Lectio Divina: Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Tiempo Ordinario

1) Opening prayer

Father,

your love never fails.

Hear our call.

Keep us from danger

and provide for all our needs.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Mark 12,18-27

Then some Sadducees -- who deny that there is a resurrection -- came to Jesus and they put this question to him, 'Master, Moses prescribed for us that if a man's brother dies leaving a wife but no child, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married a wife and then died leaving no children. The second married the widow, and he too died leaving no children; with the third it was the same, and none of the seven left any children. Last of all the woman herself died. Now at the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be, since she had been married to all seven?' Jesus said to them, 'Surely the reason why you are wrong is that you understand neither the scriptures nor the power of God. For when they rise from the dead, men and women do not marry; no, they are like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising again, have you never read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him and said: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? He is God, not of the dead, but of the living. You are very much mistaken.'

3) Reflection

• In today’s Gospel the confrontation between Jesus and the authority continues. After the priests, the elders and the Scribes (Mk 12, 1-12) and the Pharisees and the Herodians (Mk 12, 13-17), now the Sadducees appear who ask a question about resurrection. A controversial theme, which caused argument and discussion among the Sadducees and the Pharisees (Mk 12,18-27; cf. At 23,6-1).

• In the Christian communities of the years seventy, the time when Mark wrote his Gospel, there were some Christians who, in order not to be persecuted, tried to reconcile the project of Jesus with the project of the Roman Emperor. The others who resisted the Empire were persecuted, accused and questioned by the authority of by the neighbours who felt annoyed, bothered by their witness. The description of the conflicts of Jesus with the authority was a very great help in order that the Christians did not allow themselves to be manipulated by the ideology of the Empire. In reading these episodes of conflict of Jesus with authority, the persecuted Christians were encouraged to continue on this road.

• Mark 12, 18-23. The Sadducees: The Sadducees were the aristocratic elite of land owners and traders. They were conservative. They did not accept faith in the Resurrection. At that time, this faith was beginning to be evaporated by the Pharisees and popular piety. It urged to the resistance of the people against the dominion of the Romans, and of the priests, of the elders and of the Sadducees themselves. For the Sadducees, the Messianic Kingdom was already present in the situation of well-being in which they were living. They followed the so called “Theology of Retribution” which distorted reality. According to this Theology God rewards with richness and well-being those who observe the Law of God, and he punishes with suffering and poverty those who do evil. This makes one understand why the Sadducees did not want changes. They wanted that religion remain as it was, immutable like God himself. This is why they did not accept the faith in the Resurrection and in the help of the angels, who sustained the struggle of those who sought changes and liberation.

• Mark 12,19-23. The question of the Sadducees: They go to Jesus to criticize and to ridicule the faith in the Resurrection, to tell about the fictitious case of the woman who got married seven times and at the end she died without having any children. The so called Law of the levirate obliged the widow who had no children to marry the brother of the deceased husband. The son who would have been born from this new marriage would be considered the son of the deceased husband. And thus he would have descent. But in the case proposed by the Sadducees, the woman, in spite of the fact of having had seven husbands, remained without a husband. They asked Jesus: “In the Resurrection, when they will rise, to whom will the woman belong? Because seven had her as wife!” This was in order to say that to believe in the resurrection led the person to accept what was absurd.

• Mark 12, 24-27: The response of Jesus. Jesus responds harshly: Surely, the reason why you are wrong is that you understand neither the Scriptures nor the power of God“. Jesus explains that the condition of persons after death will be totally different from the present condition. After death there will be no marriage, but all will be as the angels in Heaven. The Sadducees imagined life in Heaven as life on earth. And at the end Jesus concludes: “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living! You are in great error”. The disciples are warned: those who are on the side of these Sadducees will be on the side opposite to God.

4) Personal questions

• Today, which is the sense of this phrase: God is not the God of the dead but of the living”?

• Do I also believe the same thing in the resurrection? What does the following mean for me: “I believe in the resurrection of the body and in life everlasting?

5) Concluding Prayer

Lord, I lift up my eyes to you who are enthroned in heaven.

Just as the eyes of slaves are on their masters' hand,

or the eyes of a slave-girl on the hand of her mistress,

so our eyes are on Yahweh our God,

for him to take pity on us. (Ps 123,1-2)

Lectio Divina: Thursday, June 2, 2016

Tiempo Ordinario

1) Opening prayer

Father,

your love never fails.

Hear our call.

Keep us from danger

and provide for all our needs.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Mark 12,28b-34

One of the scribes put a question to Jesus, 'Which is the first of all the commandments?' Jesus replied, 'This is the first: Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the one, only Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You must love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.' The scribe said to him, 'Well spoken, Master; what you have said is true, that he is one and there is no other. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself, this is far more important than any burnt offering or sacrifice.'

Jesus, seeing how wisely he had spoken, said, 'You are not far from the kingdom of God.' And after that no one dared to question him any more.

3) Reflection

• The Gospel today presents a beautiful conversation between Jesus and a Doctor of the Law. The doctor wants to know from Jesus which is the first of all the commandments. Today, also many persons want to know what is most important in religion. Some say: to be baptized. Others, to pray. Others say: to go to Mass or to participate in the worship on Sunday. Others say: to love your neighbour! Others are worried about the appearance or the charges or tasks in the Church.

• Mark 12, 28: The question of the Doctor of the Law. A doctor of the Law, who had seen the debate of Jesus with the Sadducees (Mk 12,23-27), was pleased with the response of Jesus, and he perceives in him a great intelligence and wants to profit of this occasion to ask him a question: Which is the first one of all the commandments?” At that time the Jews had an enormous number of norms which regulated, in practice, the observance of the Ten Commandments of the Law of God. Some said: “All these norms have the same value, because they all come from God. It does not belong to us to introduce distinctions in the things of God”. Others would say: “Some Laws are more important than others, that is why they oblige more!” The Doctor wanted to know Jesus’ opinion.

• Mark 12, 29-31: The response of Jesus. Jesus responds by quoting a passage of the Bible to say that the first commandment is “to love God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength!” (Dt 6, 4-5). At the time of Jesus, the pious Jews made of this text of Deuteronomy a prayer which they recited three times a day: in the morning, at noon and in the evening. Among them it was known as today we know the Our Father. And Jesus adds, quoting the Bible again: the second one is this: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no other more important commandment than this one”. (Lev 19,18). A brief and profound response! It is the summary of all that Jesus has taught about God and about life (Mt 7, 12).

• Mark 12, 32-33: The answer of the doctor of the Law. The Doctor agrees with Jesus and draws the conclusion: “To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself; this is far more important than any burnt offering or sacrifice”. In other words, the commandment of love is more important than the commandments related to worship and sacrifice in the Temple. This affirmation was already used by the prophets of the Old Testament (Ho 6, 6; Ps 40, 6-8; Ps 51, 16-17). Today, we would say that the practice of love is more important than novenas, promises, Masses, prayers, and processions.

• Mark 12, 34: The summary of the Kingdom. Jesus confirms the conclusion reached by the Doctor and says: “You are not far from the Kingdom of God!” In fact, the Kingdom of God consists in recognizing that love toward God is equal to the love of neighbour. Because if God is Father, we all are sisters and brothers and should show this in practice, living in community. "On these two commandments depend the Law and the prophets” (Mt 22, 4). The disciples must keep in mind, fix in their memory, in their intelligence, in the heart, in the hands and in the feet this important law of love: God is only attained through the total gift of self to our neighbour!

• The first and most important commandment. The most important and first commandment was and will always be: “to love God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mk 12,30). In the measure in which the People of God, throughout the centuries, has deepened the meaning and the importance of the love of God, it has become aware that God’s love is true and real only in the measure in which it is made concrete in the love to neighbour. And thus, the second commandment which asks for the love for neighbour, is similar to the first commandment of God’s love (Mt 22, 39; Mk 12, 31). “Anyone who says I love God, and hates his brother, is a liar” (1 Jn 4, 20). “On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets too” (Mt 22, 40).

4) Personal questions

• For you, what is more important in religion and in life? Which are the concrete difficulties that you find, in order to be able to live that which you consider more important?

• Jesus tells the doctor: “You are not far from the Kingdom of God”. Today, am I nearer or farther away from the Kingdom of God than the doctor praised by Jesus?

5) Concluding Prayer

Direct me in your ways, Yahweh,

and teach me your paths.

Encourage me to walk in your truth and teach me

since you are the God who saves me. (Ps 25,4-5)

Lectio Divina: Friday, June 3, 2016

The lost and found sheep

The true conversion: from justice to mercy

Luke 15, 3-7

Tiempo Ordinario

Opening prayer

My Father, I come before You today with a sorrowful heart, because I know I am among the number of those, who even though they are sinners, believe to be just. I feel within myself the weight of my heart made of rock and of iron. Today, I would also like to be among those who get close to Your Son to listen to Him; I would like to stop doing like the Pharisees and the Scribes who, before your love, murmur and criticise.

I beg You, my Lord, touch my heart with your words, with your presence and win it over with only a look, with only one of your caresses. Take me to your table, so that I can also eat your good bread, or even just the crumbs, Your Son Jesus, grain of wheat, who became spike and nourishment of salvation. Do not leave me outside, but allow me to enter to the table of your mercy. Amen.

1. READ

a) Text:

3 So he told them this parable: 4 'Which one of you with a hundred sheep, if he lost one, would fail to leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the missing one till he found it? 5 And when he found it, would he not joyfully take it on his shoulders 6 and then, when he got home, call together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, "Rejoice with me, I have found my sheep that was lost." 7 In the same way, I tell you, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner repenting than over ninety-nine upright people who have no need of repentance.

b) The context:

This brief passage constitutes only the beginning of the great chapter 15 of the Gospel of Luke, a very central chapter, almost in the heart of the Gospel and of its message. Here, in fact, are enclosed the three accounts of the mercy, like one only parable: the sheep, the coin and the son, are an image of one only reality, they bear in themselves all the richness and the preciousness of man before God’s eyes, the Father. Here is the last significance of the Incarnation and of the life of Christ in the world: the salvation of all, Jews and Greeks, slaves or free men, men or women. Nobody should remain outside the banquet of mercy.

In fact, precisely the previous chapter to this one narrates the invitation to the table of the king and also gives to us this call: “Come, everything is ready!”. God is waiting for us, next to the place that He has prepared for us, so that we can be His guests, so as to make us also participate in His joy.

c) The Structure:

Verse 3 is the introduction and connects us with the previous situation, that is the one in which Luke describes the joyful movement, of love and conversion, of the sinners and publicans, who without fear, continue to get close to Jesus to listen to Him. It is here that the murmuring, the anger, the criticism are triggered and therefore, the refusal of the Pharisees and the Scribes, convinced of having in themselves justice and truth.

Therefore, the parable that follows, which is structured in three accounts, wants to be the response of Jesus to this murmuring; in last instance, the response to our criticism, to our grumbling and mumbling against Him and His inexplicable love.

Verse 4 begins with a rhetoric question, which already presupposes a negative response: nobody would act as the Good Shepherd, as Christ. And it is precisely there, in his behaviour, in his love for us, for all, where his truth is. Verses 5 and 6 tell the story, they describe the actions, the sentiments of the shepherd: his search, his fatigue, his joy which become tenderness and care for the sheep that has been found, the sharing of this joy with the friends. At the end, with verse 7, Luke wants to depict the face of God, personified in Heaven: He anxiously waits for the return of all his children. He is a God, a Father who loves sinners, who recognize themselves in need of his mercy, of his embrace and he cannot be pleased with those who believe themselves to be just and remain far away from Him.

2. MEDITATE ON THE WORD

a) A moment of prayerful silence:

Now, as the Publican and the sinners, I also desire to get close to the Lord Jesus to listen to his words, to pay attention with heart and mind, to everything which He wants to tell me. Then, I open myself, I allow myself to be reached by his voice, by his look on me, which reaches me to the depth of my being…

b) Some ways to deepening:

“Which one among you?”

It is necessary to begin by this strong question of Jesus, addressed to his interlocutors at that moment, but also addressed to us today. We are seriously placed before ourselves, to understand who we are, how we are in the depth of ourselves. “Who is a true man among us?”, says Jesus. Like a few verses further down he will say: “Which woman?”. It is more or less the same question which the Psalmist asked, when he said: “What is man?” (8, 5) and which Job repeated, speaking with God: “What is this man?” (7, 17).

Therefore, here we, in this brief account of Jesus, in this parable of the mercy, we find the truth: we succeed to understand who is truly a man among us. But in order to do this, it is necessary that we encounter God, hidden in these verses, because we must confront ourselves with Him, we must mirror ourselves in Him and find ourselves. The behaviour of the shepherd with his sheep tells us what we should do, how we should be and reveals to us how we are in reality, it shows us our nakedness and our wounds, our profound sickness. We, who believe that we are gods, we are not even men.

Let us see why…

"Ninety nine – one”

Behold that God’s light immediately places us in confrontation with a very strong reality, shocking for us. In this Gospel we find, a flock, one as many others, quite numerous, perhaps belonging to a wealthy man: one hundred sheep. A perfect, symbolical, divine number. The fullness of the children of God, all of us, each one, one by one, nobody can remain excluded. But in this reality, an unthinkable thing happens: a great, unbalanced maximum division is created. On the one hand 99 sheep and on the other only one. There is no acceptable proportion here. And just the same these are God’s ways. Immediately we think and ask ourselves, to which group do we belong. Are we among the 99? Or are we that only one, that is alone, so great, so important so as to be the counterpart of the rest of the flock?

Let us look attentively to the text. The only sheep, the one alone, immediately emerges from the group because it is lost, gets lost, in one word, lives a negative experience, a dangerous one, perhaps even a mortal one. But, surprisingly, the shepherd does not allow it to leave like that, he does not wash his hands; rather he abandons the others, who had remained with him and goes to look for it. Is such a thing possible? Can an abandonment of this dimension be justified? Here we began to enter into crisis, because surely it came spontaneous to us to classify ourselves as being among the 99, who remained faithful. And instead, the shepherd goes and runs in search of the bad one, the one which did not merit anything, but only the solicitude and the abandonment which it sought for itself.

And then what happens? The shepherd does not give up immediately, he does not even think of returning or going back, he does not seem to be concerned about his other sheep, the 99. The text says that he “goes “on” after the lost one, until he finds it”. The preposition is most interesting “on”; it seems almost a picture of the shepherd, who bends down with the heart, with the thought, with the body on that only sheep. He searches the land, seeks for the prints, which he most surely knows and which he has engraved on his hands (Is 49, 16); he questions the silence, to hear if there is still an echo of its bleating at a distance. He calls it by name, he repeats the conventional sign, the one with which each day he has welcomed and accompanied it. And finally, he finds it. Yes, it could not be otherwise. But there is no punishment, no violence, no harshness. Only an infinite love and an overflowing joy. Luke says: “He places it on his shoulders very happily…”. And he rejoices, celebrates at home, with his friends and neighbours. The text does not even say if the shepherd returned to the desert to take back the other 99 sheep.

Before all this, it is clear, very clear, that we should be that only one, that sheep which was alone, loved so much, preferred in that way. We should recognize that if we are lost, that we have sinned, that without the shepherd we are nothing. This is the great passage that the word of the Gospel calls us to fulfil, today: to free ourselves from the weight of our presumed justice, to remove or set aside the yoke of our self-sufficiency and also that we place ourselves on the side of sinners, of the impure, of robbers.

Behold why Jesus begins by asking us: “Which man among you?”

“In the desert”

This is the place of the just, of those who believe that they are right, without sin, without a stain. They have not as yet entered into the Promised Land, they are outside, far away, excluded from the joy, from the mercy. Like those who have not accepted the invitation to the banquet of the king and who withdrew, some with one excuse, others with another.

In the desert and not in the house, just like the only one. Not at the table of the shepherd, where there is good and substantial bread, where there is the wine which rejoices the heart. The table prepared by the Lord: His Body and His Blood. Where the Shepherd becomes Himself the sheep, the immolated Lamb, nourishment of life.

He who does not love his brother, who does not open his heart to mercy, like the Shepherd of the flock does, cannot enter into the house, but remains outside. The desert is his inheritance, his dwelling place. And in the desert there is no food, no water, no pasture, neither enclosure for the sheep.

Jesus eats together with sinners, with the publicans, with the prostitutes, with the least, the excluded and prepares the table, his banquet with rich dishes and excellent wine, with tasty food (Is 25, 6). He also invites us to this table.

c) Interesting Parallel Passages:

2 Samuel 12, 1-4:

In the same town were two men, one rich, the other poor. The rich man had flocks and herds in great abundance; the poor man had nothing but a ewe lamb, only a single little one which he had bought. He fostered it and it grew up with him and his children, eating his bread, drinking from his cup, sleeping in his arms; it was like a daughter to him…..

Matthew 9, 10-13:

Now while he was at table in the house it happened that a number of tax collectors and sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, 'Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?' 12 When he heard this he replied, 'It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. 13 Go and learn the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice. And indeed I came to call not the upright, but sinners.'

Luke 19, 1-10:

Zacchaeus

Luke 7, 39:

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, 'If this man were a prophet, he would know who this woman is and what sort of person it is who is touching him and what a bad name she has.'

Luke 5, 27-32:

When he went out after this, he noticed a tax collector, Levi by name, sitting at the tax office, and said to him, 'Follow me.' And leaving everything Levi got up and followed him. In his honour Levi held a great reception in his house, and with them at table was a large gathering of tax collectors and others. The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples and said, 'Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?' Jesus said to them in reply, 'It is not those that are well who need the doctor, but the sick. I have come to call not the upright but sinners to repentance.'

Matthew 21, 31-32:

Jesus said to them, 'In truth I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you, showing the way of uprightness, but you did not believe him, and yet the tax collectors and prostitutes did. Even after seeing that, you refused to think better of it and believe in him.

d) Brief comments of the spiritual tradition of Carmel:

S. Therese of the Child Jesus:

Speaking of Father Giacinto Loyson, who had left the Carmelite Order and then abandoned the Church, Theresa writes to Celine as follows: “It is certain that Jesus desires much more than we do to lead back this poor lost sheep to the flock…” (L 129).

“Jesus deprives his sheep from his sensible presence, in order to give his consolation to sinners…” (L 142).

Speaking about Pranzini, of whom she had read his conversion at the supreme moment, just before his execution, when taking the crucifix, he kissed the holy wounds, she writes: “Then his soul went to receive the merciful sentence of the One who declares that in Heaven there will be greater joy for one sinner alone who does penance than for 99 just ones who do not need to do penance…” (MA 46 r).

Blessed Elizabeth:

“The priest in the confessional is the minister of this God who is so good, who leaves his 99 faithful sheep to run and look for the one alone which got lost…” Diary, 13.03.1899).

Saint John of the Cross:

“His desire was so great that the Spouse would liberate and redeem his spouse from the hands of sensuality and of the devil, that having accomplished this, he rejoices like the good Shepherd who, after having gone around very much, he finds the lost sheep and with great joy places it on his shoulders” (CB XXI, Annotation)

3. THE WORD AND LIFE

Some questions:

● “… having lost only one of them…” The Gospel immediately calls our attention on the strong and painful reality of getting lost, of the loss. That one sheep of the flock stranded away from the road, separated from the others. It is not a question only of an event, something that happened, but rather it is a characteristic of the sheep; in fact, in verse 6 it is called ‘the lost one’, almost as if this was its true name.

Here is the starting point, the truth. Because it is speaking about us. We are the dispersed sons, the lost ones, the erring ones; that is, the sinners, the publicans. It is useless to continue to believe that we are just, to consider ourselves better than others, worthy of the Kingdom, of God’s presence, almost with the right to grumble, to murmur against Jesus who, instead, pays attention to those who make a mistake. I should ask myself, before this Gospel, if I am ready to fulfil or go through this profound course of conversion, of a very strong interior revision. I must decide myself on which side I want to be: if to allow myself to be carried on the shoulders of the shepherd or to remain at a distance, that is alone, with my own justice. But if I do not know how to use mercy, if I do not know how to accept, to forgive, to esteem, how can I expect all this for myself?

● “…the 99 in the desert…” I should open the eyes on this reality: the desert. Where do I believe that I am? Where do I live? Where do I walk? Which are my pastures? Do I believe that I am secure, that I dwell in the house of the Lord, among his faithful sons, but perhaps it is truly like that. The Psalm says: “In grassy meadow, the Lord lets me lie”. But do I feel that I am in this rest? Then, why am I so anxious, restless, unsatisfied, always searching something more, better, greater? I look at my life: is it not a bit of a desert? Where there is no love and compassion, where I remain closed up to my brothers and sisters and I do not know how to accept them as they are, with their limitations, with the errors that they commit, in the sufferings, that perhaps they inflict on me, there the desert begins, there I am less and there I feel hungry and thirsty. This is the moment to allow my heart to be changed: to recognize myself as miserable in order to become merciful.

● “… he goes after the lost sheep until he finds it…” We have seen that the text describes very delicately the action of the shepherd: he leaves behind all the sheep and goes to look for the only one which is lost. The verb may seem a bit strange, but it is very effective. Like Hosea says concerning God, that He speaks to His People whom He loves, like to a spouse: “There I will speak to her heart” (2, 16). It is a movement, it is being carried by love; a patient bending down, tenacious, which does not give up, but which always insists. In fact, the true love is never diminished. The Lord acts in this way towards each one of his sons. Also toward me. If I look back, if I rethink about my own history , I become aware of how much love, how much patience, how much pain, He has also experienced for me, to find me, to give me back that which I wasted and lost. He has never abandoned me. I recognize this, it is truly like that.

But, at this point, what do I do, with such gratuitous love, such great love, overflowing love? If I keep it closed up in my heart, it gets lost. It cannot be kept until the following day, like the manna; otherwise it gets worms, it becomes rotten. Today, I have to hand it over, distribute it, diffuse it. Beware, if I do not love. And I try to think about my attitude toward my brothers and sisters, those whom I meet every day, with whom I share my life. How do I behave before them? At least, am I similar, in some way to the beautiful shepherd, to the good shepherd, who goes out to seek, who gets close to, who bends down with tenderness, attention, friendship, or even with love? Or am I superficial, truly I am not concerned about anybody, I leave each one to make his own choice, to live his own sorrows, without being ready, in any way, to share with him, to bear them together? What kind of a brother or sister am I? What father or mother am I?

● “Rejoice with me!”. This passage ends with a feast, which then becomes a true and proper banquet, according to the description which Luke gives at the end of the parable. A king’s meal, a solemn feast, with the best dishes, held apart, to fatten the animal, for the occasion, with the most beautiful dresses, with shoes on the feet and the ring on the finger. A joy which always becomes greater, which is contagious, a joy together. This is the invitation which the Father, the King, addresses to us every day, every morning; He desires that we also participate in his joy because of the return of his sons, our brothers. Does this upset me, get me angry? Would I rather want to remain peacefully, perhaps with a threatening face of one who wants to settle the accounts with the errors, with the loss of one or the other? Is my heart open, is it ready for this joy of God? Or do I prefer to remain outside, perhaps to recriminate or reproach what seems to me that is not given, that is, the part of the patrimony which corresponds to me, the special prize or reward to celebrate with whomever I wish? But I understand well that if I do not enter now to God’s banquet, where the poor have been invited, the limping, the cripple, the blind, those whom nobody wants; if I do not participate in the common joy of mercy, I will remain outside forever, sad, closed up in myself, in darkness and weeping, as the Gospel says.

4. THE WORD BECOMES PRAYER

a) Psalm 102, 1-4, 8-13

The Lord is good and great in His love.

Bless Yahweh, my soul,

from the depths of my being,

his holy name;

bless Yahweh, my soul,

never forget all his acts of kindness.

