15 October 2025

‘Remember Jesus Christ!’ says St. Paul in his second Letter to Timothy adding, ‘Raised from the dead.’ Why does he focus on this aspect of Christ’s life? Paul describes himself as suffering hardship ‘even to the point of being chained like a criminal’. It is not a very good place to be – restricted freedom, physical pain, depressing future.

But he goes on to say, ‘But the word of God is not chained.’ This insight transforms his predicament and helps him to transcend his tragic imprisonment. There is a life within which can never be chained for it belongs to the eternal life given by Jesus  who is ‘the resurrection and the life’.

No matter what is happening to us whether we are physically imprisoned by chains or imprisoned by our failure, our disappointment, our infirmity,  our old age,  our besetting sins, our lack of self-worth, our grief,  we can always and forever transcend these things with St. Paul who calls us to ‘Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead.’ Words that can never be chained!

In that extraordinary place, we can give thanks to God for all that he has done for us in Christ liberating us from all that would seek to destroy us and raising us up to that place of beauty and peace  which is not compromised by our physical being however restricted but offers us  the liberty of God’s love which is eternal.