Today's Gospel, plus This Weekend's Notices



                            



This weekend in the parishes

You are warmly invited to the following services and events:

Sat 23 May: Evening Prayer, 7pm in Turlough Church
Sunday 24 May:

- 10am, Morning Prayer, Christ Church Castlebar, followed by tea in the church

- 12 noon, Holy Communion, Holy Trinity Westport congregation (in St Mary's Church, S Mall), followed by tea in Carrowbeg House

- 12 noon, Westport (HTW) Sunday Club, starting in the service in St Mary's Church (South Mall) and moving next door to Carrowbeg House

- 3pm, Evening Prayer, St Thomas's Dugort, Achill, led by Parish Reader Benita Stoney




Sunday Club Team: Paul, Steffi, Shirley, outside Holy Trinity National School, Westport


Midwest Radio
This weekend's Religious worship service on Midwest Radio is from the Aughaval Parishes and will be aired at 9.00am on Sunday (25 May). 





Today's gospel      John 15:18-21


[Jesus said] ‘If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world—therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, “Servants are not greater than their master.” If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.



The cost of discipleship

Persecution complex, or an inherent reality to being a disciple?

There is a hostility and even hatred that is sometimes directed at those who openly follow Christ and are committed to serving God and to Christian discipleship. This is the reality for many Christians, and not only in those parts of the world where it is forbidden for Christians to meet for worship or to wear one's Christian identity on one's sleeve. In this gospel Jesus names and predicts this unpleasant reality of persecution.

Doubtless, people of other faiths similarly at times find themselves on the receiving end of prejudice, hate speech or hateful treatment on account of their faith, creed or allegiances, or not dissimilarly, on account of their ethnicity or nationality. 

Christians, at least, while not seeking persecution, ought not to be surprised when vilified for their allegiance to Jesus Christ and bearing his name. Christians ought all the more to ensure that we reflect the character of God who is love and "whose nature is always to show mercy".

We are reminded of this every time we pray The Prayer of Humble Access before we come to receive the Holy Communion/ the Eucharist:


"We do not presume to come to this your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table. But you are the same Lord, whose nature is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen."

 


The Stoning of St Stephen, Rembrandt, 1625



Scared Space

You can find a gentle prayer guide with today's gospel here:

https://sacredspace.com/daily-prayer/2025-05-24/



Christian Art

You can find an encouraging reflection on today's gospel here:

https://christian.art/daily-gospel-reading/john-15-18-21-2025-2/




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