He forgives all your offences,

cures all your diseases,

he redeems your life from the abyss,

crowns you with faithful love and tenderness;

Yahweh is tenderness and pity,

slow to anger and rich in faithful love;

his indignation does not last for ever,

nor his resentment remain for all time;

he does not treat us as our sins deserve,

nor repay us as befits our offences.

As the height of heaven above earth,

so strong is his faithful love for those who fear him.

As the distance of east from west,

so far from us does he put our faults.

As tenderly as a father treats his children,

so Yahweh treats those who fear him;

b) Final Prayer

Good and merciful Father, praise to you for your love which you have revealed to us in Christ, Your Son! You, merciful, call all to become mercy. Help me to recognize that every day I need your pardon, your compassion, that I need the love and understanding of my brothers and sisters. May your Word change my heart and make me capable to follow Jesus, to go out every day, together with Him to look for my brothers in love. Amen.

Lectio Divina: Saturday, June 4, 2016

Tiempo Ordinario

1.     Opening Prayer

O God, who has prepared a worthy dwelling place of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, through her intercession grant that we, your faithful, to be a living temple of your glory. We ask this, through Christ our Lord ...

2.     Reading

Luke 2:41-51

Each year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover,

and when he was twelve years old,

they went up according to festival custom.

After they had completed its days, as they were returning,

the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem,

but his parents did not know it.

Thinking that he was in the caravan,

they journeyed for a day

and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances,

but not finding him,

they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.

After three days they found him in the temple,

sitting in the midst of the teachers,

listening to them and asking them questions,

and all who heard him were astounded

at his understanding and his answers.

When his parents saw him,

they were astonished,

and his mother said to him,

“Son, why have you done this to us?

Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”

And he said to them,

“Why were you looking for me?

Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

But they did not understand what he said to them.

He went down with them and came to Nazareth,

and was obedient to them;

and his mother kept all these things in her heart.

3. Meditation

* "Every year the feast of Passover." These words help us to better define the spiritual context in which the passage takes place and thus become, for us, the gateway to enter the mystery of his encounter with the Lord and His work of grace and mercy on us.

Together with Mary and Joseph, with Jesus, we too can live the gift of a new Passover, a "crossing" an excess, a spiritual movement that takes us "beyond". The passage is clear and strong, according to intuit what the Virgin Mary in this experience with his Son Jesus. Is the step from the street to the heart of the dispersion to interiority, from anguish to peace.

All that remains is to make our journey that we go down the street and join the feast, the feast of pilgrims on their way up to Jerusalem for the celebration of Passover.

* "Their way" This is only the first of a series of verbs of motion, which follow one another along the verses of this passage. Maybe it can help record an 'attention, "they went", "return to the path", "group" (from the Latin cum-ire, "walking together"); "journey"; "back"; "went down with them "" arrive ".

In parallel with this great physical movement, there is also a deep spiritual movement characterized by the verb "look", expressed also over, "they began to look for" "returned in search of him," "looking for  you anxiously";" why you sought me? ".

This tells us that the journey, the true path that the Lord's word calls us, not a physical journey, but spiritual search is a journey of Jesus, of His Presence in our lives. And 'this is the direction in which we move, together with Mary and Joseph.

* "They began to look for him" here we can identify the core of the text, its fundamental message, it is important that we open ourselves to a deeper understanding of this reality. Also because Luke uses two different verbs to express the "search", the first to anazitéo vv. 44 and 45, indicating an accurate, repeated, careful, as some of those who browse, from bottom to top and second to zite vv. 48 and 49, which indicates the search for something that is lost and you want to find. Jesus is the object of all this movement and deep inner being, is the object of desire, the longing of the heart ...

* "Distressed" It 'great to see how Mary opens her heart to Jesus, telling him everything she saw, what she felt within herself. She is not afraid to tell the truth to his Son, to tell him the feelings and experiences that they felt in deep. But what is this anguish, this pain that you saw in Mary and Joseph in search of Jesus, who went missing?

* "Kept all these sayings in her heart" Maria does not understand the words of Jesus, the mystery of his life and his mission and for this silent, accepts, makes space, keep in the heart. This is the true path of growth in faith and relationship with the Lord.

Once again, Luke gives us a very beautiful and meaningful word, a compound of the verb "keep" - dia - Tiree, which means literally "keeping through". That is the spiritual operation that Mary carry within herself and that give us as a precious gift, a legacy for our good relationship with the Lord, so that it can  take us into a journey deep, deep, that does not stop at the surface, or half, which is not coming back, but it goes deep down. Mary takes us by the hand and guides us through all our heart, all her feelings, her experiences. And there, in the secrecy of ourselves, in our hearts, we can learn to find the Lord Jesus, that perhaps we had lost.

4. Some questions

* The Word of the Lord, in its simplicity, is also very clear, very direct. An invitation to leave, to take part in the feast of Passover, is also directed to me. Do I decide to get up and get moving, to face the stretch of the road that Lord puts in front of me? And again, do I agree to join the feast of those who have decided in their hearts on pilgrimage?

* do I feel like my experience of seeking the Lord? Or it does not seem important? Do I miss it? do I think I can do myself? In my life, do I ever realize that in my life be lost to the Lord? Have left him or forgotten.

* Anxiety, spoken of Mary, has ever been my journey of companion, sad presence of the day, or longer in my life? Maybe, thanks to this passage, I discover that, the anxiety is caused by the absence of the Lord, the loss of God, does this passage helps me, gives me a light, a key for my life?

* The path of the heart, which Mary traces so clearly before me now, do I seem to be viable? Do I want to engage in this challenge, with myself, with my surroundings, perhaps even with those who live closest to me? I am willing to choose to get a little 'deeper, to learn how to "keep through", to go deep, with all my being? For me, the Lord and the relationship with him are so important, so involved? And He is the precious friend, the dearest Presence to which I want to open wide my heart? ...

5. Closing Prayer

and as she worshiped the LORD, she said:

"My heart exults in the LORD,

my horn is exalted in my God.

I have swallowed up my enemies;

I rejoice in my victory.

There is no Holy One like the LORD;

there in no Rock like our God.

"Speak boastfully no longer,

nor let arrogance issue from your mouths.

For an all-knowing God is the LORD,

a God who judges deeds.

The bows of the mighty are broken,

while the tottering gird on strength.

The well-fed hire themselves out for bread,

while the hungry batten on spoil.

The barren wife bears seven sons, while the mother of many languishes.

"The LORD puts to death and gives life;

he casts down to the nether world; he raises up again.

The LORD makes poor and makes rich,

he humbles, he also exalts.

He raises the needy from the dust;

from the ash heap he lifts up the poor,

To seat them with nobles

and make a glorious throne their heritage.

He gives to the vower his vow,

and blesses the sleep of the just.

"For the pillars of the earth are the LORD'S,

and he has set the world upon them.

1 Samule 2, 1-8

Lectio Divina: Sunday, June 5, 2016

he Raising of the Widow’s Only Son Jesus was moved with great compassion

Lk 7,11-17

Tiempo Ordinario

1. OPENING PRAYER

O Holy Spirit, soul of my soul, I adore you. Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me, teach me always to do the will of the Father. Help me to know what you desire: I promise to submit to everything that you want from me and to accept all that you allow to happen to me. Amen. (Card. Désiré Mercier)

2. READING

a) A Key to the Reading

Today’s gospel gives us the story of the raising of the son of the widow of Nain. A look at the literary context of the 7th chapter of the Gospel of Luke will help us to understand this episode. The evangelist wishes to show that Jesus opens the way for us by showing us something of what is new about God as it comes to us in the proclamation of the Good News. This is how  transformation and openness come about: Jesus listens to the prayer of a foreigner, a non-Jew (Lk 7:1-10)  and raises the son of a widow (Lk 7:11-17) The way in which Jesus reveals the Reign of God comes as a surprise to the Jewish brethren who were not used to this kind of openness. It is a surprise also to John the Baptist who sends messengers to ask, Are you the one who is to come or are we to  wait for another (Lk 7:18-30). Jesus mocks the fickleness of his contemporaries: They are like children sitting in the market-place and calling to one another,“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.”’(Lk 7:31-35). At the end we see Jesus’ openness to women (Lk 7:36-50)

b) Reading

From the Gospel according to Luke (7:11-17)

11 Soon afterwards* he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him.12As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town.13When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’14Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’15The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus* gave him to his mother.16Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has risen among us!’ and ‘God has looked favourably on his people!’17This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

c) A division of the text that will help our reading

Lk 7,11-12:    The meeting of the two processions

Lk 7,13:        Compassion in action

Lk 7,14-15:    "Young man, I say to you, rise!"

Lk 7,16-17:    The repercussions

c) The Text: Luke 7,11-17

11 Soon afterwards* he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him.1

2As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town.

13When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’14Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’

15The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

16Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has risen among us!’ and ‘God has looked favourably on his people!’17This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

3. A MOMENT OF PRAYERFUL SILENCE

So that the Word of God may enter us and give light to our lives.

4. SOME QUESTIONS

To help our meditation and prayer.

- The text tells us that there were two groups of people. Which of them caught the attention of Jesus?

- Compassion moved Jesus to raise the son of the widow to life. Does the pain of others move me to the same kind of compassion?

- What do I do to help others to overcome their pain and open out to a new life?

- God visited his people. Am I aware of the many visits of God in my life and in the life of the people?

- Am I appreciative, and do I praise and thank God for the very many good things I have received?

5. FOR THOSE WHO WISH TO HAVE A DEEPER GRASP OF THE TEXT

a) Commentary on the text

Lk 7,11-12: The meeting of the two processions

” Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town”.

Luke is like a painter. With very few words he manages to paint a very beautiful picture of the meeting of two crowds or processions, the funeral procession that leaves the city and accompanies the widow bringing her only son to the cemetery; the procession of the crowd that was heading for the city accompanying Jesus. The two meet in the small square near the gate of the city of Nain.

Lc 7,13: Compassion in action

“13When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep”.It was compassion that moved Jesus to speak and to act. Compassion means, literally, to suffer-with, to take on the pain of the other person, to be identified with the other person and to feel the other person’s pain. It was compassion that ignited the power in Jesus, the power of life over death, the power of creation.

Lc 7,14-15: "Young man, I tell you, rise!"

Jesus went nearer to the bier and said, “Young man, I tell you, rise”. The dead man “sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother”. Sometimes, when there is great suffering because of the death of a loved-one, people say, “In the time of Jesus, when Jesus walked on this earth, there was the hope of not losing a loved-one because Jesus could bring people back to life”. Such people think of the raising of the widow’s son in Nain as something that happened in the past, that makes us think about the past and have a certain envy. However the intention of the Gospel is not to get us thinking about the past or to produce any kind of envy, but rather to help us come to a better experience of the living presence of  Jesus among us. It is the same Jesus, who has power to overcome death and the pain of death, and who continues to be alive in our midst. He is with us today and in the face of the problems that are capable of dragging us down he says again, “I tell you, Rise!”

Lk 7,16-17: The repercussions

“16Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has risen among us!’ and ‘God has looked favourably on his people!’ 17This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country. This was the prophet that was foretold by Moses (Dt 18,15).The God who comes to visit us is “the Father of orphans and the protector of widows” (Ps 68,6; cfr. Jud 9,11).

6. PRAYER – Psalm 68,4-8

4 Sing to God, sing praises to his name;

lift up a song to him who rides upon the clouds*—

his name is the Lord—

be exultant before him.

5 Father of orphans and protector of widows

is God in his holy habitation.

6 God gives the desolate a home to live in;

he leads out the prisoners to prosperity,

but the rebellious live in a parched land.

7 O God, when you went out before your people,

when you marched through the wilderness,

8 the earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain

at the presence of God, the God of Sinai,

at the presence of God, the God of Israel.

7. CLOSING PRAYER

Lord Jesus, we thank you for your Word that has helped us to see the will of the Father more clearly. Let your Spirit enlighten our actions and enable us to carry our  what your Word has helped us to see. May we, just like Mary, your Mother, not only listen to your Word but also put it into practice. You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.

Lectio Divina: Monday, June 6, 2016

1) Opening prayer

God of wisdom and love,

source of all good,

send your Spirit to teach us your truth

and guide our actions

in your way of peace.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 5,1-12

Seeing the crowds, Jesus went onto the mountain. And when he was seated his disciples came to him.

Then he began to speak. This is what he taught them:

How blessed are the poor in spirit: the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

Blessed are the gentle: they shall have the earth as inheritance.

Blessed are those who mourn: they shall be comforted.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for uprightness: they shall have their fill.

Blessed are the merciful: they shall have mercy shown them.

Blessed are the pure in heart: they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers: they shall be recognised as children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted in the cause of uprightness: the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

'Blessed are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of calumny against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven; this is how they persecuted the prophets before you.

3) Reflection

• From today, beginning of the 10th week of Ordinary Time, up to the end of the 21st Week of Ordinary Time, the daily Gospels are taken from the Gospel of Matthew. Starting from the beginning of the 22nd week of Ordinary Time, up to the end of the Liturgical Year, the Gospels are taken from the Gospel of Luke.

• In Matthew’s Gospel written for the communities of the converted Jews of Galilee and Syria, Jesus is presented as the New Moses, the new legislator. In the Old Testament the Law of Moses was codified in five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Imitating the ancient model, Matthew presents the New Law in five great discourses spread over in the Gospel: a) the Sermon on the Mountain (Mt 5,1 to 7,29); b) the Discourse on the Mission (Mt 10,1-42); c) The Discourse of the Parables (Mt 13,1-52); d) The Discourse of the Community (Mt 18,1-35); e) The Discourse of the Future of the Kingdom (Mt 24,1 a 25,46). The narrative parts, which have been put in among the five Discourses, describe the practice of Jesus and show how He observed the New Law and incarnated it in his life.

• Matthew 5, 1-2: The solemn announcement of the New Law. In agreement with the context of the Gospel of Matthew, in the moment when Jesus pronounces the Discourse on the Mountain, there were only four disciples with him (cf. Mt 4, 18-22). Few people. But an immense multitude was behind him (Mt 4, 25). In the Old Testament, Moses went up to Mount Sinai to receive the Law of God. As it happened to Moses, Jesus went up to the Mountain, and seeing the crowd, he proclaimed the New Law. The solemn way in which Matthew introduces the proclamation of the New Law is significant: “Seeing the crowds, he went onto the mountain. And when he was seated his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak. This is what he taught them: How blessed are the poor in spirit, the kingdom of Heaven is theirs”. The eight Beatitudes open in a solemn way the “Discourse on the Mountain” – the sermon on the Mountain. In them Jesus defines who can be considered blessed, who can enter into the Kingdom. There are eight categories of persons, eight entrance doors to the Kingdom, for the community. There are no other entrances! Anyone who wants to enter into the Kingdom should identify himself with at least one of these eight categories.

• Matthew 5, 3: Blessed are the poor in spirit. Jesus acknowledges the richness and the value of the poor (Mt 11, 25-26). He defines his own mission in these words: “to proclaim the Good News to the poor” (Lk 4, 18). He himself lives poorly. He possesses nothing for himself, not even a stone where to rest his head (Mt 88, 20). And to anyone who wants to follow him, he orders to choose: God or money! (Mt 6, 24). In Luke’s Gospel it is said: “Blessed are you who are poor!” (Lk 6,20). But who is poor in spirit? It is the poor person who has the same spirit that animated Jesus. It is not the rich person, neither the poor person who has the mentality of a rich person. But rather it is the poor person who acts as Jesus, he thinks of the poor and recognizes the value in him. It is the poor person who says: “I think that the world will be better when the little one who suffers thinks of the least.

1. Blessed the poor in spirit => for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven

2. Blessed the meek => they shall have the earth as inheritance

3. Blessed those who mourn => they will be consoled

4. Blessed those who hunger and thirst for justice => they shall have their fill

5. Blessed are the merciful => they shall have mercy shown them

6. Blessed are the pure in heart => they shall see God

7. Blessed are the peacemakers => they shall be recognized children of God

8. Blessed those persecuted in the cause of justice => theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

• Matthew 5, 4-9: The new project of life. Every time that in the Bible they try to renew the Covenant, they begin by re-establishing the rights of the poor and of the excluded. Without this, the Covenant cannot be renewed! This is the way the Prophets did, this is how Jesus did. In the Beatitudes, he announces the new Project of God which accepts the poor and the excluded. It denounces the system which excludes the poor and which persecutes those who fight for justice. The first category of the “poor in spirit” and the last category of those “persecuted for the cause of justice” receive the same promise of the Kingdom of Heaven. And they receive it beginning now, in the present, because Jesus says: “theirs is the Kingdom!” The Kingdom is already present in their life. Between the first and the last category, there are six others categories which receive the promise of the Kingdom. In them there is the new project of life which wants to reconstruct life totally through a new type of relationship: with material goods (the first two); with persons among themselves (2nd two); with God (3rd two). The Christian community should be an example of this Kingdom, a place where the Kingdom begins ands takes shape, form beginning now.

• The three duos: First one: the meek and those who mourn: the meek are those poor of whom Psalm 37 speaks. They have been deprived of their land and they will inherit it again (Ps 37, 11; cf. Ps 37.22.29.34). Those who mourn are those who weep in the face of injustices in the world and in people (cf. Ps 119,136; Ez 9,4; Tb 13,16; 2 P 2,7). These two Beatitudes want to reconstruct the relationship with material goods: the possession of the land and of the reconciled world.

Second duo: those who hunger and thirst for justice and the merciful: Those who are hungry and thirsty for justice are those who desire to renew human living together, in such a way that once again it may be according to the demands of justice. The merciful are those who feel in their heart the misery of others because they want to eliminate the inequality between brothers and sisters. These two Beatitudes want to reconstruct the relationship among persons through the practice of justice and solidarity.

Third duo: The pure in heart and the peacemakers: The pure in heart are those who have a contemplative look which allows them to perceive the presence of God in everything. Those who promote peace, the peacemakers, will be called children of God, because they make an effort so that a new experience of God can penetrate in everything and can integrate all things. These two Beatitudes want to build up the relationship with God: to see the presence of God which acts in everything, and be called son and daughter of God.

• Matthew 5, 10-12: The persecuted for the cause of justice and of the Gospel. The Beatitudes say exactly the contrary of what society in which we live says. In fact, in society, those who are persecuted for the cause of justice are considered as unhappy, wretched persons. The poor is unhappy. Blessed is the one who has money and can go to the Supermarket and spend as he wishes. Blessed is the one who is hungry for power. The unhappy and wretched are the poor, those who weep! In television, the novels diffuse this myth of the happy and fulfilled person. And without being aware, the novels become the model of life for many of us. Is there still place in our society for these words of Jesus: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the cause of justice and of the Gospel? Blessed are the poor! Blessed are those who weep!”? And according to me, being a Christian, in fact, who is blessed?

4) Personal questions

• We all want to be happy. All of us! But are we truly happy? Why yes? Why no? How can we understand that a person can be poor and happy at the same time?

• In which moments of your life have you felt truly happy? Was it a happiness like the one proclaimed by Jesus in the Beatitudes, or was it of another type?

5) Concluding Prayer

I lift up my eyes to the mountains;

where is my help to come from?

My help comes from Yahweh

who made heaven and earth. (Ps 121,1-2)

Lectio Divina: Tuesday, June 7, 2016

1) Opening prayer

God of wisdom and love,

source of all good,

send your Spirit to teach us your truth

and guide our actions

in your way of peace.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 5,13-16

Jesus said to his disciples: 'You are salt for the earth. But if salt loses its taste, what can make it salty again? It is good for nothing, and can only be thrown out to be trampled under people's feet.

'You are light for the world. A city built on a hill-top cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp to put it under a tub; they put it on the lamp-stand where it shines for everyone in the house. In the same way your light must shine in people's sight, so that, seeing your good works, they may give praise to your Father in heaven.

3) Reflection

• Yesterday, in meditating on the Beatitudes, we passed through the door of entry of the Sermon on the Mountain (Mt 5, 1-12). Today in the Gospel we receive an important instruction on the mission of the Community. It should be the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Mt 5, 13-16). Salt does not exist for itself, but to give flavour to the food. Light does not exist for itself, but for the service of people. At the time when Matthew wrote his Gospel, this mission was very difficult for the communities of the converted Jews. In spite that they were living in faithful observance of the Law of Moses, they were expelled from the Synagogues, cut away from their Jewish past. Regarding this, among the converted pagans, some said: “After the coming of Jesus, the Law of Moses has become obsolete”. All this caused tension and uncertainty. The openness of some seemed to be criticism of the observance of others, and vice versa. This conflict brought about a crisis which led many to close up in their own position. Some wanted to advance, to go ahead, others wanted to place the light under the table. Many asked themselves: “In last instance, which is our mission?” Recalling and updating the words of Jesus, Matthew tries to help them.

• Matthew 5, 13-16: Salt of the earth. By using images of daily life, with simple and direct words, Jesus makes known which is the mission and the reason for being a Christian community: to be salt. At that time when it was very hot, people and animals needed to consume much salt. The salt, which was delivered by merchants in great blocks in the public square, was consumed by the people. What remained fell to the ground and lost its savour. “It no longer serves for anything, but it is thrown out and trampled under people’s feet”. Jesus recalls this use in order to clarify for the disciples the mission which they have to carry out.

• Matthew 5, 14-16: Light of the world. The comparison is obvious. Nobody lights a candle and places it under the tub. A city built on the hill top, cannot be hidden. The community should be light, it should enlighten. It should not be afraid to show the good that it does. It does not do it to make itself seen, but what it does can be seen. The salt does not exist for itself. The light does not exist for itself! This is how the community should be. It cannot remain enclosed in itself. “Your light must shine in people’s sight, so that, seeing your good works, they may give praise to your Father in Heaven.”

• Matthew 5, 17-19: Not one dot, not one little stroke will disappear from the Law. Among the converted Jews there were two tendencies. Some thought that it was not necessary to observe the laws of the Old Testament because we are saved by the faith in Jesus and not by the observance of the Law (Rm 3, 21-26). Others thought that they should continue to observe the laws of the Old Testament (Ac 15, 1-2). In each one of the two tendencies there were some more radical groups. Before this conflict, Matthew tries to find a balance, the equilibrium, over and beyond the two extremes. The community should be the space, where this equilibrium can be attained and lived. The response given by Jesus continued to be very actual: “I have not come to abolish the law, but to complete it!” The communities cannot be against the Law, nor can they close themselves up in the observance of the law. Like Jesus did, they must advance forward, and show in a practical way that the objective which the law wants to attain in life is the perfect practice of love.

•The different tendencies in the first Christian communities. The plan of salvation has three stages united among themselves from the earth to life: a) the Old Testament: the path of the Hebrew People, orientated, guided by the Law of God. b) The life of Jesus of Nazareth: it renews the Law of Moses starting from his experience of God, Father and Mother. c) The life of the communities: through the spirit of Jesus, they tried to live as Jesus lived it. The union of these three stages generates the certainty of faith that God is in our midst. The intention to break or weaken the unity of this plan of salvation gave rise to various groups and tendencies in the communities:

i) The Pharisees did not recognize Jesus as Messiah and accepted only the Old Testament. In the communities there were some people who sympathized with the thought of the Pharisees (Ac 15, 5).

ii) Some converted Jews accepted Jesus as Messiah, but they did not accept the liberty of spirit with which the communities lived the presence of the Risen Jesus. (Ac 15,1).

iii) Others, both converted Jews and pagans, thought that with Jesus had come the end of the Old Testament. From now on, Jesus alone and the life in the Spirit.

iv) There were also Christians who lived so fully the life in the liberty of the Spirit, that they no longer looked at the life of Jesus of Nazareth, nor the Old Testament (1Co 12,3).

v) Now the great concern of the Gospel of Matthew is that of showing that the Old Testament, Jesus of Nazareth and the life in the Spirit cannot be separated. The three form part of the same and only project of God and give us the central certainty of faith: The God of Abraham and of Sarah is present in the midst of the communities by the faith in Jesus of Nazareth.

