Last Sunday after Trinity- Reflection by Canon Leslie

Today’s Gospel reading, the healing of the blind beggar, Bartimaeus, brings to a close the section of Mark’s Gospel opened by Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi (Mark 8: 29).  At Caesarea Philippi Peter confessed Jesus as Messiah for the first time.  Since then Jesus has been reshaping the disciples’ understanding of Messiahship, although they have found this teaching difficult to grasp.  But now even the blind man sees Jesus for who he really is and, as a consequence, his blindness is healed. 
 
For those of you who wanted to do some thinking and preparation for today’s service during the preceding week, I invited reflection on the image of eyes. In today’s picture from their book, Special People, Aled and Sian are visiting the health centre. Sian is next in line to have her eyesight tested.   
 
Lord Jesus Christ, 
you bring sight to the eyes 
and insight to the mind. 
Open our eyes 
to see you for who you are, 
open our minds  
to know and to do your will; 
now and always. 
Amen. 
 
Next Sunday’s Gospel reading is Mark’s account of Jesus’ summary of the Law. The first commandment is to love God, and the second is to love your neighbour as yourself. The image to help us prepare for next Sunday’s theme is sincere smiles. You can find out more about that theme here https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html. We would really appreciate you letting us know how you are using these materials.  
 
You are warmly invited to join us in worship online. We are livestreaming our 10:30am service on both our Facebook and YouTube pages. To access the service on Facebook, follow this link to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LiverpoolCathedral. To access the service on YouTube, follow this link to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/user/LiverpoolCathedral/videos.