Dear La Côte Church family and friends,
After a summer season of parables and miracles, our Sunday readings turn the spotlight on Jesus’ close disciples and on the Church. In Matthew’s Gospel (Matt.16.18), Jesus declares to Simon Peter: “you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”
What does it mean to be church? St Paul, in his letter to the Romans, calls us to be transformed. A monarch caterpillar doesn’t suddenly decide to curl up and will itself to be transformed into a butterfly, but somehow in its cocoon this transformation takes place. Paul’s call to be transformed, is an invitation to entrust our whole being to our loving God, for the Holy Spirit to change us from within and to renew our minds.
Brother Matthew of Taizé recently reflected on Jesus’ transfiguration. The account of Matthew 17 describes a voice from a bright cloud instructing the disciples to listen to Jesus. Listening to Jesus, Brother Matthew observes, is the way to our transformation.
He writes: “Listening is an act of love, at the heart of any relationship of trust.
Listening draws us into becoming beloved daughters and sons of God through Christ, and sisters and brothers to one another—a sign of God's love and a ferment of peace in the human family.”
He presses this home: “Continue this path: listening to Christ through his Word, to the people and events of each day, and in prayer to what dwells deepest within us, where the Holy Spirit lives.
It is this daily faithfulness in listening that, little by little, transfigures us.”
Loving God, we pray for a listening heart in all that happens day by day, so that we may be transformed, little by little, into signs of God’s love and a ferment of peace. Amen.
Carolyn Cooke