4) Personal questions

• For you, in your life experience, for what does salt serve? Is your community salt? For you, what does light signify in your life? How is your community light?

• How do the people of the neighbourhood see your community? Does your community have some attraction for others? Is it a sign? Of what? For whom?

5) Concluding Prayer

Yahweh judiciously guides the humble,

instructing the poor in his way.

Kindness unfailing and constancy mark all his paths,

for those who keep his covenant and his decrees. (Ps 25,9-10)

Lectio Divina: Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

Lord our God,

your prophets remind us

in season and out of season

of our responsibilities toward you

and toward the world of people.

When they disturb and upset us,

let it be a holy disturbance

that makes us restless, eager to do your will

and to bring justice and love around us.

We ask you this through Christ our Lord.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 5, 17-19

'Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them. In truth I tell you, till heaven and earth disappear, not one dot, not one little stroke, is to disappear from the Law until all its purpose is achieved.

Therefore, anyone who infringes even one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be considered the least in the kingdom of Heaven; but the person who keeps them and teaches them will be considered great in the kingdom of Heaven.

3) Reflection

• Today’s Gospel (Mt 5, 17-19) teaches how to observe the law of God in such a way that its practice indicates in what its complete fulfilment consists (Mt 5, 17-19). Matthew writes in order to help the communities of the converted Jews to overcome the criticism of the brothers of their own race who accused them saying: You are unfaithful to the Law of Moses”. Jesus himself had been accused of infidelity to the Law of God. Matthew has the clarifying response of Jesus concerning his accusers. Thus, he gives some light to help the communities solve their problems.

• Using images of daily life, with simple and direct words, Jesus had said that the mission of the community, its reason for being, is that of being salt and light! He had given some advice regarding each one of the two images. Then follow two or three brief verses of today’s Gospel.

• Matthew 5, 17-18: Not one dot, nor one stroke is to disappear from the Law. There were several different tendencies in the communities of the first Christians. Some thought that it was not necessary to observe the laws of the Old Testament, because we are saved by faith in Jesus and not by the observance of the Law (Rm 3, 21-26). Others accepted Jesus, the Messiah, but they did not accept the liberty of spirit with which some of the communities lived the presence of Jesus. They thought that being Jews they had to continue to observe the laws of the Old Testament (Acts 15, 1.5). But there were Christians who lived so fully in the freedom of the Spirit, who no longer looked at the life of Jesus of Nazareth, nor to the Old Testament and they even went so far as to say: ”Anathema Jesus!” (1 Co 12, 3). Observing these tensions, Matthew tries to find some balance between both extremes. The community should be a space, where the balance can be attained and lived. The answer given by Jesus to those who criticized him continued to be actual for the communities: “I have not come to abolish the law, but to complete it!” The communities could not be against the Law, nor could they close up themselves in the observance of the law. Like Jesus, they should advance, and show, in practice, which was the objective which the law wanted to attain in the life of persons, that is, in the perfect practice of love.

• Matthew 5, 19: Not one dot or stroke will disappear from the Law. It is for those who wanted to get rid of all the law that Matthew recalls the other parable of Jesus: “Anyone who infringes even one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be considered the least in the Kingdom of Heaven; but the person who keeps them and teaches them will be considered great in the Kingdom of Heaven”. The great concern in Matthew’s Gospel is to show that the Old Testament, Jesus of Nazareth and the life in the Spirit cannot be separated. The three of them form part of the same and unique project of God and communicate to us the certainty of faith: The God of Abraham and of Sarah is present in the midst of the community by faith in Jesus of Nazareth who sends us his Spirit.

4) Personal questions

• How do I see and live the law of God: as a growing horizon of light or as an imposition which limits my freedom?

• What can we do today for our brothers and sisters who consider all this type of discussion as obsolete and not actual? What can we learn from them?

5) Concluding Prayer

Praise Yahweh, Jerusalem,

Zion, praise your God.

For he gives strength to the bars of your gates,

he blesses your children within you. (Ps 145,12-13)

Lectio Divina: Thursday, June 9, 2016

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

God of wisdom and love,

source of all good,

send your Spirit to teach us your truth

and guide our actions

in your way of peace.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 5,20-26

Jesus said to his disciples: 'For I tell you, if your uprightness does not surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of Heaven.

'You have heard how it was said to our ancestors, You shall not kill; and if anyone does kill he must answer for it before the court. But I say this to you, anyone who is angry with a brother will answer for it before the court; anyone who calls a brother "Fool" will answer for it before the Sanhedrin; and anyone who calls him "Traitor" will answer for it in hell fire.

So then, if you are bringing your offering to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, go and be reconciled with your brother first, and then come back and present your offering.

Come to terms with your opponent in good time while you are still on the way to the court with him, or he may hand you over to the judge and the judge to the officer, and you will be thrown into prison. In truth I tell you, you will not get out till you have paid the last penny.'

3) Reflection

• The text of today’s Gospel is placed in a lager unity: Mt 5, 20 to Mt 5, 48. In this Matthew shows us how Jesus interpreted and explained the Law of God. Five times he repeats the phrase: “You have heard how it was said to our ancestors, but I say to you!” (Mt 5,21.27.33.38.43). According to some Pharisees, Jesus was eliminating the law. But it was exactly the contrary. He said: “Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them” (Mt 5, 17). Before the Law of Moses, Jesus has an attitude of rupture and of continuity. He breaks away from the mistaken interpretation which was closed up in the prison of the letter, but he affirms categorically the last objective of the law: to attain to the greatest justice, which is Love.

• In the communities for which Matthew writes his Gospel there were diverse opinions concerning the Law of Moses. For some, it no longer had any sense, for others it should be observed even up to the minimum details. Because of this there were many conflicts and disputes. Some said of the others that they were stupid and idiot. Matthew tries to help both groups to better understand the true sense of the Law and presents some counsels of Jesus to help them face and overcome the conflicts which arose within the families and the communities.

• Matthew 5, 20: Your justice should surpass that of the Pharisees. This first verse gives the general key to everything which follows in Mt 5, 20-48. The Evangelist indicates to the communities how they should practice a greater justice which surpasses the justice of the Scribes and the Pharisees and which leads to the full observance of the law. Then, after this general key on a greater justice, Matthew quotes five very concrete examples of how to practice the Law, in such a way that its observance leads to the perfect practice of love. In the first example of today’s Gospel, Jesus reveals what God wanted in giving Moses the fifth commandment, “Do not kill!”

• Matthew 5,21-22: Do not kill. “You have heard how it was said to our ancestors, you shall not kill and if anyone does kill he must answer for it before the court." (Ex. 20, 13). To observe fully this fifth commandment it is not sufficient to avoid murdering. It is necessary to uproot from within oneself everything which in one way or other can lead to murder, for example, anger, hatred, the desire of vengeance, exploitation, etc. “anyone who is angry with his brother will answer for it before the court”. That is, anyone who is angry against the brother merits or deserves the same punishment of condemnation by the court which, according to the ancient law, was reserved to the murderer! But Jesus goes beyond all this. He wants to uproot the origin of murder: “Anyone who calls a brother ‘Fool’ will answer for it before the Sanhedrin; and anyone who calls him ‘Traitor’ will answer for it in hell fire”. In other words, I observe truly the commandment “Not to kill if I succeed to take away from my heart any sentiment of anger which leads to insult the brother. That is, if I attain the perfection of love.

• Matthew 5, 23-24: The perfect worship wanted by God. “If you are bringing your offering to the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, go and be reconciled with your brother first, and then come back sand present your offering”. In order to be accepted by God, and be united to him, it is necessary to be reconciled with the brother, with the sister. Before the destruction of the Temple, in the year 70, when the Christians still participated in the pilgrimages to Jerusalem to take their offering to the altar of the Temple, they always remembered this phrase of Jesus. Now in the years 80’s, in the moment in which Matthew writes, the Temple and the Altar no longer existed. The community itself had become the Temple and the Altar of God (1Co 3, 16).

• Matthew 5,25-26: To be reconciled. One of the points on which the Gospel of Matthew insists the most is reconciliation, because in the communities of that time there were many tensions among the groups which had different tendencies, without any dialogue. Nobody wanted to give in or cede before the other. Matthew enlightens this situation with words of Jesus on reconciliation which demand acceptance and understanding. Because the only sin which God does not forgive is our lack of forgiveness of others (Mt 6, 14). For this reason, he seeks reconciliation first, before it is too late.

• The ideal of greatest justice. Five times, Jesus quotes a commandment or a usage of the ancient law: Do not kill. (Mt 5, 21), Do not commit adultery (Mt 5, 27), Do not bear false witness (Mt 5, 33), Eye for eye, tooth for tooth 5, 38), To love neighbour and to hate the enemy (Mt 5, 43). And five times he criticizes the ancient way of observing these commandments and he indicates a new way to attain justice, the objective of the law (Mt 5,22-26; 5, 28-32; 5,34-37; 5,39-42; 5,44-48). The word Justice is present seven times in the Gospel of Matthew (Mt 3, 15; 5, 6.10.20; 6, 1.33; 21, 32). The religious ideal of the Jews of that time was “to be just before God”. The Pharisees taught: “A person attains justice before God when he/she observes all the norms of the Law in all the details!” This teaching resulted in a legalistic oppression and produced much anguish in persons of good will, because it was very difficult for a person to be able to observe all the norms (Rm 7,21-24). This is why Matthew takes some words of Jesus on justice showing that this leads to surpass the justice of the Pharisees (Mt 5, 20). For Jesus, justice does not come from what I do for God observing the law, but from what God does for me, accepting me with love, like a son, like a daughter. The new ideal that Jesus proposes is this: "To be perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect!” (Mt 5,48). That means: I will be just before God, if I try to accept and to forgive persons as God accepts and forgives me gratuitously in spite of my many defects and sins.

4) Personal questions

• Which are the more frequent conflicts in my family? And in our community? Is reconciliation easy in the family and in the community? Yes or no? Why?

• The advice of Jesus, how can this help me to improve relationships in the sphere of our family and of the community?

5) Concluding Prayer

Lord, you visit the earth and make it fruitful,

you fill it with riches;

the river of God brims over with water,

you provide the grain. (Ps 65,9)

Lectio Divina: Friday, June 10, 2016

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

God of wisdom and love,

source of all good,

send your Spirit to teach us your truth

and guide our actions

in your way of peace.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 5,27-32

Jesus said to his disciples: 'You have heard how it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I say this to you, if a man looks at a woman lustfully, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

If your right eye should be your downfall, tear it out and throw it away; for it will do you less harm to lose one part of yourself than to have your whole body thrown into hell. And if your right hand should be your downfall, cut it off and throw it away; for it will do you less harm to lose one part of yourself than to have your whole body go to hell. 'It has also been said, Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a writ of dismissal. But I say this to you, everyone who divorces his wife, except for the case of an illicit marriage, makes her an adulteress; and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.'

3) Reflection

• In yesterday’s Gospel, Jesus made a rereading of the commandments: “Do not kill” (Mt 5, 20-26). In today’s Gospel Jesus rereads the commandment “You shall not commit adultery”. Jesus rereads the law starting from the intention that God had, which was proclaimed centuries before on Mount Sinai. He seeks the spirit of the Law and does not close himself up in the letter. He takes up again and defends the great values of human life which constitute the background of each one of these Ten Commandments. He insists on love, on fidelity, on mercy, on justice, on truth, on humanity (Mt 9,13; 12,7; 23,23; Mt 5,10; 5,20; Lc 11,42; 18,9). The result of the full observance of the Law of God humanizes the person. In Jesus we can see what happens when a person allows God to fill his life. The last objective is that of uniting both loves, the building up of fraternity in defence of life. The greater the fraternity, the greater will be the fullness of life and greater will be the adoration given by all creatures to God, Creator and Saviour.

• In today’s Gospel, Jesus looks closely at the relationship man-woman in marriage, fundamental basis of human living together. There was a commandment which said: “Do not commit adultery”, and another one which said: “Anyone who divorces his wife, has to give her a certificate of divorce”. Jesus takes up again both commandments, giving them a new meaning.

• Matthew 5, 27-28: Do not commit adultery. What does this commandment require from us? The ancient response was: man cannot sleep with somebody else’s wife. This was demanded by the letter of the commandment. But Jesus goes beyond, surpasses the letter and says: “But I say to you, if a man looks at a woman lustfully, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart”.

The objective of the commandment is reciprocal fidelity between man and woman who assume life together, as a married couple. And this fidelity will be complete only if both will know how to be faithful to one another in thought and in the desire and, will know how to reach a total transparency between them.

• Matthew 5, 29-30: Tear out your eye and cut off your hand. To illustrate what Jesus has just said, he states a hard word of which he serves himself on another occasion when he spoke of the scandal to little ones (Mt 18, 9 e Mc 9, 47). He says: If your right eye should be your downfall tear it out and throw it away: for it will do you less harm to lose one part of yourself than to have to have your whole body thrown into hell”. And he affirms the same thing concerning the hand. These affirmations cannot be taken literally. They indicate the radical nature and the seriousness with which Jesus insists on the observance of this commandment.

• Matthew 5, 31-32: The question of divorce. Man was permitted to give a certificate of divorce to the woman. In the discourse of the community, Jesus will say that Moses permitted this because the people were hard hearted (Mt 19, 8). “But I say to you: anyone who divorces his wife, give her a certificate of divorce; but I say to you: anyone who divorces his wife, except in the case of concubinage, exposes her to adultery and anyone who marries a divorced woman , commits adultery”. There has been much discussion on this theme. Basing itself on this affirmation of Jesus, the Oriental Church permits divorce in case of “fornication”, that is of infidelity. Others say that here the word fornication is the translation of an Aramaic or Hebrew word zenuth which indicated a valid marriage among people who were relatives, and which was forbidden. It would not be a valid marriage.

• Leaving aside the correct interpretation of this word, what is important is to see the objective and the general sense of the affirmation of Jesus in the new reading which is done of the Ten Commandments. Jesus speaks about an ideal which should always be before my eyes. The definitive ideal is: “to be perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5, 48). This ideal is valid for all the commandments reviewed by Jesus. In the rereading of the commandment “Do not commit adultery”, this ideal is translated as transparency and honesty between husband and wife. Even more, nobody can say: “I am perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect”. We will always be below the measure. We can never merit the reward because we will always be below the measure. What is important is to continue walking on the road, turn our look toward the ideal, always! But at the same time, as Jesus did, we have to accept persons with the same mercy with which he accepted persons and directed them toward the ideal. This is why, certain juridical exigencies of the Church today, for example, not to permit communion to those divorced persons living a second marriage, seem to be more in agreement with the attitude of the Pharisees than with that of Jesus. Nobody applies literally the explanation of the commandment “Do not kill”, where Jesus says that anyone who says idiot to his brother deserves hell (Mt 5, 22). Because if it was like that we would all have the entrance into hell guaranteed and nobody would be saved. Why does our doctrine use different measures in the case of the fifth and the ninth commandments?

4) Personal questions

• Do you succeed in living honesty and transparency totally with persons of the other sex?

• How is this to be understood: “to be perfect like the Heavenly Father is perfect?”

5) Concluding Prayer

Of you my heart has said,

'Seek his face!' Your face, Yahweh, I seek;

do not turn away from me.

Do not thrust aside your servant in anger,

without you I am helpless.

Never leave me, never forsake me, God, my Saviour.

(Ps 27,8-9)

Lectio Divina: Saturday, June 11, 2016

1) Opening prayer

Lord our God,

prompted by the Holy Spirit,

the church of Antioch sent Paul and Barnabas

on their missionary mission among pagans.

Let your Church everywhere send

good, zealous men and women as missionaries.

Fill them with the Holy Spirit and with faith,

that they may touch the hearts of people

and win them as disciples and friends

of Jesus Christ our Lord.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 10,7-13

Jesus said to his disciples: 'And as you go, proclaim that the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those suffering from virulent skin-diseases, drive out devils. You received without charge, give without charge.

Provide yourselves with no gold or silver, not even with coppers for your purses, with no haversack for the journey or spare tunic or footwear or a staff, for the labourer deserves his keep.

'Whatever town or village you go into, seek out someone worthy and stay with him until you leave. As you enter his house, salute it, and if the house deserves it, may your peace come upon it; if it does not, may your peace come back to you.'

3) Reflection

• Today is the feast of Saint Barnabas. The Gospel speaks about the teachings of Jesus to the disciples on how to announce the Good News of the Kingdom to “the lost sheep of Israel” (Mt 10, 6). They have to: a) cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out devils (v. 8); b) announce gratuitously what you have received gratuitously (v. 8); c) provide yourselves with no gold or silver, no sandals, or staff, no haversack, or two tunics (v. 9), d) seek a house where you can be received until the end of the mission (v.. 11); e) be bearers of peace (v. 13).

• At the time of Jesus there were various movements which, like him, were seeking a new way of living and of living together with others, for example, John the Baptist the Pharisees, the Essenes and others. Many of them formed communities of disciples (Jn 1, 35; Lk 11, 1; Ac 19, 3) and had their missionaries (Mt 23, 15). But there was a great difference! The Pharisees, for example, when they went on mission, they provided for their needs. They thought that they could not trust the food that people would offer them, because this was not always “ritually pure”. Because of this they always carried a haversack and money so as to be able to take care themselves of what they would eat. In this way the observance of the law of purity, instead of helping to overcome divisions, weakened even more the living of the community values. The proposal of Jesus is different. His method was seen in the counsels which he gives to the apostles when he sends them on mission. Through the instruction, he tries to renew and to reorganize the communities of Galilee in a way that they would once again be the expression of the covenant, an example of the Kingdom of God.

• Matthew 10, 7: The announcement that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Jesus invites the disciples to announce the Good News. They should say: “The Kingdom of Heaven is close at hand!” What does it mean that the Kingdom is close at hand? It does not mean the closeness of time, in the sense that it suffices to wait for a short time and then the Kingdom will come. “The Kingdom is close at hand” means that it is already within reach of the people, it is already “in your midst” (Lk 17, 21). It is good to acquire a new look, so as to be able to perceive its presence or proximity. The coming of the Kingdom is not the fruit of our observance, as the Pharisees wanted, but it becomes present, gratuitously, in the actions which Jesus recommends to the Apostles: to cure the sick, to raise the dead, to cleanse the lepers, to drive out demons.

• Matthew 10, 8: To cure, to raise, to purify, to drive out. The sick, the dead, the lepers, the possessed, were the excluded from living together with others, and they were excluded in the name of God. They could not participate in the life of the community. Jesus orders to accept these persons, to include them. The Kingdom of God becomes present in these gestures of acceptance and including them. In these gestures of human gratuity is shown God’s gratuitous love which reconstructs the human living together and mends interpersonal relationships.

• Matthew 10,9-10: Do not take anything. On the contrary of the other missionaries, the Apostles can take nothing: “Provide yourselves with no gold or silver, not even with coppers for your purses, with no haversack for the journey or a spare tunic or footwear or a staff, for the labourer deserves his keep”: The only thing which you can and should take is Peace (Mt 10, 13). This means that they have to trust in the hospitality and in the sharing of the people. Because the disciple who does not take anything with him and takes peace, indicates that he trusts people. He believes that he will be received, and the people will feel appreciated, valued, and confirmed. The labourer has the right to his nourishment. Doing this, the disciple criticizes the laws of exclusion and recovers the ancient values of sharing and of community living together.

• Matthew 10, 11-13: To live together and to integrate oneself in the community. Arriving to a place, the disciples have to choose a house of peace and they should remain there until the end. They should not go from one house to the next, but rather live in a stable way. They should become members of the community and work for peace, that is, to reconstruct the human relationships which will favour Peace. By means of this practice, they recover an ancient tradition of the people, they criticize the culture of accumulation, typical of the politics of the Roman Empire and they announce a new model of living together.

• Summary: The actions recommended by Jesus to announce the Kingdom are the following: accept the excluded, trust the hospitality, encourage sharing, live stably and in a peaceful way. If this happens then we can and should cry out openly to the four corners of the world: The Kingdom is among us! To proclaim the Kingdom does not consist, in the first place, in teaching truth and doctrine, catechism and Canon Law, but to lead persons to a new way of living and of living together with others, to a new way of thinking and of acting starting by the Good News, brought by Jesus: God is Father and Mother, and therefore, we are all brothers and sisters.

4) Personal questions

•Why are all these attitudes recommended by Jesus signs of the Kingdom of God in our midst?

• How can we do today what Jesus asks of us: do not take with you a “haversack”, do not go from house to the next?”

5) Concluding Prayer

Sing a new song to Yahweh,

for he has performed wonders,

his saving power is in his right hand and his holy arm. (Ps 98,1)

Lectio Divina: Sunday, June 12, 2016

Jesus welcomes and defends

the woman with the ointment.

Poor people’s trust in Jesus

Luke 7:36 to 8:3

1. Opening prayer

Lord Jesus, send your Spirit to help us to read the Scriptures with the same mind that you read them to the disciples on the way to Emmaus. In the light of the Word, written in the Bible, you helped them to discover the presence of God in the disturbing events of your sentence and death. Thus, the cross that seemed to be the end of all hope became for them the source of life and of resurrection.

Create in us silence so that we may listen to your voice in Creation and in the Scriptures, in events and in people, above all in the poor and suffering. May your word guide us so that we too, like the two disciples from Emmaus, may experience the force of your resurrection and witness to others that you are alive in our midst as source of fraternity, justice and peace. We ask this of you, Jesus, son of Mary, who revealed to us the Father and sent us your Spirit. Amen.

2. Reading

a) A key to the reading:

The text of this Sunday’s Gospel puts before us two related episodes. The first episode is quite emotional. A woman who was thought to be a sinner in the city, has the courage to go into Simon’s house, a Pharisee, during a meal, to meet Jesus, wash his feet and cover them with kisses and ointment. The second episode describes Jesus’ community of men and women.

As you read the text, imagine being in the Pharisee’s house at table and look carefully at the attitudes, actions and words of those present, the woman, Jesus and the Pharisees. Read again the brief information that Luke gives concerning the community that grew around Jesus and try to examine carefully the words used to show that the community was made up of men and women who followed Jesus.

c) A division of the text to help with the reading:

Luke 7:36-38: A woman washes Jesus’ feet in the house of a Pharisee

Luke 7:39-40: The Pharisee’s reaction and Jesus’ reply

Luke 7:41-43: The parable of the two debtors and the Pharisee’s reply

Luke 7:44-47: Jesus applies the parable and defends the girl

Luke 7:48-50: Love generates forgiveness and forgiveness generates love

Luke 8:1-3: The men and women disciples of Jesus’ community

c) Text:

36 One of the Pharisees invited Jesus to a meal. When he arrived at the Pharisee's house and took his place at table, 37 suddenly a woman came in, who had a bad name in the town. She had heard he was dining with the Pharisee and had brought with her an alabaster jar of ointment. 38 She waited behind him at his feet, weeping, and her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them away with her hair; then she covered his feet with kisses and anointed them with the ointment.

39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, 'If this man were a prophet, he would know who this woman is and what sort of person it is who is touching him and what a bad name she has.' 40 Then Jesus took him up and said, 'Simon, I have something to say to you.' He replied, 'Say on, Master.' 41 'There was once a creditor who had two men in his debt; one owed him five hundred denarii, the other fifty. 42 They were unable to pay, so he let them both off. Which of them will love him more?' 43 Simon answered, 'The one who was let off more, I suppose.' Jesus said, 'You are right.' 44 Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, 'You see this woman? I came into your house, and you poured no water over my feet, but she has poured out her tears over my feet and wiped them away with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but she has been covering my feet with kisses ever since I came in. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 For this reason I tell you that her sins, many as they are, have been forgiven her, because she has shown such great love. It is someone who is forgiven little who shows little love.' 48 Then he said to her, 'Your sins are forgiven.' 49 Those who were with him at table began to say to themselves, 'Who is this man, that even forgives sins?' 50 But he said to the woman, 'Your faith has saved you; go in peace.'

