Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of Matthew (17: 10-13) in which the disciples ask Jesus to explain parts of scripture to them. Fr Paul says, today’s Gospel carries on from yesterday and the day before, where Jesus was praising John the Baptist. In the very last book of the Old Testament, indeed in the final verses of that book, the prophet Malachi says, ‘Look, I shall send you the prophet Elijah before the great and awesome Day of the Lord’ (Malachi 4.23). So, we know a person will come who performs the function of Elijah in announcing the imminence of the great Day of the Lord. In today’s Gospel Jesus identifies John the Baptist as this Elijah, though John saw himself as just the forerunner of Jesus (John 1:21). Mindful of our Gospel today, Fr Paul invites us to reflect on these questions, ‘Do we recognise the meaning of Advent? Do we recognise that God is coming?’
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