Path to Holiness’, marking the 800th anniversary of the death of St Francis of Assisi.St Francis had to answer the same question: Who is Christ for me, and how does my response show itself in the way I live?For Francis, the answer gradually became the centre of his entire life. Christ became the one whom he wanted to follow, imitate and serve with radical seriousness. Francis wanted the Gospel to shape the whole of his life.That response changed everything. It changed his relationship with money and possessions, his ambitions and his understanding of success in this life. It changed the way he looked at the poor and the sick. His encounter with the leper, whom he had previously feared and avoided, became one of the decisive moments of his conversion. It changed his relationship with other people, whom he increasingly came to see as brothers and sisters, and it changed even his relationship with creation, which he saw as the work of the same Creator whom he loved and worshipped.St Francis answered Christ’s question in our Gospel today with his whole life.The same is true of the many saints of the Franciscan family. Some answered through lives of radical poverty and prayer. Others did so through preaching, teaching and scholarship, through works of mercy, or through hidden lives of humble and faithful service. Many followed Christ even to martyrdom, giving their lives rather than deny the one whom they had come to know and love.Their lives were very different, yet at the centre of each stood the same question:‘Who do you say that I am?’Their answer became visible in the way they lived. That is at the heart of holiness. Holiness means allowing our faith in Christ, and our answer to his call, to shape the whole of our lives.If Christ is truly Lord, then that has consequences. It affects the way we treat the people around us and the way we use our possessions. It shapes our priorities, our prayer life and our willingness to forgive. It influences the way we carry suffering, the way we respond to the poor and the lonely around us, and the decisions we make when following the Gospel asks something difficult of us.The saints of the Franciscan family came from every walk of life. They were men and women, rich and poor, religious and lay people, scholars and simple brothers, rulers and servants. Some lived in convents and friaries; others lived their vocation in the middle of the world. In all these different circumstances, their faith in Christ became visible in the choices they made, the sacrifices they accepted and the people they served.That is why their witness remains important hundreds of years later.Our circumstances are very different from those of St Francis and St Clare, St Bonaventure and St Anthony, St Elizabeth of Hungary or the many Franciscan martyrs. Yet Christ asks us exactly the same question:‘Who do you say that I am?’And each of us has to answer.Perhaps during this novena that is the question we should carry with us: Who is Christ for me? What place does he really have in my life? What difference does knowing him make to the way I live? And if someone looked at my life, would they be able to see something of the answer?During these coming days, may their example help us to examine our own answer more deeply, and may our faith in Christ become ever more visible in the lives we lead.