8:1 Now it happened that after this he made his way through towns and villages preaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. With him went the Twelve, 2 as well as certain women who had been cured of evil spirits and ailments: Mary surnamed the Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 Joanna the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, Susanna, and many others who provided for them out of their own resources.

3. A moment of prayerful silence

so that the Word of God may penetrate and enlighten our life.

4. Some questions

to help us in our personal reflection.

a) What struck you most in the text? Why?

b) What does the woman do and how does she do it?

c) What is the Pharisee’s attitude towards Jesus and towards the woman: what does he do and say?

d) What is Jesus’ attitude towards the woman: what does he do and say?

e) The woman would not have done what she did unless she was absolutely certain that Jesus would welcome her. Do present day people who are marginalized have the same certainty in our regard as Christians?

f) Love and forgiveness. Who are the women who follow Jesus? What binds them together?

g) Jesus’ community: Who are the women who follow Jesus? What do they do?

5. For those who wish to go deeper into the theme

a) The literary and historical context of the text:

In chapter 7 of his Gospel, Luke describes the new and surprising things that happen among the people since Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God. In Capernaum, he praises the faith of the foreigner: “Amen I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such great faith! (Lk 7:1-10). In Naim he raises the widow’s son from death (Lk 7:11-17). The way Jesus proclaims the Kingdom surprises the Jewish brethren so that even John the Baptist is surprised and sends word to ask: “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (Lk 7:18-30). Jesus criticises the wavering of his adversaries: "They are like children who do not know what they want!" (cfr. Lk 7:31-35). And here, at the end of the chapter, that is our text (Lk 7:36 to 8:3), something else that is new begins to appear and to surprise in the Good News of the Kingdom: Jesus’ attitude towards women.

At the time of the New Testament in Palestine, women were marginalized. They took no part in the synagogue nor could they witness in public life. From the time of Ezra (IV century B.C.), resistance towards women kept growing as we note in the stories of Judith, Esther, Ruth, Naomi, Susanna, the Sulamite woman and many others. This resistance towards women did not find an echo in Jesus who welcomed them. In the episode of the woman with the ointment (Lk 7:36-50) we see anti-conformism in Jesus’ welcome of the woman. In the description of the community that was growing around Jesus (Lk 8:1-3), we see men and women gathered around Jesus, equal in standing as disciples.

b) A commentary on the text:

Luke 7:36-38: A woman washes Jesus’ feet in the house of a Pharisee

Three totally different persons meet: Jesus, a Pharisee and a woman who was said to be a sinner. Jesus is in Simon’s house, a Pharisee who had invited him to eat in his house. A woman comes in, kneels at Jesus’ feet, weeps, bathes his feet with her tears, loosens her hair to wipe Jesus’ feet, kisses them and anoints them with ointment. The act of loosening her hair in public was a sign of independence. This is the scene that causes the debate that follows.

Luke 7:39-40: The Pharisees’ reply and Jesus’ reply

Jesus does not retreat, does not reprove the woman but rather welcomes what she does. The woman is someone who, according to the observant Jews of the time, could not be welcomed. Seeing what was going on, the Pharisee criticises Jesus and condemns the woman: "This man, were he a prophet, would surely know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner!" In reply to the Pharisee’s provocation, Jesus tells a parable; a parable that will help the Pharisee and all of us to see the invisible call of the love of God who reveals himself in that scene.

Luke 7:41-43: The parable of the two debtors and the Pharisee’s reply

The parable recounts the following: A creditor had to debtors. One owed him 500 denarii and the other 50. A denarius was equivalent to a day’s wage. Thus the wages for fifty days! Neither of the two could pay. Both were forgiven. Which of them will love him more? The Pharisee replies: "He to whom he forgave more!" The parable presupposes that earlier, both the Pharisee and the woman had received some favour from Jesus. Now, in their attitude towards Jesus, they show their appreciation for the favour received. The Pharisee shows his love, his gratitude, by inviting Jesus to his house. The woman shows her love, her gratitude with her tears, with kisses and with the ointment. Which of these actions shows a greater love; eating or the kisses and ointment? Does the measure of one’s love depend on the size of the present offered?

Luke 7:44-47: Jesus applies the parable and defends the woman

When he had received the correct answer from the Pharisee, Jesus applied it to the situation which arose with the coming in of the woman during the meal. He defends the sinful woman against the criticism of the practising Jew. What Jesus is saying to the Pharisees of all times is this: "He to whom little is forgiven, loves little!" The personal security that I, the Pharisee, create for myself because of my observance of the laws of God and of the Church, frequently prevents me from experiencing the gratuitous love of a forgiving God. What matters is not the observance of the law as such, but the love with which I observe the law. Using the symbols of the love of the sinful woman, Jesus answers the Pharisee who considered himself just: «You see this woman? I came into your house, and you poured no water over my feet, but she has poured out her tears over my feet and wiped them away with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but she has been covering my feet with kisses ever since I came in. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. For this reason I tell you that her sins, many as they are, have been forgiven her, because she has shown such great love. It is someone who is forgiven little who shows little love». It is as if he said: "Simon, in spite of the banquet you offer me, you have little love!" Why? The prophet Jeremiah had once said that in the future, in the new covenant, “no longer will they need to teach their friends and kinsmen how to know the Lord. All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the Lord, for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more”. (Jer 31:34). It is awareness of being freely forgiven that makes one experience the love of God. When the Pharisee calls the woman a “sinner”, he is considering himself to be a just man who observes and practices the law. He is like the Pharisee from the other parable who said: “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men, robbers, dishonest, adulterers, or even like this publican” (Lk 18:11). Simon must have thought: “O God, I thank you because I am not like this sinful woman!” But the one who went home justified was not the Pharisee but the publican who had said: “Be merciful to me a sinner!” (Lk 18:14). From the beginning, Pharisees always consider themselves sinless, because in all things they observe the law of God, they go to Mass, pray, give alms and pay their taxes. They place their security in what they do for God, not in the love and the forgiveness of God towards them. That is why Simon, the Pharisee cannot experience the gratuitousness of God’s love.

Luke 7:48-50: Love generates forgiveness and forgiveness generates love

Jesus says to the woman: "Your sins are forgiven you." Then the guests begin to think: "Who is this who even forgives sins?" But Jesus says to the woman: "Your faith has saved you. Go and sin no more!" Here we see Jesus’ new attitude. He does not condemn but welcomes. It is faith that enables the woman to know herself and to accept herself and God. In her exchange with Jesus, a new force breaks forth in her that enables her to be reborn. An important question comes to our mind. Would the sinful woman in the city have done what she did had she not been absolutely certain that Jesus would welcome her? This means that for the poor people of Galilee in those days, Jesus was someone to be trusted absolutely! “We can trust him. He will welcome us!” Do the marginalized people of today have this same certainty towards us Christians?

Luke 8:1-3: The disciples of Jesus’ community

Jesus went to the villages and towns of Galilee, proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God and the twelve were with him. The expression “following Jesus” shows the condition of a disciple who follows the Master seeking to imitate his example and sharing in his fate. It is surprising that besides the men there were also women who “followed Jesus”. Luke places the men and women disciples on an equal level. He also says that the women served Jesus with their goods. Luke also mentions the names of some of these women disciples: Mary Magdalene, born in the city of Magdala. She had been delivered of seven demons. Joanna, the wife of Cuza, Herod Antipa’s procurator, who was governor of Galilee. Susanna and many others.

c) Further information:

i) Luke’s Gospel has always been considered the Gospel of women. Indeed, Luke is the one who most records occasions that show the relationship of Jesus with women. However, the novelty, the Good News concerning women, is not simply because of the many citations of their presence around Jesus, but in Jesus’ attitude towards them. Jesus touches them, allows them to touch him, without fear of being contaminated (Lk 7:39; 8:44-45.54). The difference between Jesus and the masters of the time is that Jesus accepts women as followers and disciples (Lk 8:2-3; 10”39). The liberating force of God, which acts in Jesus, raises women to assume their place of dignity (Lk 13:13). Jesus feels the suffering of the widow and joins in her sorrow (Lk 7:13). The work of the woman who prepares food, is seen by Jesus as a sign of the Kingdom (Lk 13:20-21). The persevering widow who fights for her rights is presented as a model of prayer (Lk 18:1-8), and the poor widow who shares her meagre goods with others is presented as the model of gift and of dedication (Lk 21:1-4). At a time when the witness of women was not considered valid, Jesus chooses women as witnesses of his death (Lk 23:49), of his burial (Lk 23:55-56) and of his resurrection (Lk 24:1-11.22-24).

ii) The Gospels record different lists of the names of the twelve disciples who followed Jesus. The names are not always the same, but there are always twelve names, evoking the twelve tribes of the new people of God. There were women who also followed Jesus, from Galilee to Jerusalem. Mark’s Gospel defines their attitude in three words, three verbs: following, serving, going up to Jerusalem (Mk 15:41). The Evangelists do not give a list of the women disciples who followed Jesus, but their names are known to this day through the pages of the Gospels, especially of Luke, and they are:: Mary Magdalene (Lk 8:3; 24:10); Joanna the wife of Chuza (Lk 8;,3); Susanna (Lk 8:3); Salome (Mk 15:45); Mary, James’ mother (Lk 24:10); Mary, Cleophas’ wife (Jn 19:25); Mary, the mother of Jesus (Jn 19:25).

6. Prayer: A hymn to Love (1 Cor 13:1-13)

Above all, love!

1 Though I command languages both human and angelic -- if I speak without love, I am no more than a gong booming or a cymbal clashing.

2 And though I have the power of prophecy, to penetrate all mysteries and knowledge, and though I have all the faith necessary to move mountains -- if I am without love, I am nothing.

3 Though I should give away to the poor all that I possess, and even give up my body to be burned -- if I am without love, it will do me no good whatever.

4 Love is always patient and kind; love is never jealous; love is not boastful or conceited, 5 it is never rude and never seeks its own advantage, it does not take offence or store up grievances. 6 Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but finds its joy in the truth. 7 It is always ready to make allowances, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes. 8 Love never comes to an end. But if there are prophecies, they will be done away with; if tongues, they will fall silent; and if knowledge, it will be done away with. 9 For we know only imperfectly, and we prophesy imperfectly; 10 but once perfection comes, all imperfect things will be done away with.

11 When I was a child, I used to talk like a child, and see things as a child does, and think like a child; but now that I have become an adult, I have finished with all childish ways. 12 Now we see only reflections in a mirror, mere riddles, but then we shall be seeing face to face. Now I can know only imperfectly; but then I shall know just as fully as I am myself known.

13 As it is, these remain: faith, hope and love, the three of them; and the greatest of them is love.

7. Final Prayer

Lord Jesus, we thank for the word that has enabled us to understand better the will of the Father. May your Spirit enlighten our actions and grant us the strength to practice that which your Word has revealed to us. May we, like Mary, your mother, not only listen to but also practice the Word. You who live and reign with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.

Lectio Divina: Monday, June 13, 2016

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

Almighty God,

our hope and our strength,

without you we falter.

Help us to follow Christ

and to live according to your will.

Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 5,38-42

Jesus said to his disciples: 'You have heard how it was said: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I say this to you: offer no resistance to the wicked. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well; if someone wishes to go to law with you to get your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone requires you to go one mile, go two miles with him. Give to anyone who asks you, and if anyone wants to borrow, do not turn away.

3) Reflection

• Today’s Gospel forms part of a small literary unit which goes from Mt 5, 17 to Mt 5, 48, in which is described how to pass from the ancient justice of the Pharisees (Mt 5, 20) to the new justice of the Kingdom of God (Mt 5, 48). It describes how to go up to the Mountain of the Beatitudes, from where Jesus announces the new Law of Love. The great desire of the Pharisees was to live in justice, to be just before God. And this is the desire of all of us. Just is the one who succeeds to live where God wants him/her to live. The Pharisees tried to attain justice through the strict observance of the Law. They thought that with their own effort they could succeed in being where God wanted them to be. Jesus takes a stand concerning this practice and announces the new justice which should exceed, surpass the justice of the Pharisees (Mt 5, 20). In today’s Gospel we are reaching almost the summit of the mountain. Only a little is lacking. The summit is described in one phrase: “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5, 48), on which we will meditate in tomorrow’s Gospel. Let us look closely at this last degree which is still lacking to reach the summit of the Mountain, of which Saint John of the Cross says: “Here reign silence and love”.

• Matthew 5, 38: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth. Jesus quotes a text of the Ancient Law saying: “You have heard how it was said: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth!” He shortened the text, because the complete text said: “Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, blow for blow” (Ex 21, 23-25). Like in the previous cases, here also Jesus makes a completely new rereading. The principle “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” was already found in the origin of the interpretation which the Scribes made of the law. This principle should be overthrown, because it perverts and destroys the relationship between persons and with God.

• Matthew 5, 39ª: Do not give back evil for evil received. Jesus affirms exactly the contrary: “But I say to you do not offer resistance to the wicked”. Before some violence received, our natural reaction is to pay the other one with the same coin. Vengeance asks for “eye for eye, tooth for tooth”. Jesus asks to pay back the evil not with evil, but with good. Because if we do not know how to overcome the violence received, the spiral of violence will take up everything and we will not know what to do. Lamec said: For a wound received I will kill a man, and for a scar I would kill a young person. If the vengeance of Cain was worth seven that of Lamec will count for seventy-seven” (Gen 4, 24). And it was precisely because of this terrible act of vengeance that everything ended in the confusion of the Tower of Babel. (Gen 11,1-9). Faithful to the teaching of Jesus, Paul writes in the Letter to the Romans: “Never pay back evil with evil; let your concern be to do good to all men. Do not allow yourselves to be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good” (Rm 12, 17.21). To be able to have this attitude is necessary to have much faith in the possibility to recover that the human being has. How can we do this in practice? Jesus offers four concrete examples.

• Matthew 5, 39b-42: the four examples to overcome the spiral of violence. Jesus says: “rather (a) if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well; (b) if anyone wishes to go to Law with you to get your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. (d) And if anyone requires you to go one mile, go two miles with him. (e) Give to anyone who asks you, and if anyone wants to borrow, do not turn away” (Mt 5, 40-42). How are these four affirmations to be understood? Jesus himself helps us to understand. When the soldier hit him on the cheek, he did not offer the other cheek. Rather, he reacted with energy: “If there is some offence in what I said, point it out, but if not, why do you strike me?” (Jn 18, 23) Jesus does not teach us to be passive. Saint Paul thinks that paying evil with good “you will make others be ashamed” (Rm 12, 20). This faith in the possibility to recover the human being is possible only beginning from the root which comes from the total gratuity of the creative love which God shows us in the life and the attitudes of Jesus.

4) Personal questions

• Have you some time felt within you such a great anger as to want to apply the vengeance “eye for eye, tooth for tooth”? What did you do to overcome this?

• Does life in community, living together, favour today in the Church and in us the creative love which Jesus proposes in today’s Gospel?

5) Concluding Prayer

Give ear to my words, Yahweh,

spare a thought for my sighing.

Listen to my cry for help,

my King and my God! To you I pray. (Ps 5,1-2)

Lectio Divina: Tuesday, June 14, 2016

1) Opening prayer

Almighty God,

our hope and our strength,

without you we falter.

Help us to follow Christ

and to live according to your will.

Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 5,43-48

Jesus said to his disciples: 'You have heard how it was said, You will love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say this to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on the bad as well as the good, and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even the tax collectors do as much? And if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional? Do not even the gentiles do as much? You must therefore be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.'

3) Reflection

• In today’s Gospel we get to the summit of the Mountain of the Beatitudes, where Jesus proclaimed the Law of the Kingdom of God, the ideal of which can be summarized in this lapidarian phrase: “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5, 48) Jesus was correcting the Law of God! Five times, one after another, he had already affirmed: “It was said, but I say to you!” (Mt 5, 21.27, 31.33.38). This was a sign of great courage on his part, in public, before all the people gathered there, to correct the most sacred treasure of the people, the origin of their identity, which was the Law of God. Jesus wants to communicate a new way of looking and of practicing the Law of God. The key, so as to be able to get this new look, is the affirmation: “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect”. Never will anyone be able to say: “Today I have been perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect!” We are always below the measure which Jesus has placed before us. Perhaps, because of this, he has placed before us an ideal which is impossible for us mortal beings to attain?

• Matthew 5, 43-45: It was said: You will love your neighbour and hate your enemy. In this phrase Jesus explains the mentality with which the Scribes explained the Law; a mentality which resulted from the divisions among the Jews and the non Jews, between neighbour and non neighbour, between saint and sinner, between the clean and the unclean, etc. Jesus orders to overthrow this pretence, these interested divisions. He orders to overcome divisions. “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you! So that you may be children of your Father in Heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on the bad as well as the good, and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike”. And from here we draw from the source from which springs the novelty of the Kingdom. This source is proper to God who is recognized as Father, who causes his sun to rise on the bad as well as the good. Jesus orders that we imitate this God: “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (5, 48). And, it is in imitating this God that we can create a just society, radically new:

• Matthew 5,46-48: Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Everything is summarized in imitating God: "But I say to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in Heaven who causes the sun to rise on the bad as well as on the good, and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even the tax collectors do as much? And if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional? Do not even the gentiles do as much? Therefore, you be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5, 43-48). Love is the beginning and the end of everything. There is no greater love than to give one’s life for the brother (Jn 15, 13). Jesus imitated the Father and revealed his love. Every gesture, every word of Jesus, from his birth until the hour of his death on the cross, it was an expression of this creative love which does not depend on the gift received, neither does it discriminate the other because of race, sex, religion or social class, but which comes from wishing well in a completely gratuitous way. This was continually growing, from birth until his death on the Cross.

• The full manifestation of the creative love in Jesus. This was when on the Cross he offered forgiveness to the soldier who tortured him and killed him. The soldier, employed by the Empire, placed the wrist of Jesus on the arm of the Cross, placed a nail and began to hammer. He hammered several times. The blood fell flowing down. The body of Jesus twisted with pain. The mercenary soldier, ignorant of what he was doing and of what was happening around him, continued to hammer as if it was a nail on the wall to hang a picture. At that moment Jesus addresses this prayer to the Father: “Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing!” (Lk 23, 34). In spite of all the will of men, the lack of humanity did not succeed to extinguish humanity in Jesus. They take him, they mock him, they spit on his face, they scoff him, they make of him a clown king with a crown of thorns on the head, they scourged him, torture him, make him walk on the streets as if he were a criminal, he has to listen to the insults of the religious authority, on Calvary they leave him completely naked at the sight of all. But the poison of lack of humanity does not succeed to reach the source of humanity which sprang from the Heart of Jesus. The water which sprang from within was stronger than the poison from without, wanting to contaminate everything. Looking at that ignorant and rude soldier, Jesus felt compassion for the soldier and prayed for him and for all: “Father, forgive them!” And he adds even an excuse: “They are ignorant. They do not know what they are doing!” Before the Father, Jesus is in solidarity with those who torture him and ill treat him. Like the brother who sees his murder brothers before the judge and he, victim of his own brothers, tells the judge: “You know they are my brothers. They are ignorant. Forgive them. They will become better!” It was as if Jesus was afraid that the minimum anger against man could extinguish in him the remaining humanity which still existed. This unbelievable gesture of humanity and of faith in the possibility of recovering that soldier has been the greatest revelation of the love of God. Jesus can die: “It is fulfilled!” And bowing his head he gave up his spirit (Jn 19, 30). In this way he fulfilled the prophecy of the Suffering Servant (Is 53).

4) Personal questions

• Which is the most profound reason for the effort which you make to observe God’s Law: to merit salvation or to thank for God who in his immense goodness has created you, keeps you alive and saves you?

• What meaning do you give to the phrase: “to be perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect?

5) Concluding Prayer

Have mercy on me, O God, in your faithful love,

in your great tenderness wipe away my offences;

wash me clean from my guilt,

purify me from my sin. (Ps 51,1-2)

Lectio Divina: Wednesday, June 15, 2016

1) Opening prayer

Almighty God,

our hope and our strength,

without you we falter.

Help us to follow Christ

and to live according to your will.

Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 6,1-6.16-18

Jesus said to his disciples: 'Be careful not to parade your uprightness in public to attract attention; otherwise you will lose all reward from your Father in heaven.

So when you give alms, do not have it trumpeted before you; this is what the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win human admiration. In truth I tell you, they have had their reward. But when you give alms, your left hand must not know what your right is doing; your almsgiving must be secret, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.

'And when you pray, do not imitate the hypocrites: they love to say their prayers standing up in the synagogues and at the street corners for people to see them. In truth I tell you, they have had their reward. But when you pray, go to your private room, shut yourself in, and so pray to your Father who is in that secret place, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.

'When you are fasting, do not put on a gloomy look as the hypocrites do: they go about looking unsightly to let people know they are fasting. In truth I tell you, they have had their reward. But when you fast, put scent on your head and wash your face, so that no one will know you are fasting except your Father who sees all that is done in secret; and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.

3) Reflection

• The Gospel of today continues the meditation on the Sermon on the Mountain. In the previous days we have reflected at length on the message of chapter 5 of Matthew’s Gospel. In today’s Gospel and the following days we meditate on the message of chapter 6 of this Gospel. The sequence of chapters 5 and 6 can help us to understand it. The passages in italics indicate the text of today’s Gospel. The following is the schema:

Matthew 5, 1-12: The Beatitudes: solemn opening of the New Law

Matthew 5, 13-16: The new presence in the world: Salt of the earth and Light of the world

Matthew 5, 17-19: The new practice of justice; relationship with the ancient law

Matthew 5, 20-48: The new practice of justice: observing the new Law.

Matthew 6, 1-4: The new practice of piety: alms

Matthew 6, 5-15: The new practice of the works of piety: prayer

Matthew 6, 16-18: The new practice of the works of piety: fasting

Matthew 6, 19-21: New relationship to material goods: do not accumulate

Matthew 6, 22-23: New relationship to material goods: correct vision

Matthew 6, 24: New relationship to material goods: God and money

Matthew 6, 25-34: New relationship to material goods: abandonment in Providence.

Today’s Gospel treats three themes: alms giving (6, 1-4), prayer (6, 5-6) and fasting (6, 16-18). These are three works of piety of the Jews.

• Matthew 6,1: Be careful not to parade your uprightness to attract attention. Jesus criticises those who do the good works to be seen by men (Mt 6,1). Jesus asks to build up interior security not in what we do for God, but in what God does for us. From the advise that he gives there results a new type of relationship with God: “Your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you” (Mt 6,4). "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Mt 6, 8). "If you forgive others their failings, your heavenly Father will forgive your failings” (Mt 6, 14). It is a new way which opens itself now to have access to the Heart of God our Father. Jesus does not allow that the practice of justice and of piety be used as a means for self promotion before God and before the community (Mt 6, 2.5.16).

• Matthew 6, 2-4: How to practice almsgiving. To give alms is a way of sharing, very recommended by the first Christians (Ac 2, 44-45; 4, 32-35). The person who practices alms giving and sharing to promote herself before others merits to be excluded from the community, as it happened to Ananias and Saphira (Ac 5, 1-11). Today, in society as well as in the Church, there are persons who make great publicity of the good that they do to others. Jesus asks the contrary: to do good in such a way that the left hand does not know what the right hand does. It is the total detachment and the total gift in total gratuity of the love which believes in God the Father and imitates all that he does.

• Matthew 6, 5-6: How to practice prayer. Prayer places the person in direct relationship with God. Some Pharisees transformed prayer into an occasion to show themselves before others. At that time, when the trumpet sounded in the three moments of prayer, morning, noon and evening, they should stop in the place where they were to pray. There were people who sought to be in the corners in public places, in such a way that everybody would see that they were praying. Well then, such an attitude perverts our relationship with God. This is false and has no sense. This is why, Jesus says that it is better to close up oneself in our room to pray in secret, maintaining the authenticity of the relationship. God sees you even in secret, and he always listens to you. It is a question of a personal prayer, not of a community prayer.

