OMELIE / Omelie EN

07 set 2025

07/09/2025 - 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

07/09/2025 - 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

First reading: Wisdom 9:13-18 from Psalm 89 Second reading: Philemon 1:9-10, 12-17 Gospel: Luke 14:25-33

God plans our joy: that is why he wants to give us the fullness of life. He, and he alone, knows the path to our true happiness, he who created us. We cannot teach him anything, even when he is revealing us his wisdom regarding our lives. We are weighed down by having taken part in the disobedience of the world, and we are weakened because our minds and wills are numbed by the desires of the body and its passions. We therefore need the light that can come only from the wisdom of the Father, and we need a new strength that we cannot give ourselves. Today's first reading insists on this.

And it is indeed true: we notice this when we look around us and observe the fact that mature people easily abandon and change the spouse to whom they solemnly and publicly promised their lifelong faithfulness. They do not seek advice from God the Father, nor from the dearest people who have loved and love them, nor do they accept the commands that God has given and that they know. Following their momentary desire, a desire that arises from pleasure, illusion or deception, they create situations of suffering for themselves and many others, especially those they love most. If we were capable or willing to know the wisdom of God, our lives would always follow paths of peace and serenity.

The path of God, the sure and straight path, is Jesus. That is why he himself proposes that we follow him, that we consider him our main and only reference point: “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple”.

Jesus was aware that many people were following him, but he sensed that some had selfish interests and would not be willing to suffer with him and for him. For this reason, he tried to discourage and disappoint those who were with him for ulterior motives: those who were not willing to endure rejection by society and even conflict with their relatives, or even with themselves, would not be able to remain with him to receive his Spirit and collaborate in building his kingdom.

Those who truly love Jesus, in fact, sooner or later are not understood by their own relatives. They are given an ultimatum: parents or children, brothers or sisters, friends, spouses, all can become enemies when they realise that Jesus has become more important to him than they are. Their enmity is part of the cross that Jesus presents. Being with him requires sacrifice and renunciation.

Why do they not realise that those who love Jesus above all else become lovable, serious, generous, loyal, honest, pure, truthful, and unambiguous? It even happens that these beautiful qualities are perceived as judgement and accusation towards those who do not live them, and therefore they are unbearable to those who want to follow their instincts and pleasures, to those who have material interests to defend or achieve at all costs.

Those who want to be with Jesus must realise that they are not following a person who continues to perform miracles, but one who will die on the cross, despised by the great ones of the world and abandoned by everyone else. Do you want to become his disciple? Think carefully: can your love for Jesus withstand being deprived of the affection of your loved ones? Are you willing, for him, to give up your own desires and the riches of the world? You will have to do the maths as those who set out to build a palace do, or as the king who wants to enlist and move an army against the enemy.

Think about it: to what extent can you bear loneliness, derision, and contempt from the people you love? You continue to love them; indeed, you realise that with the love of Jesus in your heart, your love for your relatives and for everyone else becomes truer, more constant, freer and even detached from the desire to be gratified by them. You realise that by loving Jesus with all your heart, you are able to love everyone freely. Will you endure enmity for his sake?

Jesus is life, he is fullness. Those who begin to live with him can no longer stay away from him, can no longer bear to be deprived of him. You will remain with Jesus, learning from him, and thus you will be able to endure the deprivation of everything and everyone, and you will be a true faithful disciple.

Sacrifice is necessary to become steadfast: St Paul asks his friend to make an uncomfortable decision in order to live and show his faith: he asks him to welcome back the slave who had fled from him and then became a believer, and to welcome him no longer as a slave but as a brother.

Jesus’ love changes us, and it also changes our relationships with everyone else. For this to happen, it is truly necessary to love him above all else, even above ourselves.