OMELIE / Omelie EN

23 ago 2020

23/08/2020 – 21st Sunday in O. T. - year A

23/08/2020 – 21^st Sunday in O. T. - year A

Reading 1 IS 22,19-23  Psalm  137/138  Reading 2  ROM 11,33-36  Gospel  MT 16, 13-20

We can too, in many occasions, repeat with Saint Paul: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!”. He tells us about his amazement using these words, thinking of the way in which God had called all the peoples to faith: He has saved them thanks to Jesus' sacrifice, happened through the rejection of Him by the leaders of that people which had been chosen to share the knowledge about the God of love and peace. In this way even such a serious sin  is used by the Father for the salvation of all the peoples and then also of “His own”. The decisions and the ways of God are “inscrutable and unsearchable” indeed!

The wonder, inspired by the ways used by God, is always alive in us regarding all His decisions. The one we are looking today at is the entrustment of the keys to the kingdom of heaven to a man. How can you give the keys to the kingdom of heaven to a man? Is that a proper thing to do? Is not worse than a gamble? A man, even as great and good as he can be up to now, is always a man infused with the sin of the world. If we were God's advisors, would we let Him take such a step? Of course not! Jesus has done it. And those keys are still in a man's hands. That man is not the holiest alive, and neither the most clever: Jesus has not chosen a man without defects and sins, but a common man with sins and defects: however, He has committed to accompany him. Jesus only needs to make sure that that man, who needs to use the keys of the kingdom to open and close, is a man who knows Him, who believes in Him and who humbly lets himself to be guided towards God! Jesus Himself will be disappointed by that man He is choosing now but, notwithstanding his weakness and his fragility, and notwithstanding his sin, He will confirm this task, believing only in the prayer He, the same Jesus, will say for him, and believing in the Holy Spirit He will send him from above.

Peter, who then, surely only symbolically, has received from Jesus' hands the keys, has entrusted the same to another man, who we are keeping loving and listening to. We are letting our faith being strengthened by his example and his word, and we pray, so he will be able, in the whole Church's name, to continue proclaiming the divinity of Jesus Christ. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!”, Peter has bursted out answering the Lord’s question. The one who has the keys in his hands knows Jesus and shows the faith in Him in many ways, with prayer and with the teaching, with the urging and the scolding, with the joy and with the tears,  with love for the poor and the suffering, with the attention to all the troubles that men manage to create on earth.

That man is still important; in fact “when he shuts, no one shall open”, because God gives value to his decisions: “when he opens, no one shall shut”! Goes for him what the prophet Isaiah was saying about Eliakim, chosen instead of Shebna, charged by the king David with the management of his palace. The prophet recognises in that man  an authority superior to any human authority.

A great mystery God's ways! He makes use of men in order to achieve the holiness of men! He makes use of me, despite my indignity and my sin, He makes use of you, despite your hesitation. We need to take seriously every call of God, with conviction and joy declare our faith in in Jesus' divinity, and therefore declare the importance of the words regarding which we will be judged.

What does Jesus' divinity mean? What does it mean that Jesus is the Son of God? It means that He is the only reference point, and not only for someone, but for everyone, men and women, adults and teenagers, black and white, from every people. He is the only true reference point for men in the whole world, independently from the religion they have. Until Jesus arrives in their life, they will not be able to live selfless love, peaceful joy, deep communion of the heart. They realise this right away, as soon as their meeting Jesus happens: and they are ready to die before leaving Him and rejecting Him. They do not understand this, instead, those who are used to say they are Christians, they know the Son of God, even they love Him. Who is used to it, does not know Him.

We, amazed by the depth and height of “the riches and wisdom of God”, will work for His kingdom, and He will not leave us nor abandon us!