• Matthew 6, 16-18: How to practice fasting. At that time the practice of fasting was accompanied by some very visible external gestures: not to wash one’s face, not to comb one’s hair, use sober dresses. These were visible signs of fasting. Jesus criticises this form of fasting and orders to do the contrary, and thus others cannot become aware that you are fasting: bathe, use perfume, and comb your hair well. In this way, only your Father who sees in secret knows that you are fasting and he will reward you.

4) Personal questions

• When you pray, how do you live your relationship with God?

• How do you live your relationship with others in the family and in community?

5) Concluding Prayer

Yahweh, what quantities of good things you have in store

for those who fear you,

and bestow on those who make you their refuge,

for all humanity to see. (Ps 31,19)

Lectio Divina: Thursday, June 16, 2016

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

Almighty God,

our hope and our strength,

without you we falter.

Help us to follow Christ

and to live according to your will.

Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 6,7-15

Jesus said to his disciples: 'In your prayers do not babble as the gentiles do, for they think that by using many words they will make themselves heard. Do not be like them; your Father knows what you need before you ask him. So you should pray like this:

Our Father in heaven, may your name be held holy,

your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us.

And do not put us to the test, but save us from the Evil One.

'Yes, if you forgive others their failings, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours; but if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your failings either.

3) Reflection

• The Gospel today presents the prayer of the Our Father, the Psalm which Jesus has left us. There are two redactions of the Our Father, of Luke (Lk 11, 1-4 and of Matthew (Mt 6, 7-13). The redaction of Luke is briefer. Luke writes for the community coming from paganism. He tries to help the persons who are beginning a path of prayer. In the Gospel of Matthew, the Our Father is found in the part of the Discourse of the Mountain, where Jesus orientates the disciples in the practice of the three works of piety: alms giving (Mt 6, 1-4), prayer (Mt 6, 5-15) and fasting (Mt 6, 26-18). The Our father forms part of a catechesis for the converted Jews. They were used to pray, but they had certain vices which Matthew wanted to correct. In the Our Father, Jesus summarizes all his teaching in seven petitions addressed to the Father. In these seven petitions, he takes the promises of the Old Testament and orders to ask the Father to help us to realize them. The first three refer to our relationship with God. The other four have to do with the community relationship that we have with others.

• Matthew 6, 7-8: The introduction to the Our Father. Jesus criticises the persons for whom prayer was a repetition of magic formulae, of strong words, addressed to God to oblige him to respond to their petitions and needs. Anyone who prays has to seek, in the first place, the Kingdom, much more than the personal interests. The acceptance of prayer by God does not depend on the repetition of words, but rather on the goodness of God who is Love and Mercy. He wants our good and he knows our needs, even before we pray.

• Matthew 6,9a: The first words: “Our Father in Heaven!” “Abba, Father, is the name which Jesus uses to address himself to God. It expresses the intimacy that he has with God and manifests the new relationship with God which should characterize the life of people in the Christian communities (Ga 4, 6; Rm 8, 15). Matthew adds to the name of Father the adjective our and the expression in Heaven. The true prayer is a relationship which unites us to the Father, to the brothers and sisters, to nature. Familiarity with God is not intimist, but expresses the awareness of belonging to the great human family, in which all persons participate; of all races and of all creeds: Our Father. To pray to the Father is to enter in intimacy with him, it is also to be in harmony with the cry of all the brothers and sisters. It is to seek the Kingdom of God, in the first place. The experience of God the Father is the foundation of the universal fraternity.

• Matthew 6, 9b-10: The three petitions for the cause of God: the Name, the Kingdom, the Will. In the first part of the Our Father, we ask to restore our relationship with God. To do this Jesus asks (a) the sanctification of the Name revealed in Exodus on the occasion of the liberation from Egypt; (b) to ask for the coming of the Kingdom, expected by the people after the fall of the monarchy; (c) to ask for the fulfilment of God’s Will, revealed in the Law which was in the centre of the Covenant. The Name, the Kingdom, the Law: are three axis taken from the Old Testament which express how the new relationship with God should be. The three petitions indicate that it is necessary to live in intimacy with the Father, making his Name known, making him loved, doing in such a way that his Kingdom of love and of communion becomes a reality that his Will may be done on earth as it is in Heaven. In heaven, the sun and the stars obey the law of God and create the order of the Universe. The observance of the Law of God “on earth as it is in heaven” should be a source and a mirror of harmony and of well being for the whole creation. This renewed relationship with God becomes visible only in the renewed relationship among us, which on his part is the object of other four petitions: our daily bread, the forgiveness of debts, not to fall into temptation, to deliver us from evil.

• Matthew 6, 11-13: The four petitions for the brothers: Bread, Forgiveness, Victory, Liberty. In the second part of the Our Father we ask to restore and renew the relationship between persons. The four petitions indicate how the structures of the community and of society should be transformed in such a way that all the children of God may live with equal dignity. The daily bread: “Daily Bread” (Mt 6, 11) recalls the daily manna in the desert (Ex 16, 1-36). The manna was a “test” to see if the people were capable to follow the Law of the Lord (Ex 16, 4), that is, if they were capable to store food only for one day as a sign of faith that Divine Providence passes through the fraternal organization. Jesus invites them to walk toward a new Exodus, toward a new way of fraternal living together which can guarantee bread for all. Forgiveness of debts: the request of “forgiveness of debts” (6, 12) recalls the sabbatical year which obliged creditors to forgive all the debts to the brothers (Dt 15, 1-2). The objective of the sabbatical year and of the jubilee year (Lev 25, 1-22) was to do away with inequalities and to begin anew. How to pray today: “Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us”? The rich countries, all of which are Christian, are getting richer, thanks to the external debt. Not to fall into Temptation: the petition “not to fall into temptation” (6, 13) reminds us of the errors committed in the desert, where the people fell into temptation (Ex 18, 1-7; Nb 20, 1-13; Dt 9, 7-29). To imitate Jesus who was tempted and obtained victory (Mt 4, 1-17). In the desert, the temptation pushed people to follow other paths, to go back, not to undertake the road of liberation and to be demanding on Moses who guided them. Freedom from Evil: evil is the Evil One, Satan, who seeks to deviate and who in many ways, seeks to lead persons not to follow the path of the Kingdom, indicated by Jesus. He tempted Jesus to abandon the Project of the Father and to be the Messiah according to the idea of the Pharisees, the Scribes and other groups. The Evil One takes us away from God and is a reason of scandal. He also entered in Peter (Mt 16, 23) and he also tempted Jesus in the desert. Jesus overcame him. (Mt 4, 1-11).

4) Personal questions

• Jesus says “forgive us our debts”, but today we say “forgive us our offences”, what is easier to forgive offences or to cancel the debts?

• How do you usually pray the Our Father: mechanically or putting all your life and all your efforts in the words you pronounce?

5) Concluding Prayer

The mountains melt like wax,

before the Lord of all the earth.

The heavens proclaim his saving justice,

all nations see his glory. (Ps 97,5-6)

Lectio Divina: Friday, June 17, 2016

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

Almighty God,

our hope and our strength,

without you we falter.

Help us to follow Christ

and to live according to your will.

Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 6,19-23

Jesus said to his disciples: 'Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moth and woodworm destroy them and thieves can break in and steal. But store up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where neither moth nor woodworm destroys them and thieves cannot break in and steal. For wherever your treasure is, there will your heart be too.

'The lamp of the body is the eye. It follows that if your eye is clear, your whole body will be filled with light. But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be darkness. If then, the light inside you is darkened, what darkness that will be!'

3) Reflection

• In today’s Gospel we continue our reflection on the Sermon on the Mountain. Two days ago and yesterday we have reflected on the practice of the three works of piety: alms giving (Mt 6, 1-4), prayer (Mt 6, 5-15) and fasting (Mt 6, 16-18). Today’s and tomorrow’s Gospel presents four recommendations on the relationship with material goods, explaining clearly how to live the poverty of the first Beatitude: (a) not to accumulate (Mt 6, 19-21); (b) to have a correct idea of material goods (Mt 6,22-23); (c) not serve two masters (Mt 6,24); (d) to abandon oneself to Divine Providence (Mt 6,25-34). Today’s Gospel presents the first two recommendations: not to accumulate goods 19-21) and not to look at the world with diseased eyes (6, 22-23).

• Matthew 6, 19-21: Do not accumulate treasures on earth. If, for example today on TV it is announced that next month sugar and coffee will be lacking in the market, we all will buy the maximum possible of coffee and sugar. We accumulate because we lack trust. During the forty years in the desert, the people were tested to see if they were capable to observe God’s Law (Ex 16, 4). The test consisted in this: to see if they were capable to gather only the necessary manna for a single day, and not accumulate for the following day. Jesus says: “Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moth and woodworm destroy them and thieves can break in and steal. But store up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where neither moth nor woodworm destroys them and thieves cannot break in and steal. What does it mean to store up treasures in heaven? It is a question of knowing where I place the basis of my existence. If I place it on material goods of this earth, I always run the danger of losing what I have stored up. If I place the basis one God, nobody will be able to destroy it and I will have interior freedom to share with others what I possess. In order that this may be possible and feasible it is important to reach a community life together which will favour sharing and reciprocal help, and in which the greatest richness or the treasure is not material riches, but rather the richness or the treasure of fraternal living together born from the certainty brought by Jesus: God is Father and Mother of all. Because there where your treasure is, there is your heart.

• Matthew 6, 22-23: The light of your body is the eye. To understand what Jesus asks it is necessary to have new eyes. Jesus is demanding and asks very much; do not store up (6, 19-21), do not serve God and money together (6, 24), do not worry about what you are to eat or drink (6, 25-34). These demanding recommendations have something to do with that part of human life where persons are more anguished and worried. It also forms part of the Sermon on the Mountain, that it is more difficult to understand and to practice. And this is why Jesus says: “If your eye is diseased ....". Some translate this as diseased eye and healthy eye. Others translate as mean or poor eye and generous eye. It is the same, in reality, the worse sickness that one can imagine is a person closed up in herself and in her goods and who trusts only these. It is the sickness of being stingy! Anyone who looks at life with this eye lives in sadness and in darkness. The medicine to cure this sickness is conversion, the change of mentality and of ideology. To place the basis of life on God and in this way our look becomes generous and the whole life becomes luminous, because it makes sharing and fraternity emerge.

•Jesus wants a radical change. He wants the observance of the Law of the sabbatical year, where it is said that in the community of believers there cannot be poor (Dt 15,4). Human living together should be organized in such a way that a person should not have to worry about food and drink, about dress and house, about health and education (Mt 6, 25-34). But this is possible if we all seek the Kingdom of God and his justice first (Mt 6, 33). The Kingdom of God means to permit God to reign: it is to imitate God (Mt 5, 48). The imitation of God leads to a just sharing of goods and of creative love, which brings about a true fraternity. Divine Providence should be mediated by the fraternal organization. It is only in this way that it will be possible to eliminate any worry or concern for tomorrow (Mt 6, 34).

4) Personal questions

• Jesus says: “There where your treasure is, your heart is also”. Where is my richness found: in money or in fraternity?

• Which is the light which I have in my eyes to look at life, at events?

5) Concluding Prayer

For Yahweh has chosen Zion,

he has desired it as a home.

'Here shall I rest for evermore,

here shall I make my home as I have wished. (Ps 132,13-14)

Lectio Divina: Saturday, June 18, 2016

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

Almighty God,

our hope and our strength,

without you we falter.

Help us to follow Christ

and to live according to your will.

Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 6,24-34

Jesus said to his disciples: 'No one can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or be attached to the first and despise the second. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.

'That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and what you are to wear. Surely life is more than food, and the body more than clothing!

Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they are? Can any of you, however much you worry, add one single cubit to your span of life? And why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin; yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his royal robes was clothed like one of these.

Now if that is how God clothes the wild flowers growing in the field which are there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you, you who have so little faith? So do not worry; do not say, "What are we to eat? What are we to drink? What are we to wear?" It is the gentiles who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all.

Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on God's saving justice, and all these other things will be given you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.'

3) Reflection

• Today’s Gospel helps us to review the relationships with material goods and presents two themes of diverse importance: our relationship with money (Mt 6, 24) and our relationship with Divine Providence (Mt 6, 25-34). The advice given by Jesus gave rise to several questions of difficult response. For example, how can we understand today the affirmation: “You cannot serve God and money” (Mt 6, 24)? How can we understand the recommendation not to worry about food, about drink and about dress (Mt 6, 25)?

• Matthew 6, 24: You cannot serve God and money. Jesus is very clear in his affirmation: “No one can serve two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or be attached to the first and despise the second. You cannot serve God and money… Each one has to make his/her own choice. They should ask themselves: “To what do I give the first place in my life: to God or to money?” On this choice will depend the understanding of the advice which follow on Divine Providence (Mt 6, 25-34). It is not a question of a choice made only in one’s head, but rather of a very concrete choice of life that has something to do also with attitudes.

• Matthew 6, 25: Jesus criticises the excessive worry about eating and drinking. This criticism of Jesus, even in our days, causes great fear in people, because the great worry of all parents is how to get food and clothing for their children. The reason for the criticism is that life is worth more than food and the body more than the clothes. In order to clarify or explain his criticism Jesus presents two parables: the birds of the air and the flowers.

• Matthew 6, 26-27: The parable of the birds of the air: life is worth more than food. Jesus orders them to look at the birds. They do not sow, or reap or gather into barns, but they always have something to eat because the Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they are?” Jesus criticises the fact that the worry about food occupies the whole horizon of the life of persons, without leaving space to experience and relish gratuity of the fraternity and of the sense of belonging to the Father. This is why the neo-liberal system is criminal because it obliges the great majority of persons to live 24 hours a day, worried about food and clothing, and produces in a rich minority, quite limited one, the anguish of buying and consuming up to the point of not leaving space for nothing else. Jesus says that life is worth more than the goods to be consumed! The neo-liberal system prevents from living the Kingdom.

• Matthew 6, 28-30: the Parable of the lilies in the fields: the body is worth more than clothing. Jesus asks to look at the flowers, the lilies of the fields. How elegant and beautiful God dresses them! “Now if that is how God clothes the wild flowers growing in the field which are there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you, you who have so little faith?” Jesus says to look at the things of nature, because seeing the flowers and the field, people will remember the mission which we have: to struggle for the Kingdom and to create a new life living together which can guarantee the food and the clothes for everybody.

• Matthew 6, 31-32: Do not be like the Gentiles. Jesus once again criticises the excessive worry for food, drink and clothing. And he concludes: “The Gentiles are concerned about these things!” There should be a difference in the life of those who have faith in Jesus and those who do not have faith in Jesus. Those who have faith in Jesus share with him the experience of the gratuity of God the Father, Abba. This experience of paternity should revolutionize the life together. It should generate a community life which is fraternal, and the seed of a new society.

• Matthew 6, 33-34: Set your hearts on the Kingdom first. Jesus indicates two criteria: “To seek first the Kingdom of God” and not to worry about tomorrow”. To seek first the Kingdom and its justice is a means to seek to do God’s Will and allow God to reign in our life. The search for God is concretely expressed in the search of a fraternal and just life together. And from this concern for the Kingdom springs a community life in which all live as brothers and sisters and nobody is lacking anything. Here there will be no worry of tomorrow, that is, there will be no worry to store up things.

• Seek first of all the Kingdom of God and its justice. The kingdom of God should be in the centre of all our concerns. The Kingdom demands a life together, where there is no storing up of things, but sharing in such a way that all have what is necessary to live. The Kingdom is the new fraternal life together, in which each person feels responsible for others. This way of seeing the Kingdom helps to understand better the parables of the birds and the flowers, because for Jesus Divine Providence passes through the fraternal organization. To be concerned about the Kingdom of God and its justice is the same as to be concerned about accepting God, the Father and of being brother and sister of others. Before the growing impoverishment caused by economic neo-liberalism, the concrete form which the Gospel presents to us and thanks to which the poor will be able to live is the solidarity and the organization.

• A sharp knife in the hands of a child can be a mortal weapon. A sharp knife in the hand of a person hanging on a cord can be an arm which saves. The words of God on Divine Providence are like this. It would not be evangelical to say to a jobless father, who is poor, who has eight children and a sick wife: “Do not worry about food or drink! Because why worry about health and clothes?” (Mt 6, 25-28). We can say this only when we ourselves imitate Jesus, organize ourselves to share, guaranteeing in this way to the brother the possibility to survive. Otherwise, we are like the three friends of Job, that in order to defend God they told lies on human life (Job 13, 7). It would be like “abandoning an orphan and betraying a friend” (Job 7, 27). In the mouth of the system of the rich, these words can be a mortal arm against the poor. In the mouth of the poor they can be a real and concrete outlet for a better life together, more just and more fraternal.

4) Personal questions

• What do I understand by Divine Providence? Do I trust in Divine Providence?

• We Christians have the mission of giving a concrete expression to what we have within. In which way are we expressing our trust in Divine Providence?

5) Concluding Prayer

I observe your instructions,

I love them dearly.

I observe your precepts, your judgements,

for all my ways are before you. (Ps 119,166-167)

Lectio Divina: Sunday, June 19, 2016

The profession of Peter

"who do you say that I am?"

Luke 9,18-24

1. Opening prayer

“O Holy Spirit, you who unite my soul to God: move it with ardent desires and enkindle it with the fire of your love.  How good you are with me, O Holy Spirit of God: may you be praised and blessed for the great love that you pour out upon me!  My God and my Creator, is it ever possible that there would be someone who would not love you?  For so long I have not loved you!  Forgive me, Lord.  O Holy Spirit, grant that my soul may be completely God’s, and that I may serve Him without any personal interest, but only because He is my Father and because He loves me.  My God and my all, is there perhaps any other thing that I could possibly desire?  Only You would satisfy me.  Amen.”  (St. Teresa of Jesus)

2. Gospel Reading - Luke 9,18-24

Once when Jesus was praying in solitude, and the disciples were with him, he asked them, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" They said in reply, "John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, 'One of the ancient prophets has arisen.'" Then he said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter said in reply, "The Messiah of God." He rebuked them and directed them not to tell this to anyone. He said, "The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised." Then he said to all, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

3. A moment of prayerful silence

so that the Word of God may penetrate and enlighten our life.

4. Some questions

• We all believe in Jesus. But there are some who understand him in one way and others in another way. Today, which is the more common Jesus in the way of thinking of people?

• How does propaganda interfere in my way of seeing Jesus? What do I do so as not to allow myself to be drawn by the propaganda? What prevents us today from recognizing and assuming the project of Jesus?

• We are waiting for the messiah, each in our own way. What is the messiah that I look for and expect for?

• The requirement to follow Jesus is the cross. How do I  react with the cross of my life?

5. For those who wish to go deeper into the theme

• The Gospel today follows the same theme as that of the previous verses: the opinion of the people on Jesus. The previous versese of chapter 9, beginning with Herod, today it is Jesus who asks what do people think, the public opinion and the Apostles respond giving the same opinion which was given yesterday. Immediately follows the first announcement of the Passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus.

• Luke 9, 18: The question of Jesus after his prayer. “One day, while Jesus was praying alone, his disciples came to him and he put this question to them: “Who do the crowds say I am?” In Luke’s Gospel, on several important and decisive occasions, Jesus is presented in prayer: in his Baptism when he assumes his mission (Lk 3, 21); in the 40 days in the desert, when, he overcame the temptations presented by the devil Lk 4, 1-13); the night before choosing the twelve apostles (Lk 6, 12); in the Transfiguration, when, with Moses and Elijah he spoke about his passion in Jerusalem (Lc 9, 29); in the Garden when he suffers his agony (Lk 22, 39-46); on the Cross, when he asks pardon for the soldier (Lk 23, 34) and when he commits his spirit to God (Lk 23, 46).

• Luke 9, 19: The opinion of the people on Jesus. “They answered: “For some John the Baptist; others Elijah, but others think that you are one of the ancient prophets who has risen from the dead”. Like Herod, many thought that John the Baptist had risen in Jesus. It was a common belief that the prophet Elijah had to return (Mt 17, 10-13; Mk 9, 11-12; Ml 3, 23-24; Eclo 48, 10). And all nourished the hope of the coming of the Prophet promised by Moses (Dt 18,15). This was an insufficient response.

• Luke 9, 20: The question of Jesus to the disciples. After having heard the opinion of others, Jesus asks: “And you, who do you say I am?” Peter answers: “The Messiah of God!” Peter recognizes that Jesus is the one whom the people are waiting for and that he comes to fulfil the promise. Luke omits the reaction of Peter who tries to dissuade Jesus to follow the way of the cross and omits also the harsh criticism of Jesus to Peter (Mk 8, 32-33; Mt 16, 22-23).

• Luke 9, 21: The prohibition to reveal that Jesus is the Messiah of God. “Then Jesus gave them strict orders and charged them not to say this to anyone”. It was forbidden to them to reveal to the people that Jesus is the Messiah of God. Why does Jesus prohibit this? At that time, as we have already seen, everybody was expecting the coming of the Messiah, but, each one in his own way: some expected a king, others a priest, others a doctor, a warrior, a judge or a prophet! Nobody seemed to expect the Messiah Servant, announced by Isaiah (Is 42, 1-9). Anyone who insists in maintaining Peter’s idea, that is, of a glorious Messiah, without the cross, understands nothing and will never be able to assume the attitude of a true disciple. He will continue to be blind, exchanging people for trees (cf. Mk 8, 24). Because without the cross it is impossible to understand who Jesus is and what it means to follow Jesus. Because of this, Jesus insists again on the Cross and makes the second announcement of his passion, death and resurrection.

•  Luke 9:22-24:  Following Jesus. ‘Then he said to all, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”’ The full understanding of the following of Jesus is not obtained through theoretical instruction, but through practical commitment, walking with him along the way of service, from Galilee to Jerusalem.  The way of following is the way of self-giving, of abandonment, of service, of availability, of acceptance of conflict, knowing that there will be resurrection.  The cross is not an incidental event, but is rather part of this way, because in a world organized on selfish principles, love and service can only exist as crucified!  He or she who makes of his or her life a service to others, disturbs those who live grasping at privileges, and suffers…

6. Prayer: Psalm 1

Happy those who do not follow the counsel of the wicked,

Nor go the way of sinners, nor sit in company with scoffers.

Rather, the law of the LORD is their joy;

God's law they study day and night.

They are like a tree planted near streams of water,

that yields its fruit in season;

Its leaves never wither;

whatever they do prospers.

But not the wicked!

They are like chaff driven by the wind.

Therefore the wicked will not survive judgment,

nor will sinners in the assembly of the just.

The LORD watches over the way of the just,

but the way of the wicked leads to ruin.

7. Final Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank you for your word that we can see better the will of the Father. May your Spirit enlighten our actions and grant us the strength to follow your Word that revealed to us. Make us, like Mary, your mother, not only to listen but also to practice the Word. You who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.

Lectio Divina: Monday, June 20, 2016

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

Father,

guide and protector of your people,

grant us an unfailing respect for your name,

and keep us always in your love.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 7,1-5

Jesus said to his disciples: 'Do not judge, and you will not be judged; because the judgements you give are the judgements you will get, and the standard you use will be the standard used for you. Why do you observe the splinter in your brother's eye and never notice the great log in your own? And how dare you say to your brother, "Let me take that splinter out of your eye," when, look, there is a great log in your own? Hypocrite! Take the log out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your brother's eye.'

3) Reflection

• In today’s Gospel we continue to meditate on the Sermon on the Mountain found in chapters 5 to 7 of the Gospel of Matthew. During the 10th and 11th week we have seen chapters 5 and 6. Beginning today, we will see chapter 7. These three chapters, 5, 6, and 7 offer an idea of how the catechesis was done in the communities of the converted Jews in the second half of the first century in Galilee and in Syria. Matthew unites and organizes the words of Jesus to teach how the new way of living the Law of God should be.

