Sister Kate’s “Gospel Question of the Week” (Luke 9: 18-24) …Weekend of 6/22-23-16 … 12th Sunday in
Ordinary Time. As Christians, we spend our entire life trying to answer the question that Jesus posed to the disciples in this
weekend’s Gospel passage. The question is this… “Who do you say that I am?” We might put the question a bit differently like…
“Do you know me any better today than you did yesterday?” OR “Does my life in you change the way you look at things…does it
determine the way you act?” You could make a list of other ways to put this question, but the bottom line is all the same! Here’s the
drift on it…if Christ appeared to each of us at the end of every day and asked us, “how well do you know Me today”, we should have
a fuller and fuller answer every day…our answers should get more animated, more sincere, have more roots, etc. etc. etc. You get the
point! Our goal as Christians is to come to know Jesus better and better every day. If we don’t, we’re slackers! Jesus must enter in to
our lived experience, loving us, forgiving us, helping us, and transforming our lives and how we view life. Knowing Jesus…really knowing Him (which, by the way, is not the same as knowing ABOUT Him) should become a living, personal experience for each Christian. How do we make this happen? We make it happen by listening to Him in our reading of the Holy Gospel, by talking to him through daily, personal and family prayers, by offering to Him our good times and bad, and by being reconciled with him. In the Eucharist we celebrate each weekend, we give thanks and experience in our lives the death and resurrection of Jesus-- the Christ, the Messiah, our Savior. We are called to surrender our life to Jesus…by offering humble and loving service
to others, with the strong conviction that Jesus is present in every person. Sound simple? Not so! It takes perseverance and commitment to being a disciple. Are you up to the case? One Sunday morning a man showed up at church with both of his ears terribly blistered. So his pastor asked, "What happened to you Jim?" Jim said: "I was lying on the couch watching a ball game on TV while my wife was ironing nearby. I was totally engrossed in
the game when she went out, leaving the iron near the phone. The phone rang, and keeping my eyes on the TV, I grabbed the hot iron and put it to my ear." "How dreadful," gasped the pastor. "But how did the other ear get burned?" "Well, you see, I'd no sooner hung up, the guy called back!" He just didn't get it. Lots of folks never get it and never understand how life really works, even at the simplest levels. That's why Jesus is pressing his followers — and us with a challenging question in today’s Gospel: “Who do you say that I am?” GOSPEL QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Are you ready to answer the question of Jesus? “Who do YOU say He is?”