Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Remembrance of Athenagoras (+1972), patriarch of Constantinople, father of ecumenical dialogue.
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Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Remembrance of Athenagoras (+1972), patriarch of Constantinople, father of ecumenical dialogue.
First Reading
Ezekiel 2,2-5
As he said these words the spirit came into me and put me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me. He said, 'Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, to the rebels who have rebelled against me. They and their ancestors have been in revolt against me up to the present day. Because they are stubborn and obstinate children, I am sending you to them, to say, "Lord Yahweh says this." Whether they listen or not, this tribe of rebels will know there is a prophet among them.
Second Reading
2 Corinthians 12,7-10
Wherefore, so that I should not get above myself, I was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to batter me and prevent me from getting above myself. About this, I have three times pleaded with the Lord that it might leave me; but he has answered me, 'My grace is enough for you: for power is at full stretch in weakness.' It is, then, about my weaknesses that I am happiest of all to boast, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me; and that is why I am glad of weaknesses, insults, constraints, persecutions and distress for Christ's sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong.
Reading of the Gospel
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Mark 6,1-6
Leaving that district, he went to his home town, and his disciples accompanied him. With the coming of the Sabbath he began teaching in the synagogue, and most of them were astonished when they heard him. They said, 'Where did the man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been granted him, and these miracles that are worked through him? This is the carpenter, surely, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joset and Jude and Simon? His sisters, too, are they not here with us?' And they would not accept him. And Jesus said to them, 'A prophet is despised only in his own country, among his own relations and in his own house'; and he could work no miracle there, except that he cured a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith. He made a tour round the villages, teaching.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Homily
"Where did this man get all of this?" The inhabitants of Nazareth wonder after listening to Jesus. Certainly, if, among many others, they had remembered the words addressed to Moses: "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet "(Deut 18:15), if they had remembered them, they would have understood that those words came from the Lord. It is in this horizon that faith is placed: accepting the words of preaching as authoritative, important words for one's own life. The Apostle Paul reminded the Romans: "Faith comes from what is heard" (Rom 10:17). But the people of Nazareth did not want to listen to Jesus. They stopped at what they already knew about him.
The evangelist writes sadly: "And they took offence at him."
This scandal is the scandal of the incarnation. The Lord, in fact, chose to save humankind by sending his Son, who "Though he was in the form of God... emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness" (Phil 2:6-7). It is the mystery that we contemplate from Christmas in that child to Golgotha in the Crucified One. And it is also the scandal of the Church - the body of Christ throughout history - which, even with all its weakness and paucity, is sent by Jesus to communicate the Gospel of love to the ends of the earth, in the many Nazareth of this world. God does not make use of people out of the ordinary, but of men and women who entrust themselves to him; and he does not present himself with prodigies or words of pride, but with the simple preaching of the Gospel and the miracles of charity. The preached Gospel and lived charity are signs of God's presence acting in history, transforming the world by freeing it from evil.
We know well how little this Gospel logic is accepted by the common mentality (of which we are all children). There is always a gap between the Gospel of love and the mentality of this world. In Nazareth Jesus experienced this directly. That is why he bitterly notes, "Prophets are not without honour, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house."
The evangelist notes that in Nazareth Jesus could not perform miracles; it is not that he did not want to, "he could not." His fellow citizens would have liked Jesus to work wonders that would amaze, but they did not understand that it was not a question of performing wonders or magic in the service of their own fame. The miracle is God's answer to those who stretch out their hand and ask for help. None of those who heard him stretched out their hand. In Nazareth Jesus could only heal a few sick people: those few who called for help as he passed by. Let us also stand beside those sick people who stood outside and asked the young prophet passing by for help. We will be healed together with them.
Prayer is the heart of the life of the Community of Sant'Egidio and is its absolute priority. At the end of the day, every the Community of Sant'Egidio, large or small, gathers around the Lord to listen to his Word. The Word of God and the prayer are, in fact, the very basis of the whole life of the Community. The disciples cannot do other than remain at the feet of Jesus, as did Mary of Bethany, to receive his love and learn his ways (Phil. 2:5).
So every evening, when the Community returns to the feet of the Lord, it repeats the words of the anonymous disciple: " Lord, teach us how to pray". Jesus, Master of prayer, continues to answer: "When you pray, say: Abba, Father". It is not a simple exhortation, it is much more. With these words Jesus lets the disciples participate in his own relationship with the Father. Therefore in prayer, the fact of being children of the Father who is in heaven, comes before the words we may say. So praying is above all a way of being! That is to say we are children who turn with faith to the Father, certain that they will be heard.
Jesus teaches us to call God "Our Father". And not simply "Father" or "My Father". Disciples, even when they pray on their own, are never isolated nor they are orphans; they are always members of the Lord's family.
In praying together, beside the mystery of being children of God, there is also the mystery of brotherhood, as the Father of the Church said: "You cannot have God as father without having the church as mother". When praying together, the Holy Spirit assembles the disciples in the upper room together with Mary, the Lord's mother, so that they may direct their gaze towards the Lord's face and learn from Him the secret of his Heart.
The Communities of Sant'Egidio all over the world gather in the various places of prayer and lay before the Lord the hopes and the sufferings of the tired, exhausted crowds of which the Gospel speaks ( Mat. 9: 3-7 ), In these ancient crowds we can see the huge masses of the modern cities, the millions of refugees who continue to flee their countries, the poor, relegated to the very fringe of life and all those who are waiting for someone to take care of them. Praying together includes the cry, the invocation, the aspiration, the desire for peace, the healing and salvation of the men and women of this world. Prayer is never in vain; it rises ceaselessly to the Lord so that anguish is turned into hope, tears into joy, despair into happiness, and solitude into communion. May the Kingdom of God come soon among people!
For the sick, in memory of the dead, for peace