• After having explained how to re-establish justice (Mt 5, 17 a 6, 18) and how to restore the order of creation (Mt 6, 19-34), Jesus teaches how the life in community should be (Mt 7, 1-12). At the end he presents some recommendations and final advice (Mt 7, 13-27). Then follows an outline of the entire Sermon on the Mountain:

Matthew 5, 1-12: The Beatitudes: solemn openness of the New Law.

Matthew 5, 13-16: The new presence in the world: Salt of the earth and light of the world.

Matthew 5, 17-19: The new practice of justice: relationship with the ancient law. Matthew 5, 20-48: The new practice of justice: observing the new law.

Matthew 6, 1-4: The new practice of the works of piety: alms giving.

Matthew 6, 5-15: The new practice of the works of piety: prayer.

Matthew 6, 16-18: The new practice of the works of piety: fasting.

Matthew 6, 19-21: The new relationship to material goods: do not store up.

Matthew 6, 22-23: The new relationship to material goods: a correct vision.

Matthew 6, 24: The new relationship to material goods: God or money.

Matthew 6, 25-34: The new relationship to material goods: trust in Providence

Matthew 7, 1-5: The new community life together: do not judge.

Matthew 7, 6: The new community life together: do not despise the community

Matthew 7, 7-11: The new community life: trust in God produces sharing

Matthew 7, 12: The new community life together: the Golden Rule

Matthew 7, 13-14: Final recommendations to choose the sure way.

Matthew 7, 15-20: Final recommendations, the prophet is known by his fruits.

Matthew 7, 21-23: Final recommendations not only speak but also practice.

Matthew 7, 24-27: Final recommendations, construct the house on rock

The community lived experience of the Gospel (Mt 7, 1-12) is the touchstone. It is where the seriousness of the commitment is defined. The new proposal of life in community embraces diverse aspects: do not observe the sprinter in your brother’s eye (Mt 7, 1-5), do not throw your pearls in front of pigs (Mt 7,6), do not be afraid to ask God for things (Mt 7,7-11). These advices reach their summit in the Golden Rule: Always treat others as you would like them to treat you (Mt 7, 12). The Gospel of today presents the first part: Matthew 7, 1-5.

• Matthew 7, 1-2: Do not judge and you will not be judged. The first condition for a good life together in community is not to judge the brother or the sister, that is, to eliminate the preconceptions which prevent a transparent community life. What does this mean concretely? John’s Gospel gives an example of how Jesus lived in community with the disciples. Jesus says: “I shall no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know the master’s business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father” (Jn 15, 15). Jesus is an open book for his companions. This transparency comes from his total trust in the brothers and sisters and has its origin in his intimacy with the Father who gives him the force of opening himself up totally to others. Anyone who lives in this way with his brothers and sisters accepts others as they are, without any preconceptions, without previously imposing any conditions, without judging. Mutual acceptance without any pretension and with total transparency! This is the ideal of the new community life, which has come from the Good News which Jesus has brought to us: God is Father and Mother and, therefore, we are all brothers and sisters. It is a difficult ideal but a very beautiful and attractive as the other one: “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.

• Matthew 7. 3-5: You observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the great log in your own. Immediately Jesus gives an example: Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye, and never notice the great log in your own? And how dare you say to your brother, ‘Let me take that splinter out of your eye, when look, there is a great log in your own? Hypocrite! Take the log out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye”. When hearing this phrase we usually think of the Pharisees who despised the people, considering them ignorant and they considered themselves better than others (cf. Jn 7, 49; 9, 34). In reality, the phrase of Jesus serves for all of us. For example, today many of us Catholics are less faithful to the Gospel than the non-Catholics. We observe the splinter in the eye of our brothers and we do not see the big log of collective powerful pride in our own eyes. This log causes many persons today to have much difficulty to believe in the Good News of Jesus.

4) Personal questions

• Do not judge others and eliminate all preconceptions: which is my personal experience on this point?

• Splinter and log: which is the log in me which makes it difficult for me to participate in the life of the family and in community?

5) Concluding Prayer

Your kindnesses to me are countless, Yahweh;

true to your judgements,

give me life. (Ps 119,156)

Lectio Divina: Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

Father,

guide and protector of your people,

grant us an unfailing respect for your name,

and keep us always in your love.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 7,6.12-14

Jesus said to his disciples: 'Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls in front of pigs, or they may trample them and then turn on you and tear you to pieces.

'So always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that is the Law and the Prophets.

'Enter by the narrow gate, since the road that leads to destruction is wide and spacious, and many take it; but it is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

3) Reflection

• Discernment and prudence in offering things of value. In the relationships with others Jesus, above all, warns about certain dangerous attitudes. The first one of these is not to judge (7, 1-5): it is a true and proper prohibition, “do not judge”, it is an action that influences every evaluation of contempt or of condemnation of others. The last judgment is the exclusive competence of God; our figures of measure and our criteria are relative; they are conditioned by our subjectivity. Any condemnation of others becomes a condemnation of oneself, in so far as it places us under the judgment of God and we exclude ourselves from pardon. If your eye is pure, that is to say, is free from every judgment of the brothers you can relate with them in a true way before God. And now we consider the words of Jesus offered to us by the liturgical text: “Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls in front of pigs, or they may trample them and then turn on you and tear you to pieces” (7, 6). At first sight this “saying” of Jesus sounds strange to the sensibility of today’s reader. It may represent a true enigma. But it is a way of saying, of a Semitic language which has to be interpreted. At the time of Jesus just as in ancient culture dogs were not greatly appreciated, because they were considered somewhat savage and stray (U. Luz). But let us now consider the positive and didactic-wisdom aspect of the words of Jesus: Do not profane holy things; in last instance it is an invitation to use prudence and discernment. In the Old Testament the holy things are the meat for the sacrifice (Lv 22, 14; Ex 29, 33 ff; Nb 18, 8-19). The approach of the prohibition of throwing the pearls to the pigs is incomprehensible. For the Hebrews the pigs are impure animals, the quintessence of repugnance. On the contrary, the pearls are the most precious things that can exist. The warning of Jesus refers to those who feed the stray dogs with consecrated meat destined to the sacrifice. Such a behaviour is evil and usually imprudent because usually those dogs were not fed and therefore, because of their insatiable hunger, they could turn back and attack their “benefactors”.

The pearls at the metaphoric level could indicate the teachings of the wise or the interpretations of the “Torah”. In Matthew’s Gospel the pearl is the image of the Kingdom of God (Mt 13, 45ff). The interpretation which the evangelist gives mentioning this warning of Jesus is above all theological. Surely, this is the interpretation which seems to be more in harmony with the text and with the ecclesial reading of the words of Jesus: a warning to the Christian missionaries not to preach the Gospel just to anybody. (Gnilka, Luz).

• To follow a path. In the final part of the discourse (7, 13-27), then Matthew includes, among the others, a conclusive admonition of Jesus who invites to make a decisive choice in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven: the narrow door (7, 13-14). The word of Jesus is not only something to be understood and to interpret but, above all, it should become life. Now, to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven it is necessary to follow a path and to enter into the fullness of life through a “door”. The theme of the “path, the way” is very dear to the Old Testament (Dt 11,26-28; 30,15-20; Jr 21, 8; Ps 1, 6; Ps 118, 29-30; Ps 138, 4; Ws 5, 6-7 etc.). The road represented by two doors leads to different goals. A significance that is coherent with the admonishments of Jesus would be that, to the wide door is joined the wide path which leads to perdition or damnation, that is to say, to walk on a wide road is always something pleasant, but this is not said in our text. Rather it seems that Matthew agrees with the Jewish conception of the “road”; on the trail of Dt 30, 19 and Jr 21, 8 there are two roads that are in counter-position, that of death and that of life. To know how to choose among the diverse ways of life is decisive for entering into the Kingdom of Heaven. Anyone who chooses the narrow road that of life should know that it is full of afflictions; narrow means tried by suffering for the sake of faith.

4) Personal questions

• What impact does the word of Jesus have in your heart? Do you listen to it in order to live under the gaze of the Father and in order to be transformed personally and in the relationships with the brothers and sisters?

• The word of Jesus, or rather, Jesus Himself is the door who makes us enter into the filial and fraternal life. Do you allow yourself to be guided and attracted by the narrow and demanding path of the Gospel? Or rather do you follow the wide and easy road that consists in doing what pleases or that leads you to satisfy all your desires, neglecting the needs of others?

5) Concluding Prayer

We reflect on your faithful love, God,

in your temple!

Both your name and your praise, God,

are over the whole wide world.

Your right hand is full of saving justice. (Ps 48,9-10)

Lectio Divina: Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

Father,

guide and protector of your people,

grant us an unfailing respect for your name,

and keep us always in your love.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 7,15-20

Jesus said to his disciples: 'Beware of false prophets who come to you disguised as sheep but underneath are ravenous wolves.

You will be able to tell them by their fruits. Can people pick grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, a sound tree produces good fruit but a rotten tree bad fruit. A sound tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a rotten tree bear good fruit.

Any tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown on the fire. I repeat, you will be able to tell them by their fruits.'

3) Reflection

• We are reaching the final recommendations of the Sermon on the Mountain. Comparing the Gospel of Matthew with that of Mark one perceives a great difference in the way in which they present the teaching of Jesus. Matthew insists more on the content of the teaching and organizes it into five great Discourses, of which the first one is the Sermon of the Mountain (Mt 5 to 7). Mark, over fifteen times, says that Jesus taught, but he rarely says what he taught. In spite of this difference, both agree on a point: Jesus taught very much. To teach was what Jesus did the most (Mk 2, 13; 4, 1-2; 6, 34). He used to do it always (Mk 10, 1). Matthew is interested in the content. But does he want to say that Mark does not do it? Depends on what we want to say when we speak about content! To teach is not only a question of communicating a truth in such a way that people learn it by heart. The content is not limited to words, but it is also composed by gestures and consists in the way in which Jesus used to relate himself with persons. The content has never been separated from the person who communicates it. The person, in fact, is the origin of the content. The good content without goodness is like milk spilt on the ground. It does not convince and conversion does not take place.

• The final recommendations and the result of the Sermon on the Mountain in the conscience of the people are the points of the Gospel of today (Mt 7, 15-20) and of tomorrow (Mt 7, 21-29). (The sequence of the Gospel of the days of the week is not always the same as that of the Gospels).

Matthew 7, 13-14: Choose the sure way

Matthew 7, 15-20: The prophet is known by the fruits

Matthew 7, 21-23: Not only speak, but act.

Matthew 7, 24-27: Construct the house on rock.

Matthew 7, 28-29: The new conscience of the people.

• Matthew 7, 15-16ª: Beware of false prophets. In the time of Jesus, there were prophets of all types, persons who announced apocalyptic messages to involve people in different movements of that time: Essen, Pharisee, Zelots, and others (cf. Ac 5, 36-37). When Matthew writes there were also prophets who announced messages diverse from the one proclaimed by the community. The Letters of Paul mention these movements and tendencies (cf. 1 Co 12,3; Gal 1,7-9; 2,11-14;6,12). It must not have been easy for the community to make the discernment of spirits. From here results the importance of the words of Jesus on false prophets. The warning of Jesus is very strong: “Beware of false prophets who come to you disguised as sheep but underneath are ravenous wolves”. The same image is used when Jesus sends the disciples on mission: “I am sending you out as sheep among wolves” (Mt 10, 16 e Lc 10, 3). The opposition between the ravenous wolf and the meek sheep is irreconcilable, unless the wolf is converted and looses its aggressiveness as the Prophet Isaiah suggests (Is 11, 6; 65, 25). What is important here in our text is the gift of discernment. It is not easy to discern the spirits. Sometimes it happens that personal interests or of a group lead the person to proclaim false those prophets who announce the truth and disturb. That happened with Jesus. He was eliminated and put to death, considered a false prophet by the religious authority of that time. Ever so often, the same thing has happened and continues to happen in our Church.

• Matthew 7, 16b-20: The comparison of the tree and of its fruits. To help to discern the spirits, Jesus uses the comparison of the fruit: “You will be able to tell them by their fruits”. A similar criterion had been suggested by the Book of Deuteronomy (Dt 18, 21-22). And Jesus adds: “Can you pick grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way a sound tree produces good fruit, but a rotten tree bad fruit. A sound tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a rotten tree bear good fruit. Any tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. In the Gospel of John, Jesus completes the comparison: “Every branch in me that bears no fruit, he cuts away. Every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes to make it bear even more. As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, unless it remains part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. Those branches will be cut off and thrown into the fire to be burnt” (Jn 15, 2.4.6)

4) Personal questions

• False prophets! Do you know any case in which a good and honest person who proclaimed a truth which disturbed was condemned as a false prophet?

• In judging from the fruits of the tree of your personal life, how do you define yourself: as false or as true?

5) Concluding Prayer

Yahweh, look at my suffering and rescue me,

for I do not forget your Law.

Plead my cause and defend me;

as you promised, give me life. (Ps 119,153-154)

Lectio Divina: Thursday, June 23, 2016

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

Father,

guide and protector of your people,

grant us an unfailing respect for your name,

and keep us always in your love.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 7,21-29

Jesus said to his disciples: 'It is not anyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," who will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven. When the day comes many will say to me, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, work many miracles in your name?"

Then I shall tell them to their faces: I have never known you; away from me, all evil doers!

'Therefore, everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a sensible man who built his house on rock. Rain came down, floods rose, gales blew and hurled themselves against that house, and it did not fall: it was founded on rock. But everyone who listens to these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a stupid man who built his house on sand. Rain came down, floods rose, gales blew and struck that house, and it fell; and what a fall it had!'

Jesus had now finished what he wanted to say, and his teaching made a deep impression on the people because he taught them with authority, unlike their own scribes.

3) Reflection

• Today’s Gospel presents the last part of the Sermon on the Mountain: (a) it is not sufficient to talk and sing, it is necessary to live and to practice (Mt 7, 21-23). (b) The community constructed on the foundation of the new Law of the Discourse of the Mountain will remain standing at the moment of the storm (Mt 7, 24-27). (c) The result of the words of Jesus in persons is a more critical conscience, concerning the religious leaders, the Scribes (Mt 7, 28-29).

• The end of the Sermon on the Mountain presents some opposition and contradictions which exist even in our time: (a) Persons who continually speak of God, but who do not do God’s will; they use the name of Jesus, but do not practice in their life the relationship with the Lord (Mt 7, 21). (b) There are persons who live in the illusion of working for the Lord, but on the day of the definitive encounter with Him, they will discover, tragically, that they have never known Him (Mt 7, 22-23). The two last words of the Sermon on the Mountain, of the house built on the rock (Mt 7, 24-25) and of the house built on sand (Mt 7, 26-27), illustrate these contradictions. By means of these Matthew denounces and, at the same time, tries to correct the separation between faith and life, between speaking and doing, between teaching and practicing.

• Matthew 7, 21: It is not sufficient to speak, it is necessary to practice. What is important is not to speak of God in a beautiful way or to know how to explain the Bible well to others, but rather to do the will of the Father and, in this way be a revelation of his face and of his presence in the world. Jesus made the same recommendation to the woman who praised Mary, His Mother. Jesus answered: “Blessed rather those who listen to the Word of God and put it into practice” (Lk 11, 28).

• Matthew 7, 22-23: The gifts should be at the service of the Kingdom, of the community. There were persons with extraordinary gifts, for example the gift of prophecy, of exorcism, of healing, but they used these gifts for themselves, outside the context of the community. In the Day of Judgment, they will hear a hard sentence from Jesus: “Away from me all evil doers”. Evil, iniquity is the opposite to justice. It is to do with Jesus what the Doctors did with the law: to teach and not to practice (Mt 23, 3). Paul will say the same thing with other words and arguments: “Though I have the power of prophecy, to penetrate all mysteries and knowledge, and though I have all the faith necessary to move mountains, if I am without love, I am nothing. Though I should give away to the poor all that I possess, and even give up my body to be burned, if I am without love, it will do me no good whatever”. (1Cor 13,2-3).

• Matthew 7, 24-27: The parable of the house built on the rock. The final conclusion of the Sermon of the Mountain is to open oneself and to practice. Many people searched their security in extraordinary gifts or in observance. But the true security does not come from prestige or from observance. It comes from God! It comes from the love of God who has loved us first (1 Jn 4, 19). His love for us, manifested in Jesus exceeds everything (Rm 8, 38-39). God becomes source of security when we seek to do his will. There he will be the rock which supports us in the moments of difficulty and storm.

• Matthew 7, 28-29: To teach with authority. The Evangelist closes the Sermon of the Mountain saying that the crowds were admired with the teaching of Jesus, “because he taught with authority, and not like the Scribes”. The result of the teaching of Jesus is a more critical conscience of the people in regard to the religious authority of the time. His simple and clear words resulted from his experience of God, from his life dedicated to the Father’s Project. People remained admired and approved the teaching of Jesus.

• Community: the house built on the rock. In the Book of Psalms, frequently, we find the expression: “God is my rock and my fortress…My God, my rock, my refuge, my stronghold, my saving strength…” (Ps 18, 3). He is the defence and the strength of the one who seeks justice (Ps 18, 21. 24). The persons who trust in this God, become, in turn, a rock for others. Thus, the Prophet Isaiah invites people in the exile saying: “Listen to me you who pursue saving justice, you who seek Yahweh! Consider the rock from which you were hewn, the quarry from which you were dug. Consider Abraham your father and Sarah who gave you birth” (Is 51, 1-2). The prophet asks people not to forget the past. The people should remember that Abraham and Sarah, because of their faith in God, became rock, the beginning of the People of God. Looking toward this rock, the people should acquire courage to struggle and to get out from slavery. And Matthew also exhorts the community this way to have as foundation the same rock (Mt 7, 24-25) and thus, they themselves can be rock to strengthen their brothers and sisters in their faith. This is the sense of the name which Jesus gave to Peter: “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church” (Mt 16, 18). This was the vocation of the first community, called to unite itself with God, the living rock, so as to become also a living rock, because they listen and put into practice the Word. (P 2,4-10; 2,5; Ep 2,19-22).

4) Personal questions

• How does our community seek to balance prayer and action, prayer and practice, to speak and to do, to teach and to practice? What should improve in our community, so that it will be a rock, a secure and welcoming house for all?

• Which is the rock which supports our community? Which is the point on which Jesus insists the most?

5) Concluding Prayer

Help us, God our Saviour,

for the glory of your name;

Yahweh, wipe away our sins,

rescue us for the sake of your name. (Ps 79,9)

Lectio Divina: Friday, June 24, 2016

Birth of the Precursor of the Lord

1. Let us recollect ourselves in Prayer – Statio

Prayer of Cardinal Mercier to the Holy Spirit

Oh God, who has instructed your faithful, enlightening their hearts with the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us that in the same Spirit we may have the desire to do good and to enjoy always his comfort.

May there be Glory, adoration, love, and blessing to You Eternal Divine Spirit, Who has brought to earth for us the Saviour of our souls. And may there be glory and honour to His most adorable Heart Who loves us with an infinite love.

Oh Holy Spirit, soul of my soul, I adore You: enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me, teach me what I should do, give me your orders.

I promise to submit myself to all that will happen to me, allowed by You: I ask only that I may know Your Will.

2. Prayerful Reading of the Word - Lectio

From the Gospel according to Luke (1, 57-66.80)

The time came for Elizabeth to have her child, and she gave birth to a son; and when her neighbours and relations heard that the Lord had lavished on her his faithful love, they shared her joy. Now it happened that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother spoke up. 'No,' she said, 'he is to be called John.' They said to her, 'But no one in your family has that name,' and made signs to his father to find out what he wanted him called. The father asked for a writing-tablet and wrote, 'His name is John.' And they were all astonished. At that instant his power of speech returned and he spoke and praised God. All their neighbours were filled with awe and the whole affair was talked about throughout the hill country of Judaea. All those who heard of it treasured it in their hearts. 'What will this child turn out to be?' they wondered. And indeed the hand of the Lord was with him.

Meanwhile the child grew up and his spirit grew strong. And he lived in the desert until the day he appeared openly to Israel.

3. Pondering the Word - Meditatio

3.1. Key to the Reading

This passage of the Gospel forms part of the so called accounts of the infancy of Jesus. In a particular way this text follows the scene of the Visitation of Mary “in the house of Zechariah” (Lk 1, 40) after the event of the Annunciation of the Angel, the messenger of the new creation.

In fact, the Annunciation inaugurates in a joyful way the fulfilment of God’s promise to His People (Lk 1, 26-38). The joy of the new times, which filled Mary, now inundates the heart of Elizabeth. She rejoices with the announcement brought by Mary (Lk 1, 41). Mary, on the other hand, “magnifies the Lord” (Lk 1, 46) because He has worked great things in her, just as He has worked great marvels for His people in need of salvation.

The expression “the time came” reminds us that this reality does not only strike Elizabeth about to give birth, but reveals also something of God’s project. In fact, Saint Paul tells us that when the completion of the time came, God sent His Only Begotten Son “born of a woman, born a subject of the Law, to redeem the subjects of the Law, so that we could receive adoption of sons” of God (Gal 4, 4).

In the Gospel Jesus in fact, speaks about the completion of times, especially in the Gospel of John. Two of these times are the wedding at Cana (Jn 2, 1-12) and the agony on the cross where Jesus exclaims that “all is fulfilled” (Jn 19, 30). In the fulfilment of the times Jesus inaugurates an era of salvation. The birth of John the Baptist inaugurates this time of salvation. In fact, at the arrival of the Messiah he exults and leaps in the womb of his mother, Elizabeth (Lk 1, 44). Later on, he will define himself as the friend of the bridegroom (Jesus) who exults and rejoices because of the event of the wedding with the bride, the Church (Jn 3, 29).

The son will not be named as his father Zechariah, but John. Zechariah reminds us that God does not forget His people. In fact, his name means “God remembers”. His son will now be called “God remembers”, because God’s promises were being fulfilled. The prophetic mission of John has to indicate God’s mercy. In fact, he will be called Johanan, that is “God is mercy”. This mercy is manifested in the visit to the People, precisely “as he had promised by the mouth of his holy prophets of ancient times” (Lk 1, 67-70). Thus, the name indicates the mission of the one about to be born. Zechariah will write the name of his son on a tablet so that all could see with admiration (Lk 1, 63). This tablet is the echo of another inscription, written by Pilate to be fixed on the cross of Jesus. This inscription revealed the identity of the mission of the Crucified: “Jesus, the Nazarene, King of the Jews” (Jn 19, 19). This writing also provoked the admiration of those who were in Jerusalem for the feast.

John is the precursor of Jesus in everything. Already since his birth and childhood he points out to Christ. “Who will this child be? He is “the voice which cries out in the desert” (Jn 1, 23), impelling all to prepare the way of the Lord. He is not the Messiah (Jn 1, 20), but he indicates this with his preaching and above all with his life style of asceticism in the desert. Meanwhile the child grew up and his spirit grew strong. He lived in the desert until the day he appeared openly to Israel”. (Lk 1, 80).

3.1.1. Questions to direct the meditation and the carrying out

- What has struck you in this passage and in the reflection?

- John identifies himself as the friend of the bridegroom. According to you, what is the meaning of this image?

- John the Baptist has always been seen by the Church as its type. He is the one who prepares the way for the Lord. Does this have some relevance for our daily life?

4. Oratio

Let us bless the Lord together with Zechariah (Lk 1, 68-79)

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,

for he has visited his people, he has set them free,

and he has established for us a saving power

in the House of his servant David,

just as he proclaimed,

by the mouth of his holy prophets from ancient times,

that he would save us from our enemies

and from the hands of all those who hate us,

and show faithful love to our ancestors,

and so keep in mind his holy covenant.

