“You have seduced me, Lord, and I have let myself be seduced;
you have overpowered me: you were the stronger.”
These are the opening words, attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, in this Sunday’s Scripture. Somehow or other, this year, the juxtaposition of the liturgical feasts of St Monica, followed by our remembrance of her son, the great St Augustine and yesterday’s recall of the savage death of the young John the Baptist, all seem to highlight the importance of the Gospel dialogue between Jesus and Peter. (I often ponder this incident. Would it have been written down by other authors recalling the beginnings of their movement? Peter recently anointed as the ‘rock’ being told “Get behind me, Satan!”)
on the opposite stance, “Who do you say I am?”
Monica “…a lifetime of prayer, saved her husband and her son…
Augustine, brilliant and still one of the great minds of all time, eventually wrote,
“Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new”.
John the Baptist…with his extraordinary statement, “He must increase, I must decrease.”
Monica, Augustine and John all came to experience Jeremiah’s experience,
“There seemed to be a fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones.”
So, too, did Peter. His is so really a very human journey, one that gives all hope.
Monica witnessed by a life of prayer,
Augustine by his wonderful writings and pastoral zeal,
John, by courageous denouncing of injustice,
Peter by always getting up after his many fails.
Many calls, many paths.
What is yours?
What is mine?
Mons Frank