OMELIE / Omelie EN

22 ago 2021

22/08/2021 - 21st Sunday in O. T. - B

22/08/2021 - 21^st Sunday in O. T. - B

Reading 1 JOS 24,1-2.15-17.18b Psalm 33/34 Reading 2 EPH 5,21-32 Gospel JN 6,60-69

The answer given by the people to Joshua who he had asked for a decision on its part is amazing. You cannot stand in front of God, the living God who loves men, enjoying His mercy and protection, without having taken His side. “If it does not please you to serve the Lord, decide today whom you will serve”.

Our life is always about obeying: either we obey God or we obey our desires, moved by the passions, that we afterwards delude ourselves we can regard as important as they were gods. We are free to choose who we want to obey. If we do not obey God, we automatically obey some selfish instinct, which comes from God’s enemy. “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord for the service of other gods”.

And the people is referring to its own history, it remembers the great experiences of its fathers in order to strengthen its decision to be faithful to the God of the covenant, who has shown it a great love by freeing it from slavery in Egypt. The memory of its history gives the motivation in order to decide for faithfulness, obedience firm to the Word of God. How important it is for us too remembering the history of our family and our people! In it God’s miracles are hidden and in it His love is revealed: the memory of those helps us to strengthen our unity with Him.

The passage from the Gospel too makes us relive a time for decisions: many of Jesus' disciples decided not to follow Him anymore. They would like to understand before obeying, they would like an easy path and agreed on by everyone, and instead in order to be with Jesus you need to be open to solitude with Him, to be misunderstood and even mocked. Jesus is not discouraged: He is ready to be alone, but not to water down His message. He does not tailor the gospel on the people’s convenience: men need to convert in order to welcome the gospel.

Peter comes forward for the Twelve, and for someone else too. They have not found anyone as worthy of their trust as their Master and Lord. He has revealed Himself before their own eyes, with signs and miracles, as the one who comes from God, from the Father, and they have listened to Him giving Him their full trust. In this way they have become aware that His word, even if it is difficult to understand, is a sure Word, because it comes from the mouth of a person who has received a full approval from the Father. Peter has answered for us too. His decision is ours: we too can say with certainty to Jesus: “You have the words of eternal life”.

The reading from the letter of Saint Paul let us see too the family life of the Christians as a development of this firm decision. The believer who gets married lives in the marriage his love and his faithfulness to the Lord. The marriage becomes in this way the place of the revelation of the God of love and mercy.

The love of the husband for the wife shows the one of Jesus for the Church: He “handed himself over for her” (EPH 5,21-33), and the Church’s answer is told by the free and sweet submission of the wife to the husband. The unbreakable relationship Jesus-Church is concrete and visible in the unbreakable bond husband-wife. They are not united first and foremost by the passion, not even only by good feelings, not even only by a social contract: they are united and faithful because in them lives and grows the union with Jesus and the membership with the Church. The marriage is the place in which the decision to serve the Lord becomes every day concrete and visible to everyone: it is the mountain on which the presence and holiness of God shine.

We too then, who are the fruit of the holy love of our parents, repeat what the people has answered Joshua: “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord for the service of other gods”. We will say this in many occasions, both in those which ask for choices in the long term, and in those that are easier and day-to-day. Jesus' Word will stay in our mind and in our heart, will be firm, as a safe foundation, a unmoving and strong support for every action of ours.