Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of Luke (9: 43-45) in which Jesus tells his disciples, ‘The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men’.

Fr Paul says this is the second of three great prophecies of the Passion, which in all three synoptic Gospels stake out the progress from the scene at Caesarea Philippi to the Passion itself. The great journey up to Jerusalem will not formally begin until Chapter 9 Verse 51, but the atmosphere is already becoming more sombre.

In each of the three prophecies Jesus uses the mysterious title ‘son of man’ for himself, perhaps softening the horror of the prediction.

In Mark, the failure of the disciples to understand these prophecies is part of the theme of the disciples’ slowness to believe, stressed so heavily by the evangelist.
Luke here, however, lifts the blame from their shoulders by explaining each time that the meaning of Jesus’ words was hidden from them, and they were afraid to ask – perhaps a reverent timidity rather than crass ignorance.

Today Fr Paul invites us to reflect on the question… Do I truly understand what Jesus has done for me?