Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of Luke (9: 7-9) in which Herod, the tetrarch is perplexed by what he hears about Jesus after having put John the Baptist to death.

Fr Paul says in Luke’s Gospel he does not include the account of the murder of John the Baptist by Herod – he has already mentioned his arrest before the baptism of Jesus – but he uses the occasion and Herod’s question to prepare for Herod’s meeting with Jesus in Jerusalem during the passion narrative. He leaves things open by the question, ‘Who is this?’, the question which will be progressively answered in the events to follow.

More important is the suggestion that Jesus is among the prophets. He is represented by Luke on several occasions as standing in the tradition of the prophets. A prophet is, of course, not simply a foreteller of the future, but one who sees things as God sees them and declares the will of God in a particular situation.

Today, Fr Paul invites us to reflect on – who is Jesus?