This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham,

that he would grant us, free from fear,

to be delivered from the hands of our enemies,

to serve him in holiness and uprightness in his presence,

all our days.

And you, little child,

you shall be called Prophet of the Most High,

for you will go before the Lord to prepare a way for him,

to give his people knowledge of salvation

through the forgiveness of their sins,

because of the faithful love of our God

in which the rising Sun has come from on high to visit us,

to give light to those who live in darkness

and the shadow dark as death,

and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

5. Contemplatio

Let us all together adore the mercy and the goodness of God repeating in silence:

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be,

world without end. Amen

Lectio Divina: Saturday, June 25, 2016

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

Father,

guide and protector of your people,

grant us an unfailing respect for your name,

and keep us always in your love.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 8,5-17

When Jesus went into Capernaum a centurion came up and pleaded with him. 'Sir,' he said, 'my servant is lying at home paralysed and in great pain.' Jesus said to him, 'I will come myself and cure him.' The centurion replied, 'Sir, I am not worthy to have you under my roof; just give the word and my servant will be cured. For I am under authority myself and have soldiers under me; and I say to one man, "Go," and he goes; to another, "Come here," and he comes; to my servant, "Do this," and he does it.'

When Jesus heard this he was astonished and said to those following him, 'In truth I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found faith as great as this. And I tell you that many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob at the feast in the kingdom of Heaven; but the children of the kingdom will be thrown out into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.' And to the centurion Jesus said, 'Go back, then; let this be done for you, as your faith demands.' And the servant was cured at that moment.

And going into Peter's house Jesus found Peter's mother-in-law in bed and feverish. He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to serve him.

That evening they brought him many who were possessed by devils. He drove out the spirits with a command and cured all who were sick. This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: He himself bore our sicknesses away and carried our diseases.

3) Reflection

• The Gospel today continues the description of the activity of Jesus to indicate how he put into practice the Law of God, proclaimed on the Mountain of the Beatitudes. After the cure of the leper in the Gospel of yesterday (Mt 8, 1-4), now follows the description of other cures:

• Matthew 8, 5-7: The petition of the centurion and the answer of Jesus. When analyzing the texts of the Gospel, it is always good to be attentive to small details. The centurion is a pagan, a foreigner. He does no ask for anything, he only informs Jesus telling him that his servant is sick and suffers terribly. Behind this attitude of people in regard to Jesus, there is the conviction that it was not necessary to ask things to Jesus. It was sufficient to communicate the problem to him. And Jesus would have done the rest. An attitude of unlimited trust! In fact, the reaction of Jesus is immediate: “I will come myself and cure him!”

• Matthew 8, 8: The reaction of the centurion. The centurion did not expect such an immediate gesture and so generous. He did not expect that Jesus would go to his house. And beginning by his own experience of ‘head’ he gives an example to express his faith and the trust that he had in Jesus. He tells him: “Lord, am not worthy to have you under my roof, just say a word and my servant will be cured. For I am under authority myself and have soldiers under me; and I say to one man, ‘Go’ and he goes, to another, ‘Come here’ and he comes, to my servant, ‘Do this and he does it”. This reaction of a foreigner before Jesus reveals that which was the opinion of the people in regard to Jesus. Jesus was a person who could be trusted and that he would not have driven away those who would go to him to tell him their problems. This is the image of Jesus which the Gospel of Matthew communicates to us even now that we read it in the XXI century.

• Matthew 8, 10-13: Jesus’ comment. The official was admired of the reaction of Jesus and Jesus was admired of the reaction of the official: “In truth I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found faith as great as this”. And Jesus already foresaw what was happening when Matthew wrote the Gospel: “And I tell you many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob at the feast in the Kingdom of Heaven, but the children of the Kingdom will be thrown out into the darkness outside where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth”. The message of Jesus, the New Law of God proclaimed from the top of the Mountain of the Beatitudes is a response to the deepest desires of the human heart. The sincere and honest pagans like the centurion and so many others coming from the East and the West, perceived in Jesus the response to their yearning and accept it. The message of Jesus is not, in the first place, a doctrine or morals, nor a rite or a series of norms, but a deep experience of God which responds to what the human heart desires. If today many go away from the Church or seek other religions, it is not always their fault, but it could be ours, because we do not know how to live nor radiate God’s message.

• Matthew 8, 14-15: The cure of Peter’s mother-in-law. Jesus goes to Peter’s house and cures his mother-in-law. She was sick. In the second half of the first century, when Matthew writes, the expression: “Peter’s House” evoked the Church, constructed on the rock which was Peter. Jesus enters into this house and cures Peter’s mother-in-law: “He touched her hand and the fever left her and she got up and began to serve him”. In Greek word used is diakonew, to serve. A woman becomes deaconess in Peter’s House. This is what was happening in the communities of that time. In the letter to the Romans, Paul mentions the deaconess Phoebe of the community of Cenchreae (Rm 16, 1). We have much to learn from the first Christians.

• Matthew 8, 16-17: The fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah. Matthew says that “when evening came”, they brought many persons to Jesus who were possessed by the devil. Why only at night? Because in Mark’s Gospel, from where Matthew takes his information, it was a Saturday (Mk 1, 21), and Saturday ended at the moment when the first star appeared in the sky. Then people could go out of the house, carry a burden and take the sick to the place where Jesus was. And “Jesus with his word cast out the evil spirits and cured all the sick! Using a text of Isaiah, Matthew throws light on the meaning of this gesture of Jesus: “So that what Isaiah had said would be fulfilled”. Ours were the sufferings he was bearing, ours sorrows he was carrying”. In this way, Matthew teaches that Jesus was the Messiah-Servant, announced by Isaiah (Is 53,4; cf. Is 42,1-9; 49,1-6; 50,4-9; 52,13-53,12). Matthew was doing what our communities do today: to use the Bible to enlighten and interpret the events and discover the presence of the creative word of God.

4) Personal questions

• Compare the image of God that you have with that of the centurion and of the people, who followed Jesus.

•The Good News of Jesus is not, in the first place, a doctrine or morals, nor a rite or a series of norms, but it is a profound experience of God that responds to what the human heart yearns for. How do the Good News strike you, in your life and in your heart?

5) Concluding Prayer

Proclaim with me the greatness of Yahweh,

let us acclaim his name together.

I seek Yahweh and he answers me,

frees me from all my fears. (Ps 34,3-4)

Lectio Divina: Sunday, June 26, 2016

The difficult process of forming the disciples.

How to be born again.

Luke 9:51-62

Ordinary Time

1. Opening prayer

Lord Jesus, send your Spirit to help us to read the Scriptures with the same mind that you read them to the disciples on the way to Emmaus. In the light of the Word, written in the Bible, you helped them to discover the presence of God in the disturbing events of your sentence and death. Thus, the cross that seemed to be the end of all hope became for them the source of life and of resurrection.

Create in us silence so that we may listen to your voice in Creation and in the Scriptures, in events and in people, above all in the poor and suffering. May your word guide us so that we too, like the two disciples from Emmaus, may experience the force of your resurrection and witness to others that you are alive in our midst as source of fraternity, justice and peace. We ask this of you, Jesus, son of Mary, who revealed to us the Father and sent us your Spirit. Amen.

2. Reading

a) A key to the reading: The literary context

In the context of Luke’s Gospel, the text for this Sunday is at the beginning of the new phase of Jesus’ activity. The frequent conflicts with the people and the religious authorities (Lk 4:28; 5:21.30; 6:2.7; 7:19.23.33-34.39) confirmed Jesus as being the Servant Messiah as foreseen in Isaiah (Is 50: 4-9; 53:12) and as assumed by Jesus himself from the beginning of his apostolic activities (Lk 4:18). From now on, Jesus begins to proclaim his passion and death (Lk 9:22.43-44) and decides to go the Jerusalem (Lk 9:51). This change in the course of events created a crisis among the disciples (Mk 8:31-33). They cannot understand and are afraid (Lk 9:45), because they still hold on to the old way of thinking of a glorious Messiah. Luke describes various episodes touching on the old mentality of the disciples: the desire to be the greatest (Lk 9:46-48); the will to control the use of the name of Jesus (Lk 9:49-50); the violent reaction of James and John at the refusal of the Samaritans to welcome Jesus (Lk 9:51-55). Luke also points out how hard Jesus tries to get his disciples to understand the new concept concerning his mission. This Sunday’s text (Lk 9: 51-62) gives some examples of the way Jesus tried to form his disciples.

b) A division of the text to help with the reading:

Luke 9:51-52: Jesus decides to go to Jerusalem

Luke 9:52b53: A village in Samaria does not welcome him

Luke 9:54: The reaction of John and James at the Samaritans’ refusal

Luke 9:55-56: Jesus’ reaction to the violence of James and John

Luke 9:57-58: Jesus’ first condition for following him

Luke 9:59-60: Jesus’ second condition for following him

Luke 9:61-62: Jesus’ third condition for following him

c) The text:

51 When the days drew near for him to be received up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him; 53 but the people would not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 54 And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to bid fire come down from heaven and consume them?" 55 But he turned and rebuked them. 56 And they went on to another village.

57 As they were going along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." 58 And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head." 59 To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." 60 But he said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." 61 Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." 62 Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

3. A moment of prayerful silence

so that the Word of God may penetrate and enlighten our life.

4. Some questions

to help us in our personal reflection.

a) Which part of the text pleased you most and which touched you most?

b) What defects and limitations of the disciples can we discover in the text?

c) What teaching method does Jesus use to correct these defects?

d) What facts from the Old Testament are recalled in this text?

e) With which of these three vocations (vv. 57-62) do you identify yourself? Why?

f) Which of the defects of Jesus’ disciples is most prevalent in us, his disciples of today?

5. A key to the reading

that may help us to go deeper into the theme.

a) The historical context of our text:

The historical context of Luke’s Gospel always contains the following two aspects; the context of the time of Jesus in the 30’s in Palestine, and the context of the Christian communities of the 80’s in Greece for whom Luke is writing his Gospel.

At the time of Jesus in Palestine. It was not easy for Jesus to form his disciples. It is not simply the fact of following Jesus and living in community that makes a person holy and perfect. The greatest difficulty comes from “the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod” (Mk 8:15), that is, from the time’s dominant ideology, promoted by the official religion (the Pharisees) and by the government (the Herodians). Fighting against the leaven was part of the formation he gave his disciples; especially that the manner of thinking of the great had taken deep root and always raised its head again in the minds of the little ones, the disciples. The text of our meditation this Sunday gives us an insight into the way Jesus faced this problem.

In Luke’s time, within the Greek communities. For Luke, it was important to help the Christians and not leave them prey to the “leaven” of the Roman empire and pagan religion. The same applies today. The “leaven” of the neo-liberal system, spread by the media, propagates a consumeristic mentality, contrary to Gospel values. It is not easy for people to realise that they are being duped: “What I have in my hand is nothing but a lie!” (Is 44:20).

b) A commentary on the text:

Luke 9:51-52a: Jesus decides to go to Jerusalem

“Now as the time drew near for him to be taken up to heaven”. This statement shows that Luke reads Jesus’ life in the light of the prophets. He wants to make it quite clear to his readers that Jesus is the Messiah in whom is accomplished that which the prophets foretold. The same manner of speaking is in John’s Gospel: “Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to pass form this world to the Father, ...” (Jn 13,1). Jesus is obedient to the Father, “he decisively set out towards Jerusalem”.

Luke 9:52b53: A village in Samaria does not welcome him

Hospitality was one of the pillars of community life. It was difficult for anyone to let someone spend the night outside without welcoming him (Jn 18:1-5; 19:1-3; Gs 19;,15-21). But in Jesus’ time, the rivalry between Jews and Samaritans urged the people of Samaria not to welcome Jews who were on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and this led the Jews from Galilee not to pass through Samaria when they went to Jerusalem. They preferred to go through the valley of the Jordan. Jesus is contrary to this discrimination and, therefore, goes through Samaria. Consequently he suffers discrimination and is not made welcome.

Luke 9:54: The violent reaction of John and James at the refusal of the Samaritans

Inspired by the example of the prophet Elijah, James and John want to call down fire from heaven to exterminate that village! (2 Kings 1:10.12; 1Kings 18:38). They think that by the simple fact that they are with Jesus, everyone should welcome them. They still cling to the old mentality, that of privileged persons. They think that they can keep God on their side to defend them.

Luke 9:55-56: Jesus’ reaction to the violence of James and John

“Jesus turned and rebuked them”. Some versions of the Bible, basing their translation on some old manuscripts wrote: “You know not what spirit dwells in you. The son of man did not come to take the life of men, but to save it”. The fact that someone is with Jesus does not give that person the right to think that he or she is superior to others or that others owe them honour. The “Spirit” of Jesus demands the opposite: to forgive seventy times seven (Mt 18:22). Jesus chose to forgive the criminal who prayed to him on the cross (Lk 23:43).

Luke 9:57-58: The first condition for following Jesus

One says: “I will follow you wherever you go”. Jesus’ reply is very clear and without any hidden meaning. He leaves no room for doubt: the disciple who wishes to follow Jesus must impress this on his or her mind and heart: Jesus has nothing, not even a stone to lay his head on. The foxes and the birds are better off because they at least have holes and nests.

Luke 9:59-60: The second condition for following Jesus

Jesus says to one: “Follow me!” These were the words addressed to the first disciples: “Follow me” (Mk 1:17.20; 2:14). The reaction of the one called is positive. The person is ready to follow Jesus. He only asks that he may be allowed to bury his father. Jesus’ reply is hard: “Leave the dead to bury their dead; your duty is to go and spread the news of the kingdom of God”. This is probably a popular proverb used for saying that one has to be radical in one’s decision making. The one who is ready to follow Jesus must leave everything behind. It is as though one were dead to all one’s possessions resurrected to another life.

Luca 9,61-62: The third condition for following Jesus

A third one says: “I will follow you, but first let me go and say good-bye to my people at home”. Again the reply of Jesus is hard and radical: “Once the hand is laid on the plough, no one who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God”. Jesus is more demanding than the prophet Elijah when Elijah called Elisha to be his disciple (1 Kings 19:19-21). The New Testament is greater than the Old Testament in its demands on the practice of love.

c) A further deepening: Jesus the formator

The process of the formation of the disciples is demanding, slow and painful, because it is not easy to give birth to a new experience of God in them, a new vision of life and of the neighbour. It is like being born again! (Jn 3:5-9). The old mindset keeps creeping back in the life of people, of families and communities. Jesus spares no effort in forming his disciples. He gave much time to this, not always successfully. Judas betrayed him, Peter denied him and, in the moment of trial, all abandoned him. Only the women and John stayed close to him, near the cross. But the Holy Spirit whom Jesus sent to us after his resurrection, completed the work Jesus began (Jn 14:26; 16,13). Apart from what we have said concerning the text of this Sunday (Lk 9:51-62), Luke speaks of many other examples to show how Jesus went about forming his disciples and helping them to overcome the misleading mentality of the time:

In Luke 9:46-48 the disciples argue among themselves as to who is the greatest among them. The competitive mindset here is that of fighting for power, characteristic of the society of the Roman Empire, and it had already infiltrated the just-beginning and small community of Jesus! Jesus tells them to hold to the opposite way of thinking. He takes a child to his side and identifies himself with the child: “Anyone who welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me!” The disciples were arguing as to who was the greatest, and Jesus tells them to look at and welcome the smallest! This is the point most stressed by Jesus and the one to which he witnessed: “[I] did not come to be served, but to serve” (Mk 10:45).

In Luke 9:49-50, someone who was not part of the group of the disciples was using the name of Jesus to drive out devils. John saw him and stopped him: “Let us stop him because we do not know him”. In the name of the community, John stops a good action! He thought he owned Jesus and wanted to stop anyone from using the name of Jesus to do good. He wanted a closed community. This was the old mentality of the “Chosen people, a separate people!” Jesus replies: “Do not forbid him, because anyone who is not against you is for you”. The aim of formation cannot lead to a feeling of privilege and ownership, but must lead to an attitude of service. What is important for Jesus is not whether someone is part of the group or not, but whether the person is doing the good that should be done by the community.

Here are some more examples of the way Jesus educated his disciples. It was a way of giving human form to the experience he had of God the Father. You can complete the list:

* he involves them in his mission and on their return he goes over what happened with them (Mk 6:7; Lk 9:1-2; 10:1-12, 17-20)

* he corrects them when they go wrong (Lk 9:46-48; Mk 10:13-15)

* he helps them discern (Mk 9:28-29)

* he questions them when they are slow (Mk 4:13; 8:14-21)

* he prepares them for the conflict (Mt 10:17ff)

* he reflects with them concerning present problems (Lk 13:1-5)

* he sends them to look at reality (Mk 8:27-29; Jn 4:35; Mt 16:1-3)

* he confronts them with the needs of the people (Jn 6:5)

* he teaches them that the needs of the people are above ritual prescriptions (Mt 12,7.12)

* he defends them when they are criticised by their adversaries (Mk 2:19; 7:5-13)

* he thinks of their rest and nourishment (Mk 6:31; Jn 21:9)

* he spends time alone with them to teach them (Mk 4:34; 7:17; 9:30-31; 10:10; 13,3)

* he insists on vigilance and teaches them to pray (Lk 11:1-13; Mt 6:5-15).

6. Psalm 19 (18), 8-14

The law of God source of formation

The precepts of the Lord are right,

rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure,

enlightening the eyes;

the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever;

the ordinances of the Lord are true,

and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold,

even much fine gold;

sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover by them is thy servant warned;

in keeping them there is great reward.

But who can discern his errors?

Clear thou me from hidden faults.

Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins;

let them not have dominion over me!

Then I shall be blameless,

and innocent of great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,

my rock and my redeemer.

7. Final Prayer

Lord Jesus, we thank for the word that has enabled us to understand better the will of the Father. May your Spirit enlighten our actions and grant us the strength to practice that which your Word has revealed to us. May we, like Mary, your mother, not only listen to but also practise the Word. You who live and reign with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.

Lectio Divina: Monday, June 27, 2016

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

Father,

guide and protector of your people,

grant us an unfailing respect for your name,

and keep us always in your love.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

on God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 8,18-22

When Jesus saw the crowd all about him he gave orders to leave for the other side. One of the scribes then came up and said to him, 'Master, I will follow you wherever you go.' Jesus said, 'Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.'

Another man, one of the disciples, said to him, 'Lord, let me go and bury my father first.' But Jesus said, 'Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their dead.'

3) Reflection

• From the 10th to the 12th week of Ordinary Time, we have meditated on chapters 5 to 8 of the Gospel of Matthew. Following the meditation of chapter 8, today’s Gospel presents the conditions of the following of Jesus. Jesus decides to go to the other side of the lake, and a person asks to follow him (Mt 8, 18-22).

• Matthew 8, 18: Jesus orders to go to the other side of the lake. He had accepted and cured all the sick whom people had brought to him (Mt 8, 16). Many people were around him. Seeing that crowd, Jesus decides to go to the other side of the lake. In Mark’s Gospel, from which Matthew takes a great part of his information, the context is diverse. Jesus had just finished the discourse of the parables (Mk 4, 3-34) and said: “Let us go to the other side!” (Mk 4, 35), and, once on the boat from where he had pronounced the discourse (cf. Mk 4, 1-2), the disciples took him to the other side. Jesus was so tired that he went to sleep on a cushion (Mc 4, 38).

• Matthew 8, 19: A doctor of the Law wants to follow Jesus. At the moment in which Jesus decides to cross the lake, a doctor of the law came to him and said: “Master I will follow you wherever you go”. A parallel text in Luke (Lk 9, 57-62) treats the same theme but in a slightly diverse way. According to Luke, Jesus had decided to go to Jerusalem where he would have been condemned and killed. In going toward Jerusalem, he entered the territory of Samaria (Lk 9, 51-52), where three persons ask to follow him (Lk 9, 57.59.61). In Matthew’s Gospel, who writes for the converted Jews, the person who wants to follow Jesus is a doctor of the law. Matthew insists on the fact that an authority of the Jews recognizes the value of Jesus and asks to follow him, to be one of his disciples. In Luke, who writes for the converted pagans, the persons who want to follow Jesus are Samaritans. Luke stresses the ecumenical openness of Jesus who accepts also the non Jews to be his disciples.

• Matthew 8, 20: The response of Jesus to the doctor of the law. The response of Jesus is identical both in Matthew and in Luke, and it is a very demanding response which leaves no doubts: “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”. Anyone who wants to be a disciple of Jesus has to know what he is doing. He should examine the exigencies and estimate well, before taking a decision (Lk 14, 28-32). “So in the same way none of you can be my disciple without giving up all that he owns”. (Lk 14, 33).

• Matthew 8, 21: A disciple asks to go and bury his father. Immediately, one who was already a disciple asks him permission to go and bury his deceased father: “Lord, let me go and bury my father first”. In other words, he asks Jesus to delay crossing the lake for later after the burial of his father. To bury one’s parents was a sacred duty for the sons (cf. Tb 4, 3-4).

• Matthew 8, 22: The answer of Jesus. Once again the response of Jesus is very demanding. Jesus does not delay his trip over to the other side of the lake and says to the disciple: “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their dead”. When Elijah called Elisha, he allows him to greet his relatives (1K 19, 20). Jesus is much more demanding. In order to understand all the significance and importance of the response of Jesus it is well to remember that the expression Leave the dead to bury their dead was a popular proverb used by the people to indicate that it is not necessary to spend energies in things which have no future and which have nothing to do with life. Such a proverb should not be taken literally. It is necessary to consider the objective with which it is being used. Thus, in our case, by means of the proverb Jesus stresses the radical exigency of the new life to which he calls and which demands to abandon everything to follow Jesus. It describes the exigencies of following of Jesus. To follow Jesus. Like the rabbi of that time Jesus gathers his disciples . All of them “follow Jesus” To follow was the term which was used to indicate the relationship between the disciple and the master. For the first Christians, to follow Jesus, meant three very important things bound together: a) To imitate the example of the Master: Jesus was the model to be imitated and to recreate in the life of the disciple (Jn 13, 13-15). Living together daily allowed for a constant confrontation. In “Jesus’ School” only one subject was taught: The Kingdom and this Kingdom is recognized in the life and practice of Jesus. b) To participate in the destiny of the Master: Anyone who followed Jesus should commit himself like he to be with him in his privations (Lk 22, 28), including in persecutions (Mt 10, 24-25) and on the Cross (Lk 14, 27). He should be ready to die with him (Jn 11, 16). c) To bear within us the life of Jesus: After Easter, the light of the Resurrection, the following took on a third dimension: "It is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me" (Ga 2, 20). It is a question of the mystical dimension of the following, fruit of the action of the Spirit. The Christians tried to follow in their life the path of Jesus who had died in defence of life and rose from the dead thanks to the power of God. (Ph 3, 10-11).

4) Personal questions

• To be a disciple of Jesus. to follow Jesus. How am I living the following of Jesus?

• The foxes have their lairs and the birds of heaven their nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. How can we live today this exigency of Jesus?

5) Concluding Prayer

Fix your gaze on Yahweh and your face will grow bright,

you will never hang your head in shame.

A pauper calls out and Yahweh hears,

saves him from all his troubles. (Ps 34, 5-6)

Lectio Divina: Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

Father,

you call your childrento

walk in the light of Christ.

Free us from darkness

and keep us in the radiance of your truth.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 8,23-27

Then Jesus got into the boat followed by his disciples. Suddenly a storm broke over the lake, so violent that the boat was being swamped by the waves. But he was asleep.

So they went to him and woke him saying, 'Save us, Lord, we are lost!' And he said to them, 'Why are you so frightened, you who have so little faith?' And then he stood up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.

They were astounded and said, 'Whatever kind of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?'

