We live in uncertainty; economic, political and social conflicts leave us scrambling for some guarantee, or at least some lessened risk of disaster and failure. But our faith gives us one thing we can count on, the one thing we absolutely need. In good times and in bad, good health and sickness, celebration and grief, even when we are inattentive to God, careless about prayer, filled with self-love and indifferent to other people - we have always "the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Even when most inattentive, careless and indifferent, I trust with this Epistle that nothing "will be able to separate us" from God's ever-present Love.

In today's Gospel, Jesus models exactly that faith, that trust in the Love of God ever-present to him. Warned that King Herod wishes him to be killed, Jesus refuses to be safe, to deny his mission. "I must continue on my way," he asserts - and we know he does head towards death in Jerusalem - and his Resurrection, and our salvation. Jerusalem, the actual city, is the religious, political and cultural capital for Jesus in the first century.

The Pharisees tell Jesus to leave the place, they don't want trouble, or anything that might disturb the status quo. But Jesus knows that he will soon transform the world.