Newsletter 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) 23rd August, 2026
Updated: Aug 21
GOSPEL REFLECTION:
In today’s Gospel, Our Lord asks His disciples: “Who do you say I Am?” When Our Lord says, “I Am”, He is teaching that He is divine, that He is God Himself. A strict Jew, even today, will not use the words, “I Am” because those words refer to God alone. In Exodus 3:14, God said to Moses that His name is: “I Am who I Am.” Our Lord repeatedly calls Himself “I Am”. For example: John 8:58: Our Lord says to the Pharisees: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I Am.” St Peter responds to Our Lord’s question: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” St Peter calls Our Lord, not ‘a’ Christ, but ‘the’ Christ. Therefore, St Peter knows that He is the Messiah. Then St Peter adds: “the Son on the living God” which suggests that St Peter is claiming that Our Lord is God Himself. Our Lord did claim to be God. For example: John 10.30: “The Father and I are One.” Also, every Jew should have known that the Messiah was God. For example: Isaiah 9.6: “For a child has been born …authority rests on His shoulders; and he is named: Wonderful Counsellor, ‘Mighty God’, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” St Paul writes, Philippians 2.9-11: “Therefore, God has exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name, which is above every name, that the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God, the Father.” Let us continue to answer Our Lord’s question: “Who do you say I Am?” In St Paul’s letter to the Philippians 2: 6-83, we read: “Although Christ Jesus is God, He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, and being found in the appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” This passage reminds us that the very essence of God is love (1John 4:16) and therefore, God is an “Offering Incarnate”. His nature or essence is to offer or sacrifice or die. Also, it doesn’t matter how sinful we are, even if we are the greatest sinner of all time, Our Lord would be crucified for us, without hesitation at every moment. And if crucifixion is not enough to make us respond to His invitation, Our Lord’s love for us has reduced Himself to an even lower state than human. He has taken on the form of food – mere bread and wine. He becomes food so that we may be changed into Him. Although we are sinners, there is no limit to the offering He makes for us in order that we become His son or daughter, with full rights of inheritance, inheriting everything God has and is. We don’t become God, but God wants to live in us so that we may no longer be limited by our flesh or the world but be of the Holy Spirit. Our Blessed Mother is described in the Bible as “full of Grace” (Luke 1,28). In other words, she is full of the Holy Spirit or full of God. She described her state of existence to a Luisa Piccarreta who died in Italy in 1947. Our Mother said that Our Lord made His home in her: “God let me take possession of all the divine qualities, for however much it was possible to a creature. Everything was mine: I felt myself possessor of the divine sanctity of the love, of the beauty, power, wisdom, and divine goodness. “In other words, Our Mother possessed God’s Love, God’s beauty, God’s power etc. “I felt myself queen of all, nor did I feel like a stranger to my Heavenly Father. I felt His paternity and the supreme happiness of being His faithful daughter.” God’s love for us is so great that He invites us to share in His divinity or to share in everything He is. In other words, Our Lord wants us to be fall of the Holy Spirit or full of his Divine Life and God seems prepared to a make any sacrifice in order for us to reach that level of sanctity.
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