OMELIE / Omelie EN

12 lug 2020

12/07/2020 - 15th Sunday in O. T. - A 

12/07/2020 - 15^th Sunday in O. T. - A 

Reading 1 IS 55,10-11 * Psalm 64 *Reading 2 ROM 8,18-23 * Gospel MT 13,1-23

Today the apostle Paul talks about the Church as the place in which the glorious freedom of the children of God becomes visible! In order to be part of the Church we suffer, overwhelmed by our weaknesses, by temptations, by men's rejection and, all in all, by the hostility of the devil. The Church suffers because Jesus, its head, has already suffered. Each one of us carries the cross while taking part in His: there could be no other possibility to be with Him. Suffering, in any case, is part of every man’s life, also those who are not part of the Church, also those who do not believe and refuse the faith: the entire universe is waiting for a freedom that seems never to come. We, the only ones, have the hope though, so the certainty God will free us because He has already made us His children. He has already given us His Spirit, and therefore we do not doubt that He will accomplish His work covering us with glory! This is why our suffering, since it has a reason, it is more bearable than the non-believer one: they cannot understand its meaning.

For our journey of hope and freedom is given us a big help, “the word of the kingdom”. It is a seed that comes from above and it is meant to change our life thanks to the strength it has in itself, a power for life and peace that you cannot find anywhere else. The word of the kingdom it is the word that comes from Jesus' lips, the word which tells about Him in the Sacred Scriptures and that tells of His life and of His love that reached the point of making a sacrifice of themselves. It is sown without holding back everywhere, and everywhere it fosters novelty and gives hope. The fruit it bears is really great and precious for the life of humanity: anyone can realise the changes that happen in the families and in society when Jesus is welcomed, loved, followed. How come then that the kingdom of God is not established everywhere, it is not yet a universal reality?

The seed carries in itself a power for life, but the soil which receives can have a different grade of absorption. If it is hardened like the path, or uneven because it is rocky, or even covered in weeds and thorny bushes, it cannot nourish and bear the life sprouting from the seed. If the man's heart, or his social circle and family, are open for the action of God’s enemy, if it is changeable, if it overestimates wealth, if it leaves itself to be influenced by other people’s opinion, then the word of the kingdom is made ineffective. In fact, it does not have use for violence, it does not impose itself, full as it is with God's meekness!

 Where there is no fruit, the fault is not the seed's, not the Word’s, because it is like the rain which waters the soil. If the preaching does not have any follow-up the fault is the man's heart's, hard, changeable, busy with earthly interests which suffocate the erupting power of what the Word would like to sprout.

Even if it costs, let us practice faithfully, not intermittently, the Sunday celebration in order to receive constantly the Word that goes forth from God's mouth: this is the seed and the rain that have watered the earth! We will pray then, as we did in today’s collect: “O God, give all who for the faith they profess are accounted Christians the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name of Christ and to strive after all that does it honor.”