Who do you say the Son of Man is? It’s one of those phrases that we are familiar with, something we hear year in and out. But you, who do you say the Son of man is? Who is Jesus to you? For me it has changed over time. As a child Jesus was kind of just there, he just "was". Most typically in the images we had at home. I still have a number of them going back to my earliest childhood. One of my most treasured possessions is an image of the Sacred Heart dedicated when I was two and a half years old, it has a place of honour wherever life has taken me. In my young adulthood somehow I lost focus on Jesus, and it was a number of years later that I slowly but surely returned to the practice of the faith where I now I can say with absolute conviction who Jesus is, “you are the Christ, the Son of the living God”. I moved from a cultural to a conviction Christian and Catholic. It was a rocky road, and this side of eternity it is still an unfinished journey. You will have your own story. Times of faith. Times of doubt. Times of consolation, and times of desolation. When you come to Mass, week after week, you are faithful to your promises to God and He is faithful to His promises to you. For us we know who the Son of Man is in our hearts, and we hear His call to you in our souls. It is the call of love, a call by which He desires to embrace you, to return love for love, yesterday, today and forever. But there as many times in life when we take two steps forward and one step back. We are not on our own in this. Time and again the lives of the saints show us how to move from hate to love; from malice to mercy; from betrayal to fidelity; from unbelief to certainty, and ultimately from the prospect of hell to the certainty of glory. Thank God that many of the Saints have had a past and they show us that every sinner has a future. We have two examples this Sunday, Peter and Paul. Very different in background and outlook. We tend to focus on the greatness of their sainthood and their particular role in our church as pillars of teaching and authority, but their own journey in faith was fraught with difficulty. Paul, arch persecutor of the church, witness to the death of St Stephen of which he approved. Peter, who said he would die for Jesus and yet denies Him three times, one gospel tells us to His very face. At the point of Paul’s conversion the Christians are so scared of him that they think it’s a hoax to enable him to identity, arrest and punish them. For Peter he is so ashamed of his betrayal that he never brings himself to apologise for it, it is Jesus who forgives him. Pillars of the church certainly but, on their own, with feet of clay. Despite of our own instinctive desire to follow the Lord, we too are also a collection of weakness and frailty. We betray Jesus as readily as we affirm Him as Lord; often in small ways imperceptible to others but known to our hearts. What are we to do? What unites Peter and Paul is a recognition that simply acknowledging Jesus as Lord, God and Saviour is insufficient to bring salvation to the world and to transform the believer into the image of Christ; belief is not enough. The believer, you and me, require the infusion of the power of God into hearts, minds and souls - the seven-fold gifts of the Spirit - wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and awe of God, gifts that you have received through Baptism and in particular Confirmation. Have you noticed how in the early church nothing important was done, no important commission given, without praying to the Holy Spirit? Do you pay attention to the amazing gifts that you have really and truly received? Have you considered how to put these gifts to use to bring the kingdom of God into our hearts and our world, today, now? We see how the Holy Spirit transforms Peter and Paul, we can see it in what they write and what happens in their lives. They bring the Word of life, Jesus, to others, by their words and their actions; in turn they are rescued from the lions mouth of their own infirmities and weaknesses. Jesus is the way to eternal life, the life of Peter and Paul, in different ways, through teaching and apostolic succession in the church, illuminate the way, our way, to eternity. St Peter and St Paul, pray for us. With every blessing and the assurance of my daily prayers for your needs and intentions. I am away being a chaplain to the sick in Lourdes from 3rd to the 17th of July, please be assured of my prayers for your intentions and the offering of the Mass for you and them when I am there. Fr Chris

During my many years working in the NHS confidentially was, and still is, extremely important. People have a right to expect that the information held will be kept private. But even there there are times when it is right to speak out and speak up without fear. I remember times, particularly in the large psychiatric institutions of the time, where unacceptable practices remained unchallenged. People who put their fear to one side and spoke up were victimised, ostracised by their colleagues, and at worst hounded out. It still happens, maybe we haven’t made as much progress as we would like to think. The truth does set you free but for some it can also hurt. In Sunday's gospel Jesus tells us to have no fear. At the heart of the teaching of Jesus, the "truth" that Jesus speaks, is the language of love; love of God, of your neighbour, even your enemies. Love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, love is the one thing that cannot hurt your neighbour. How can this teaching of Jesus be so challenging, even threatening, or, to some, seem to be destructive? Love goes and in hand with truth. Truth is one of those things that is instinctively attractive to us. It is something we like to see in society, in others, and in ourselves. And yet it’s as though we see life through a distorted mirror. It seems that there are different versions of truth, where people sometimes talk about “their truth” rather than the truth. This is not new, later in St John’s gospel, Pilate the governor asks Jesus “truth, what is that?” For us we know what truth is. The truth is incarnate in the person of Jesus Himself. God, in the perfection of His nature made visible in the person of Jesus, is incapable of untruth. The truth that Jesus gives us in His teaching enables us to be liberated from the false image we hold of the world and of ourselves. By God’s grace we are given the ability to be truthful before God, to be truthful to others, and truthful to ourselves. Why is the hearing of this truth, God's truth, in our hearts, living this this truth in our lives, and shouting it from the housetops to others so risky? Perhaps it is because people are comfortable living in the distorted image of ourselves and the world in which we live, living in their perception of "their truth". Changing ourselves into the likeness of Christ, the way, the truth and the life, is risky. Maybe we don’t know where to start, and maybe we are afraid of failure. But the follower of Jesus cannot remain in the same place, inviting Jesus into our hearts will surely, perhaps slowly and imperceptibly, change us. A follower of Jesus simply cannot stay as they are. We all know this, we desire, in a sense, to become Jesus, to change, to change ourselves into the image and likeness of God, which is our true self. This is even a bigger challenge for the society in which we live. The call of truth; the call to love over hate, the call to virtue over sin, the call to selflessness over selfishness. It’s no wonder that Christians are seen as being countercultural, threatening, people to be ignored or even killed. And yet we know through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, ascended into heaven and seated at the right hand of the Father, that ultimately there is nothing to fear. Every day we hear of examples of our brothers and sisters declaring for Jesus and paying what the world sees as the ultimate price, without the world realising that the ultimate price is not the destruction of the body but the soul. Standing fast and speaking the truth of salvation in Jesus is not easy but countless generations have shown us the way and continue to do so. Speaking the words of Jesus and living the life of love will change us and our world. There is no need to be afraid every hair on our head has been counted, we are worth more than hundreds of sparrows. If we acknowledge Jesus before the world at the end of our earthly lives he will acknowledge us before the Father. With every blessing and the assurance of my daily prayers for your needs and intentions. Fr Chris