St Raymond of Penyafort, Priest, pray for us
Tuesday after Epiphany : 7th January 2025
1 Jn 4:7-10; Ps 71:1-4, 7-8;
Mk 6:34-44 (Ps Wk II)
Epiphany prepares us for the Baptism of the Lord. But first, the first letter of St. John points to the love of God for us. The Gospel then points to this love of God through the saving words and deeds of Jesus.
In his letter, St. John hoped “that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3), and that “you may not sin” (2:1) and “so that you may know that you have eternal life” (5:13). St John wants us to experience true fellowship with God and with His people, the binding force for this fellowship is God’s love.
And this binding force is Jesus, our Lord. So real and tangible as a person, love is no longer an abstract idea or speculation. Today, Jesus “took pity” on the large crowd “because they were like sheep without a shepherd”. Shepherdless, indeed we like them, were once orphans. Like them, we need to be fed and nourished by Christ’s words, deeds and His life.
Take St. John’s testimony, “we have seen and heard Jesus, and touched Him”. The concrete moment to relish this experience of the early Christians is at the Eucharist. Fittingly, we are guided by the Collect for this week. This is our prayer and the grace we ask for:
O God, whose Only Begotten Son has appeared in our very flesh, grant, we pray, that we may be inwardly transformed through Him whom we recognise as outwardly like ourselves.
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