{"id":4792,"date":"2020-05-08T18:36:15","date_gmt":"2020-05-08T18:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/?p=4792"},"modified":"2020-05-08T18:36:15","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T18:36:15","slug":"i-am-the-way-the-truth-and-the-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/2020\/05\/08\/i-am-the-way-the-truth-and-the-life\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;I am the Way, the Truth and the Life&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Today&#8217;s gospel reading, John 14:1-6, is one of the best known passages in John, often read at funerals: its last words &#8216;I am the Way, the Truth and the Life&#8217; used to be seen on evangelistic adverts on the Underground. Jesus at the Last Supper is trying to cheer his disciples up (&#8216;Do not let your hearts be troubled&#8217;) by assuring them about his unique relationship to his Father. Christianity has always asserted this uniqueness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In Acts 13;26-33 St Paul continues his preaching to the Jewish leaders in Antioch, depicted here by Raphael. Again, the stress is on the uniqueness of Jesus, raised from the dead.<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-4793\" src=\"http:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/96372048_2905156762914561_5854392890939146240_o-1024x788.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">It is a sad truth that when people, or societies, abandon religious faith, a substitute comes into existence. We have been reflecting today on the end of the Second World War in Europe seventy five years ago. Regimes like Nazi Germany, &#8216;prostrate&#8217; that day (as Winston Churchill said in his broadcast) were characterised by a false religious faith: Christianity, such a strong thread in the history of the German people, was replaced by an exalted ideology of the State, an ideology based on violence and race hatred. A lesson of today is surely that populist nationalism has not gone away in the last seventy-five years. This is what happens when people walk away from the &#8216;Way, the Truth and the Life.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The cardinal&#8217; s homily at the Mass he celebrated this morning (details below) is worth hearing if you haven&#8217;t already.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Enjoy the bank holiday and God bless<strong><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong><strong><em>Fr Ashley<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">From our Facebook page&#8230;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/St-Edmunds-Church-Beckenham-773012899462302\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-4745 size-medium\" title=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/St-Edmunds-Church-Beckenham-773012899462302\" src=\"http:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/images-300x120.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"120\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s gospel reading, John 14:1-6, is one of the best known passages in John, often read at funerals: its last words &#8216;I am the Way, the Truth and the Life&#8217; used to be seen on evangelistic adverts on the Underground. Jesus at the Last Supper is trying to cheer his disciples up (&#8216;Do not let your hearts be troubled&#8217;) by assuring them about his unique relationship to his Father. Christianity has always asserted this uniqueness. In Acts 13;26-33 St Paul continues his preaching to the Jewish leaders in Antioch, depicted here by Raphael. Again, the stress is on the uniqueness of Jesus, raised from the dead. It is a sad truth that when people, or societies, abandon religious faith, a substitute comes into existence. We have been reflecting today on the end of the Second World War in Europe seventy five years ago. Regimes like Nazi Germany, &#8216;prostrate&#8217; that day (as Winston Churchill said in his broadcast) were characterised by a false religious faith: Christianity, such a strong thread in the history of the German people, was replaced by an exalted ideology of the State, an ideology based on violence and race hatred. A lesson of today is surely that populist nationalism has not gone away in the last seventy-five years. This is what happens when people walk away from the &#8216;Way, the Truth and the Life.&#8217; The cardinal&#8217; s homily at the Mass he celebrated this morning (details below) is worth hearing if you haven&#8217;t already. Enjoy the bank holiday and God bless Fr Ashley From our Facebook page&#8230; &nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4794,"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4792\/revisions\/4794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}