Topic: Discipleship

In a moment of transfiguration we glimpse the weightiness of Jesus and his mission, and we are ourselves transfigured, becoming people of greater substance.

Taking up your cross is about a willingness to pay the price of following Jesus and living out your baptism. It is not a generalised stoicism.

When we encounter Jesus, we are seeing the truth about God and the truth about life as it is meant to be lived. To embrace that truth will put us at odds with the world, but on the pathway to fullness of life.

When we glimpse the fullness of what could be, we are called to the tough work of bridging the gap between here and there.

The wilderness can seem harsh and threatening, but God is there, ready to nourish us with the bread of heaven.

Jesus commits himself to the path of redemptive suffering in preference to either fight or flight, and he calls us to follow him in that commitment.

Jesus will be there for us in the midst of the storms, but we are to stay together in his boat rather than jump ship in a misguided “display of faith”.

You might have been written off as a dead loss (even by yourself), but only respond to the call of Christ, and you will live!

The kingdom of God is celebrating our life together now and our shared hopes and dreams of a world where all might eat and drink, and we are called to do what we can to bring this world about.

God calls us to new beginnings, and we have to let go of old certainties to embrace them.

Growth in faith and love come as we work through tough times together for God.

Living the beatitudes is far to lightly dismissed as being “only for saints”, but Christ calls us all to live as saints.