25th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A – September 24, 2017

“God awards according to merits”

is the epitaph on the tomb of love

 

There is a video by Fr. Fernando Armellini with English subtitles
commenting on today’s Gospel reading:
https://youtu.be/5hu-wtVZTqo

 

Introduction

 

The terms Eucharist and charisma are known. They are derived from the Greek charis which means benevolence, free gift, a gift that gives joy and makes one happy.

 

We feel a great satisfaction when we are given the diploma of graduation, after so much work and sleepless nights. However, a simple flower given to us by a loved one in the moment in which he declares his love awakens an immense joy.

 

The gift produces a unique emotion because it is a sign that someone thinks and loves us as well as tenderly pronounces our name.

 

The introduction of the criteria of retributive justice, the accountability, rewards and punishments, threats and flatteries, recording of merits and transgressions in our relationship with God is a diabolic deformation of faith. The rabbis had cataloged persons into four categories: the just, if they observe all the law; the wicked, if infractions prevail in them; the mediocres, if merits and faults are equivalent; the repentants, if they ask forgiveness of their sins. With the principle: “Reward is given only for good work,” they decreed the end of a love relationship.

 

The dialogue between God and man is established only where there is a free encounter, free gift, unconditional reciprocal love. Who loves claims nothing and expects nothing but to see the loved one smile and rejoice.

 

In the line of the prophets, the best among the rabbis said to the Lord: “Your salvation is manifested in this: you are merciful to those who have no treasure of good works.” “What you’ve done is grace, because in our hands there were no good works.” Jesus made this righteousness of God his own.

 

To internalize the message, we repeat:
“I thank you, Lord, because you welcome and love me just as I am.”

 

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26th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A – October 1, 2017

The more convinced “yes” passes through a “no”

 

There is a video by Fr. Fernando Armellini with English subtitles
commenting on today’s Gospel reading:
https://youtu.be/UnreVFN5zPE

 

Introduction

 

There are people who answer ‘yes’ without having understood. There are also sincere people who say ‘no’ because they are not convinced and want to understand better. Their ‘no’ is just a polite way to ask for an explanation and to say that they want to see things more clearly. Whoever immediately answer ‘yes’ to God, perhaps does not realize who he is, what he thinks and proposes.

 

Whoever produces is appreciated in our society. The old, the sick, the disabled are respected, loved, helped, but are often felt as a burden. The perception of their value and the preciousness of their contribution to making our world more humane is not immediate. We reward the efficient and the capable. We esteem those who are able to succeed by themselves and we remunerate those who work. God instead starts from the last, is interested in the last, privileges and rewards the last. Freely.

 

The parable of last Sunday has shocked us and perhaps, during the week, we reflected on the inconsistency of the master’s behavior. He pays the last hour workers as the first ones. It is difficult to give up the religion of merits and believe in the gratuitous love of God. Today’s reading seems to respond to our objections: “You say Yahweh’s way is not just! Why Israel, is my position wrong? Is it not rather that yours is wrong?” (v. 25).

 

Saying ‘yes’ to God means giving up one’s own thoughts and accepting his. He does not look for the satiated, but those who are hungry to fill them with his possessions (Lk 1:53). He does not appreciate the powerful who sit on thrones but lowers himself to raise the lowly (Lk 1:52). He does not reward the righteous for their own merits, but makes himself the companion of the weak and introduces the tax collectors and prostitutes first in the kingdom. Only those who recognize themselves as last, sinners and in need of his help will experience the joy of being saved.

 

 

To internalize the message, we repeat:
“The Lord teaches his ways to the humble, the poor and the sinners.”

 

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A – October 8, 2017

Christ: the stone that shatters our idols

 

There is a video by Fr. Fernando Armellini with English subtitles
commenting on today’s Gospel reading:
https://youtu.be/ykJOOju9zYQ

 

Introduction

 

The last verse of Psalm 137—the famous song of exile—is always carefully ignored. After the poignant reminder of the tears of the deportees along the rivers of Babylon, the poet, addressing the bloody city, exclaims: “Happy is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks” (Ps 137:9). The concluding verse of today’s gospel raises an embarrassment. It is not carried in the lectionary text. Referring to Christ—the stone which the builders rejected—the evangelist comments: “Whoever falls on this stone, he will be broken to pieces; on whomever this stone falls, he will be ground to dust” (Mt 21:44).

 

These images are disconcerting. They suddenly illumine each other if one catches their reference to the scene described in the book of Daniel: a stone—not driven by human hands—comes off from the top and hits a colossal, beautiful looking but terrible statue that collapses and falls apart (Dn 2:31 -35). It’s the idol that, in his foolishness, man himself built and from its slavery he can no longer free himself. It is the unjust, corrupt and inhuman society man created and of which he remains a victim.

 

Christ and his gospel are “the stone” hurled by God against this monstrous structure. They are “the stone” that shatters the logic of this world, the tricks, cunning and above all the foolish images men made for themselves of God. The stone is intended to shatter the plans of the wicked and smash their children. The wicked will not have offsprings, will remain without posterity, and no future because God will vanish all doers of iniquity. This is the good news.

 

The great of this world—the builders of the new “Tower of Babel”—discard this stone because it does not fit their plans, it messes up their dreams, destroys their kingdoms. They tried to eliminate it but God chose it as the rock of salvation. Whoever puts it as foundation of his life will not be disappointed.

 

 

To internalize the message, we repeat:
“We are the Lord’s vineyard, which fruits can we offer him?”