3) Reflection

• Matthew writes for the converted Jews of the years 70’s who felt lost like a boat in the middle of a stormy sea, without the hope of being able to get to the desired port.  Jesus seems to be asleep in the boat, and it seems to them that no divine power will come to save them from the persecution.  In the face of this desperate and anguished situation, Matthew puts together several episodes of the life of Jesus to help the community discover, in the midst of an apparent absence, the welcoming and powerful presence of Jesus the conqueror who dominates the sea (Mt 8, 23-27), who conquers and casts away the power of evil (Mt 9, 28-34) and who has the power to forgive sins (Mt 9, 1-8).  In other words, Matthew wants to communicate hope and to suggest that the communities have no reason to fear.  This is the reason for the narration of the storm calmed by Jesus in today’s Gospel.

• Matthew 8, 23: The starting point: to enter into the boat.  Matthew follows the Gospel of Mark, but makes it shorter and inserts it in the new outline which he has adopted.  In Mark, the day had been very heavy because of the work that they had done.  Having finished the discourse of the parables (Mk 4, 3-34), the disciples take Jesus into the boat and he was so tired that he fell asleep on a cushion (Mk 4, 38). Matthew’s text is very brief.  It only says that Jesus went into the boat and that the disciples accompanied him.  Jesus is the Master, the disciples follow the Master.

• Matthew 8, 24-25: The desperate situation: “We are lost!” The Lake of Galilee is close to high mountains.  Sometimes, between the cracks of the rocks, the wind blows strongly on the lake causing a sudden storm.  Strong wind, agitated sea, the boat full of water!  The disciples were experienced fishermen.  If they thought that they were about to sink, it meant that the situation was truly dangerous!  But Jesus is not aware, and continues to sleep.  They cried out: “Save us, Lord, we are lost!”  In Matthew the profound sleep of Jesus is not only a sign of tiredness.  It is also the expression of the calm trust of Jesus in God.  The contrast between the attitude of Jesus and that of the disciples is enormous!

• Matthew 8, 26: The reaction of Jesus: Why are you so frightened, you who have so little faith!”  Jesus wakes up, not because of the waves, but because of the desperate cry of the disciples.  And he turns to them saying: “Why are you so frightened, you who have so little faith!” Then he stood up and rebuked the winds and the sea, because there was no danger.  It is like when one arrives to a friend’s house, and the dog, at the side of his master, barks very much.  But one should not be afraid, because the master is present and controls the situation.  The episode of the storm calmed by Jesus evokes the episode, when people, without fear, passed across the water of the sea (Ex 14, 22).  Jesus recreates this episode.  He recalls the Prophet Isaiah who said to the people: “If you have to go across the water, I will be with you!” (Is 43, 2).  The episode of the calmed storm recalls and fulfils the prophecy announced in the Psalm 107:

Those who ploughed the waves in the sea on the ships, plying their trade on the great ocean.

they have seen the works of the Lord, his wonders in the deep.

By his word he raised a storm-wind lashing up towering waves.

Up to the sky then down to the depths; their stomachs were turned to water.

They staggered and reeled like drunkards, and all their skill went under.

They cried out to Yahweh in their distress, he rescued them from their plight.

He reduced the storm to a calm, and all the waters subsided.

He brought them overjoyed at the stillness, to the port where they were bound (Ps 107, 23-30)

• Matthew 8, 27: The fear of the disciples: “Who is this man?” Jesus asks: “Why are you so frightened?”  The disciples do not know what to answer.  Astounded, they ask themselves: “Whatever kind of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” In spite of the long time that they had lived with Jesus, they still do not know who he is. Jesus seems to be a foreigner for them! Who is this man?

• Who is this man? Who is Jesus for us, for me? This should be the question which urges us to continue to read the Gospel, every day, with the desire always to know better the significance and the importance of the person of Jesus for our life.  From this question comes Christology. It does not come from elevated theological considerations, but from the desire of the first Christians always to find new names and titles to express what Jesus meant for them.  There are tens of names, titles and attributes, from that of carpenter to Son of God, which Jesus expresses: Messiah, Christ, Lord, Beloved Son, Holy One of God, Nazarene, Son of Man, Spouse, Son of God, Son of the Most High God, Carpenter, Son of Mary, Prophet, Master, Son of David, Rabboni, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; Son, Shepherd, Bread of Life, Resurrection, Light of the world, Way, Truth, Life, King of the Jews, King of Israel, etc.  Every name, every image, is an effort to express what Jesus means for them.  But a name, no matter how beautiful it is, never succeeds to reveal the mystery of a person, and much less of the person of Jesus.  Jesus does not enter into any of these names, in no outline, in no title.  He exceeds everything, he is the greatest! He cannot be put into a frame.  Love takes up all this, not the mind! Starting from this experience of a love which is alive, the names, the titles and the images receive their full significance. Definitively, who is Jesus for me, for us?

4) Personal questions

• Which was the agitated sea at the time of Jesus?  Which was the agitated sea at the time when Matthew wrote his Gospel?  Today, which is the agitated sea for us?  Have you ever been on the point of drowning in the agitated waters of the sea of your life?  What saved you?

• Who is Jesus for me?  Which is the name of Jesus which expresses my faith and my love better?

5) Concluding Prayer

Each age will praise your deeds to the next,

proclaiming your mighty works.

Your renown is the splendour of your glory,

I will ponder the story of your wonders. (Ps 145,4-5)

Lectio Divina: Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Jesus said to Peter, "You are the Rock!"

The Rock of support and of scandal

Matthew 16:13-23

Ordinary Time

1. Opening prayer

Lord Jesus, send your Spirit to help us to read the Scriptures with the same mind that you read them to the disciples on the way to Emmaus. In the light of the Word, written in the Bible, you helped them to discover the presence of God in the disturbing events of your sentence and death. Thus, the cross that seemed to be the end of all hope became for them the source of life and of resurrection.

Create in us silence so that we may listen to your voice in Creation and in the Scriptures, in events and in people, above all in the poor and suffering. May your word guide us so that we too, like the two disciples from Emmaus, may experience the force of your resurrection and witness to others that you are alive in our midst as source of fraternity, justice and peace. We ask this of you, Jesus, son of Mary, who revealed to us the Father and sent us your Spirit. Amen.

2. Reading

a) A key to the reading:

The liturgical text of the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul is taken from the Gospel of Matthew: 16:13-19. In our commentary we also include verses 20 -23, because in the entirety of the text, verses 13 to 23, Jesus turns to Peter and twice calls him "rock". Once he calls him the foundation stone (Mt 16:18) and once the rock of scandal (Mt 16:23). Both statements complement each other. While reading the text, it is good to pay attention to Peter's attitude and to the solemn words that Jesus addresses to him on two occasions.

b) A division of the text to help with the reading:

13-14: Jesus wishes to know what people think of him.

15-16: Jesus asks the disciples and Peter makes his confession: "You are the Christ, the Son of God!"

17-20: Then we have Jesus' solemn reply to Peter (a key phrase for today's feast).

21-22: Jesus explains the meaning of Messiah, but Peter reacts and refuses to accept.

22-23: Jesus' solemn reply to Peter.

c) The text:

13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do men say that the Son of man is?" 14 And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

15 He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 16 Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

17 And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 20 Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

21 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

22 And Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, "God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you." 23 But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men."

3. A moment of prayerful silence

so that the Word of God may penetrate and enlighten our life.

4. Some questions

to help us in our personal reflection.

a) What most caught my attention?

b) Who do the people think Jesus is? Who do Peter and the disciples think Jesus is?

c) Who is Jesus for me? Who am I for Jesus?

d) Peter is rock in two ways: what are they?

e) What kind of rock is our community?

f) In the text we find several opinions as to who Jesus is and several ways of presenting the faith. Today too, there are several opinions as to who Jesus is. Which opinions does our community know? What kind of mission does that imply for us?

5. A key to the reading

to enter deeper into the theme.

i) The context:

In the narrative parts of his Gospel, Matthew follows the sequence of Mark's Gospel. However, he also quotes a source known to him and Luke. Rarely does he give information that is solely his, as in today's Gospel. This text and the dialogue between Jesus and Peter is interpreted variously, even in opposite directions in the various Christian churches. In the Catholic Church, this text forms the basis for the primacy of Peter. Without in any way diminishing the importance of this text, it might be good to situate it in the context of Matthew's Gospel, where, elsewhere, the qualities ascribed to Peter are also attributed to other persons. They do not belong exclusively to Peter.

ii) Commentary on the text:

a) Matthew: 16: 13-16: The opinions of the people and those of the disciples concerning Jesus.

Jesus wishes to know what people think of him. The answers are quite varied: John the Baptist, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. When Jesus asks the disciples' opinion, Peter replies in their name: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!" Peter's reply is not new. On a previous occasion, when Jesus walked on the water, the other disciples had made a similar profession of faith: "Truly you are the Son of God!" (Mt 14:33). This is an acknowledgement that in Jesus the prophecies of the Old Testament are fulfilled. In John's Gospel Martha makes the same profession of faith: "You are the Christ, the Son of God who is come into the world" (Jn 11:27).

b) Matthew: 16:17: Jesus' reply to Peter: Blessed are you, Peter!

Jesus proclaims Peter "blessed" because he has been given a revelation from the Father. Jesus' reply too is not new. On a previous occasion, Jesus had made the same proclamation of blessedness to the disciples because they were hearing and seeing that which no one else knew before (Mt 13:16), and he praised the Father because he had revealed the Son to little ones and not to the learned (Mt 11:25). Peter is one of the little ones to whom the Father reveals himself. The perception that God is present in Jesus does not "come from flesh and blood", it is not the result of study or merit of human effort, but a gift that God gives to whom he pleases.

c) Matthew: 16:18-20: Peter's qualifications: Being foundation stone and taking possession of the keys of the Kingdom.

1. Being Rock: Peter has to be rock, that is, he has to be a strong foundation for the Church, so that she may stand up to the assaults of the gates of hell. Through these words addressed by Jesus to Peter, Matthew encourages the suffering and persecuted communities in Syria and Palestine, who saw in Peter the leadership that had marked them from the beginning. In spite of being weak and persecuted, they had a solid foundation, guaranteed by the words of Jesus. In those days, the communities cultivated a very strong sentimental tie with the leaders who had established them. Thus the communities of Syria and Palestine cultivated their relationship with the person of Peter; those of Greece with the person of Paul; some communities in Asia with the person of the beloved Disciple and others with the person of John of the Apocalypse. Identifying themselves with the leader of their origin helped them to grow better in their identity and spirituality. But this could also give rise to conflict as in the case of the community of Corinth (1Cor 1:11-12).

Being rock as foundation of the faith, recalls to mind the word of God to the people in exile in Babylonia: "Listen to me, you who pursue justice, who seek the Lord; look to the rock from which you were hewn, to the pit from which you were quarried; look to Abraham, your father, and to Sara, who gave you birth; when he was but one I called him, I blessed him and made him many" (Is 51:1-2). When applied to Peter, this quality of foundation stonepoints to a new beginning for the people of God.

2. The keys of the Kingdom: Peter receives the keys of the Kingdom to bind and to loose, that is, to reconcile people with God. The same power of binding and loosing is given to the communities (Mt 18:8) and to the disciples (Jn 20:23). One of the points on which the Gospel of Matthew insists is reconciliation and pardon (Mt 5:7.23-24.38-42.44-48; 6:14-15; 18:15-35). The reality is that in the 80s and 90s, there were many tensions and divisions within families in the communities in Syria because of faith in Jesus. Some accepted him as Messiah whereas others did not, and this was the source of many contrasting views and conflicts. Matthew insists on reconciliation. Reconciliation kept on being one of the most important tasks of coordinators of the communities. Like Peter they must bind and loose, that is, labour so as to bring about reconciliation, mutual acceptance, and build up true fraternity.

3. The Church: the word Church, in Greek ekklesia, is found 105 times in the New Testament, almost always in the Acts and the Epistles. We find the word only three times in the Gospels and only in Matthew. The word means "a called assembly" or "chosen assembly". The word applies to the people gathered, called by the Word of God, a people that seeks to live the message of the Kingdom brought by Jesus. The Church is not the Kingdom, but an instrument and a sign of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is greater. In the Church, the community, all must see or should see what happens when a group of people allows God to rule and take possession of its life.

d) Matthew: 16:21-22: Jesus completes what is lacking in Peter's reply, and Peter reacts by not accepting.

Peter had confessed: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!" In keeping with the prevailing ideology of the time, he imagined a glorious Messiah. Jesus corrects him: "It is necessary that the Messiah suffer and be killed in Jerusalem". With the words "it is necessary", he says that suffering had been foreseen in the prophecies (Is 53: 2-8). If the disciples accept Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God, then they must accept him also as the Servant Messiah who must die. Not just the triumph of glory but also the way of the cross! But Peter will not accept Jesus' correction and tries to change his mind.

e) Matthew: 16:23: Jesus' reply to Peter: rock of scandal.

Jesus' reply is surprising: "Get behind me, satan, you are a scandal to me, for you do not mind the things of God, but those of men!"Satan is the one who leads us away from the path marked out for us by God. Jesus literally says: "Get behind me!" (in Latin, vada retro!). Peter wanted to steer and point the way. Jesus says: "Get behind me!" Jesus not Peter is the one who points the way and sets the rhythm. The disciple must follow the master. He must live in constant conversion. Jesus' word was also a message to all those who led the communities. They must "follow" Jesus and they may not go before as Peter wished to do. It is not only they who are able to point the way or the manner. On the contrary, like Peter, instead of being a rock of support, they can become rock of scandal. Such were some leaders of the communities at the time of Matthew. There were ambiguities. The same may happen among us today.

iii) A further explanation of the Gospels concerning Peter:

A portrait of St. Peter.

Peter was transformed from fisherman of fish to fisherman of men (Mk 1:7). He was married (Mk 1:30). He was a good man and very human. He tended naturally to a role of leadership among the twelve disciples of Jesus. Jesus respected this natural quality and made Peter the leader of his first community (Jn 21:17). Before joining Jesus' community, Peter's name was Simon bar Jona (Mt 16:17), Simon son of Jonah. Jesus nicknamed him Cephas or Rock, and this then became Peter (Lk 6:14).

By nature, Peter could have been anything but rock. He was courageous in speech, but at the hour of danger he fell victim to fear and fled. For instance, when Jesus came walking on the water, Peter asked: "Jesus, can I too come to you on the water?" Jesus replied: "Come, Peter!" Peter then went out of the boat and started walking on the water. But when a bigger wave came along, he got afraid and began to sink. He then cried out: "Save me, Lord!" Jesus took hold of him and saved him (Mt 14:28-31). At the last supper, Peter said to Jesus: "I shall never deny you, Lord!" (Mk 14:31); yet a few hours later, in the palace of the high priest, in front of a servant girl, when Jesus had already been arrested, Peter denied Jesus swearing that he had no connection with him (Mk 14:66-72). In the garden of olives, when Jesus had been arrested, he even used his word (Jn 18:10), but then fled, leaving Jesus alone (Mk 14:50). Peter was not naturally rock! And yet the weak and human Peter, so like us, did become rock because Jesus had prayed for him: "Peter, I have prayed for you so that your faith may not fail; and, when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren" (Lk 22:31-32). That is why Jesus was able to say: "You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church" (Mt 16:18). Jesus helped him to become rock. After the resurrection, in Galilee, Jesus appeared to Peter and asked him twice: "Peter, do you love me?" And Peter replied twice: "Lord, you know that I love you" (Jn 21:15.16). When Jesus put the same question to him the third time, Peter was hurt. He must have remembered that he had denied him three times. So he answered: "Lord, you know all things! You know that I love you!" It was then that Jesus entrusted to him the care of the sheep: "Peter, feed my sheep!" (Jn 21:17). With Jesus' help, the strength of the rock grew in Peter and he revealed himself on the day of Pentecost. On that day, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples, Peter opened the doors of the upper room where they were all gathered behind closed doors for fear of the Jews (Jn 20:19), and, infused with courage, began to announce the Good News of Jesus to the people (Acts 2:14-40). From then on he never stopped! On account of this courageous proclamation of the resurrection, he was arrested (Acts 4:3). During the interrogation he was forbidden to announce the good news (Acts 4:18), but Peter did not obey the prohibition. He said: "We must obey God rather then man!" (Acts 4:19; 5:29). He was arrested again (Acts 5:18.26). He was scourged (Acts 5:40). But he said: "Thank you very much. But we shall go on!" (cfr Acts 5:42).

Tradition tells us that at the end of his life, when he was in Rome, Peter had another moment of fear. But then he went back, was arrested and condemned to death on the cross. However, he asked that he might be crucified with his head down. He thought that he was not worthy to die in the same way as his master, Jesus. Peter was true to himself to the very end.

6. Psalm 103 (102)

ThanksgivingBless the Lord, O my soul;

and all that is within me, bless his holy name!

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and forget not all his benefits,

who forgives all your iniquity,

who heals all your diseases,

who redeems your life from the Pit,

who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,

who satisfies you with good as long as you live

so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.

The Lord works vindication

and justice for all who are oppressed.

He made known his ways to Moses,

his acts to the people of Israel.

The Lord is merciful and gracious,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

He will not always chide,

nor will he keep his anger for ever.

He does not deal with us according to our sins,

nor requite us according to our iniquities.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,

so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

As a father pities his children,

so the Lord pities those who fear him.

For he knows our frame;

he remembers that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass;

he flourishes like a flower of the field;

for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

and its place knows it no more.

But the steadfast love of the Lord

is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear him,

and his righteousness to children's children,

to those who keep his covenant

and remember to do his commandments.

The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,

and his kingdom rules over all.

Bless the Lord, O you his angels,

you mighty ones who do his word,

hearkening to the voice of his word!

Bless the Lord, all his hosts,

his ministers that do his will!

Bless the Lord, all his works,

in all places of his dominion.

Bless the Lord, O my soul!

7. Final Prayer

Lord Jesus, we thank for the word that has enabled us to understand better the will of the Father. May your Spirit enlighten our actions and grant us the strength to practice that which your Word has revealed to us. May we, like Mary, your mother, not only listen to but also practise the Word. You who live and reign with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.

Lectio Divina: Thursday, June 30, 2016

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

Father,

you call your children

to walk in the light of Christ.

Free us from darkness

and keep us in the radiance of your truth.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 9,1-8

Jesus got back in the boat, crossed the water and came to his home town. And suddenly some people brought him a paralytic stretched out on a bed. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, 'Take comfort, my child, your sins are forgiven.'

And now some scribes said to themselves, 'This man is being blasphemous.' Knowing what was in their minds Jesus said, 'Why do you have such wicked thoughts in your hearts? Now, which of these is easier: to say, "Your sins are forgiven," or to say, "Get up and walk"? But to prove to you that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins,' -- then he said to the paralytic-'get up, pick up your bed and go off home.'

And the man got up and went home. A feeling of awe came over the crowd when they saw this, and they praised God for having given such authority to human beings.

3) Reflection

• The extraordinary authority of Jesus. To the reader, Jesus appears as a person invested with extraordinary authority, by means of the words and actions (Mt 9, 6.8). The authoritative word of Jesus strikes evil at its root: in the case of the paralytic man on sin that affects the man in his liberty and blocks him in his living forces: “Your sins are forgiven” (v. 5); “”Get up pick up your bed and go off home” (v.6). Truly all the forms of paralysis of the heart and the mind to which we are subject are cancelled by the authority of Jesus (9, 6), because during his life on earth he met all these forms. The authoritative and effective word of Jesus awakens the paralyzed humanity (9, 5-7) and gives it the gift of walking (9, 6) in a renewed faith

• The encounter with the paralytic. After the storm and a visit in the country of the Gadarenes, Jesus returns to Capernaum, his city. And as he was on his way, he met the paralytic. The healing did not take place in a house, but along the road. Therefore, along the road that leads to Capernaum they brought him a paralytic man. Jesus addresses him calling him “my son”, a gesture of attention that soon becomes a gesture of salvation: “your sins are forgiven you” (v. 2) The forgiveness of sins which Jesus pronounces on the part of God on the paralytic refers to the bond between sickness, failure and sin. This is the first time that the evangelist attributes this particular divine power to Jesus, in an explicit way. For the Jews the sickness of a man was considered a punishment because of sins committed; The physical illness was considered always as a consequence of one’s own moral evil or due to parents (Jn 9, 2). Jesus restores to man the condition of salvation freeing him from illness as well as from sin.

• For some of those who were present, for the Scribes, the words of Jesus which announce forgiveness of sins is a true and proper blasphemy. According to them Jesus is arrogant because God alone can forgive sins. They do not manifest openly such a judgment of Jesus but express it by murmuring among themselves. Jesus who penetrates their hearts sees their considerations and reproves them because of their unbelief. The expression of Jesus “To prove to you that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins...” (v. 6) he is going to indicate that not only God can forgive sins, but with Jesus, also man (Gnilka).

• The crowd, differently from the Scribes, is seized by fear before the cure of the paralytic and glorifies God. The crowd is struck by the power to forgive sins manifested in the healing. People exult because God has granted such a power to the Son of man. Is it possible to attribute this to the ecclesial community where forgiveness of sins was granted on the order of Jesus? Matthew has presented this episode on forgiveness of sins with the intention of applying it to fraternal relationships within the ecclesial community. In it the practice to forgive sins, by delegation of Jesus, was already in force; a practice which was not shared in the Synagogue. The theme of forgiveness of sins is repeated also in Mt 18 and at the end of the Gospel it is affirmed that this is rooted in the death of Jesus on the Cross (26, 28). But in our context the forgiveness of sins is linked with the demand of mercy present in the episode which follows, the vocation of Matthew: «…mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice. And indeed, I came to call not the upright but sinners” (Mt 9, 13). Such words of Jesus intend to say that He has made visible the forgiveness of God; above all, in his relationships with the Publicans or tax collectors and sinners, in sitting at table with them.

• This account that takes up again the problem of sin and reminds of the bond with the misery of man is something to be practiced in the forgiveness which should be given, but it is a story that should occupy a privileged place in the preaching of our ecclesial communities.

4) Personal questions

• Are you convinced that Jesus, called the friend of sinners, does not despise your weaknesses and your resistance, but he understands and offers you the necessary help to live a life in harmony with God and with the brothers and sisters?

• When you make the experience of betraying or refusing friendship with God do you have recourse to the Sacrament of reconciliation that reconciles you with the Father and with the Church and makes you a new creature by the force of the Holy Spirit?

5) Concluding Prayer

The precepts of Yahweh are honest,

joy for the heart;

the commandment of Yahweh is pure,

light for the eyes. (Ps 19,8)

Table of Contents

Lectio Divina: Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Lectio Divina: Thursday, June 2, 2016

Lectio Divina: Friday, June 3, 2016

Lectio Divina: Saturday, June 4, 2016

Lectio Divina: Sunday, June 5, 2016

Lectio Divina: Monday, June 6, 2016

Lectio Divina: Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Lectio Divina: Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Lectio Divina: Thursday, June 9, 2016

Lectio Divina: Friday, June 10, 2016

Lectio Divina: Saturday, June 11, 2016

Lectio Divina: Sunday, June 12, 2016

Lectio Divina: Monday, June 13, 2016

Lectio Divina: Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Lectio Divina: Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Lectio Divina: Thursday, June 16, 2016

Lectio Divina: Friday, June 17, 2016

Lectio Divina: Saturday, June 18, 2016

Lectio Divina: Sunday, June 19, 2016

Lectio Divina: Monday, June 20, 2016

Lectio Divina: Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Lectio Divina: Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Lectio Divina: Thursday, June 23, 2016

Lectio Divina: Friday, June 24, 2016

Lectio Divina: Saturday, June 25, 2016

Lectio Divina: Sunday, June 26, 2016

Lectio Divina: Monday, June 27, 2016

Lectio Divina: Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Lectio Divina: Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Lectio Divina: Thursday, June 30, 2016