Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time Read more
Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time
First Reading
1 Kings 17,10-16
So he went off to Sidon. And when he reached the city gate, there was a widow gathering sticks. Addressing her he said, 'Please bring a little water in a pitcher for me to drink.' She was on her way to fetch it when he called after her. 'Please', he said, 'bring me a scrap of bread in your hand.' 'As Yahweh your God lives,' she replied, 'I have no baked bread, but only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jug; I am just gathering a stick or two to go and prepare this for myself and my son to eat, and then we shall die.' But Elijah said to her, 'Do not be afraid, go and do as you have said; but first make a little scone of it for me and bring it to me, and then make some for yourself and for your son. For Yahweh, God of Israel, says this: Jar of meal shall not be spent, jug of oil shall not be emptied, before the day when Yahweh sends rain on the face of the earth.' The woman went and did as Elijah told her and they ate the food, she, himself and her son. The jar of meal was not spent nor the jug of oil emptied, just as Yahweh had foretold through Elijah.
Psalmody
Psalm 145
Antiphon
Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
My soul, give praise to the Lord;
I will praise the Lord all my days,
make music to God while I live.
Put no trust in princes,
in mortal men in whom there is no help.
Take their breath, they return to clay
and their plans that day come to nothing.
He is happy who is helped by Jacob's God,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
who alone made heaven and earth,
the seas and all they contain.
It is he who keeps faith for ever,
who is just to those who are oppressed.
It is he who gives bread to the hungry,
the Lord, who sets prisoners free,
the Lord who gives sight to the blind,
who raises up those who are bowed down,
the Lord who protects the stranger
and upholds the widow and orphan.
It is the Lord who loves the just
but thwarts the path of the wicked.
The Lord will reign for ever,
Zion's God, from age to age.
Second Reading
Hebrews 9,24-28
It is not as though Christ had entered a man-made sanctuary which was merely a model of the real one; he entered heaven itself, so that he now appears in the presence of God on our behalf. And he does not have to offer himself again and again, as the high priest goes into the sanctuary year after year with the blood that is not his own, or else he would have had to suffer over and over again since the world began. As it is, he has made his appearance once and for all, at the end of the last age, to do away with sin by sacrificing himself. Since human beings die only once, after which comes judgement, so Christ too, having offered himself only once to bear the sin of many, will manifest himself a second time, sin being no more, to those who are waiting for him, to bring them salvation.
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 12,38-44
In his teaching he said, 'Beware of the scribes who like to walk about in long robes, to be greeted respectfully in the market squares, to take the front seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at banquets; these are the men who devour the property of widows and for show offer long prayers. The more severe will be the sentence they receive.' He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the treasury, and many of the rich put in a great deal. A poor widow came and put in two small coins, the equivalent of a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, 'In truth I tell you, this poor widow has put more in than all who have contributed to the treasury; for they have all put in money they could spare, but she in her poverty has put in everything she possessed, all she had to live on.'
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
The Gospel scene opens on a note: "The large crowd was listening to him with delight." Why? Listening to the Gospel, and listening to it with delight, was decisive for salvation. Already the Book of Sirach exhorted the wise person to "be ready to listen to every godly discourse" (6:35).
We are at the end of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem, and the contrast with the scribes and Pharisees has reached its climax. The evangelist Mark emphasizes the difference between the attitude of the crowd and that of the religious hierarchy. Jesus listens to the crowd's questions. He does not want to disappoint their need and even less does he want to abandon them to their destiny. The rejection, or lack of attention, to those requests, would mean handing the crowds over to the scribes and Pharisees, to the evil shepherds, who would abandon everyone in desperation. Indifference is never neutral. Scribes and Pharisees are those who dictate what happiness or unhappiness is; they are those who govern our consciences and tastes, who direct us with an authority that we do not often perceive but to which we are subject. They have powerful tools at their disposal; just as the powerful and strong were the scribes in Jesus' time. Then, as today, Jesus wants to undermine their leading role with the poverty of the Gospel preaching, so that they do not impose heavy and useless burdens on the shoulders of desperate people. Only Jesus is the true good shepherd.
Jesus does not stop in his reprimand, and adds: "They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers." The widows' houses are the houses of those who do not have anyone to defend them. Even today there are many houses of widows, orphans, and even entire countries that are not defended. Yes, there are many widows like the one in Zarephath, whose story we heard in the book of Kings. In many houses and lands there is nothing to eat tomorrow. There is no future. Who is looking at these widows? Who will take care of them? Jesus looks at them. He looks at them as he gazed at that widow who made her offering for the temple. Jesus sees her throwing her two coins in the treasure. No one, of course, notices her. She does not come from a noble or royal family and so she does not attract attention; she does not belong to the world of rich and famous people so she is not noticed. However, Jesus looked with affection and admiration at that woman. Only Jesus gives her attention. Jesus teaches the disciples, who were absentminded or focused only on impressive things, to look with love and care at the smallest things.
It is not by chance that the evangelist locates this insignificant, certainly not glamorous, episode at the end of Jesus' public life and of his teaching in the temple of Jerusalem. Contrary to the young rich man who "went away grieving" because he had many riches and wanted to keep them for himself (Mk 10:22), this poor widow, by giving everything, teaches us how to love God and the Gospel. She went away happy. Truly she was not a widow though she appeared as such in the eyes of the people. Jesus' loving eyes had rested on her. We will taste the same joy if, like her, we will be able to offer our poor hearts entirely to the Lord.
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
