OMELIE / Omelie EN

26 lug 2020

26/07/2020 – 17th Sunday in O. T.  - year A 

26/07/2020 – 17^th Sunday in O. T.  - year A 

Reading 1  1KINGS 3,5.7-12 Psalm  118/119  Reading 2  ROM 8,28-30  Gospel  MT 13,44-52

Just like a dad, generous and friendly, God addresses, obviously in his dreams, the king Salomon: “Ask something of me and I will give it to you”. God likes Salomon's answer, and He grants it on the spot. Which is the prayer so powerful to make Salomon agreeable to God? He was not thinking of himself, of his own convenience, of power, of luxury, of ambition. He has asked what he needs to fruitfully fullfil his duty. He has understood his duty as an act of service. A kingdom had been entrusted to his care: so he asked God for meekness and judgment in order to rule his people with justice. This is what we also desire every day since we have welcomed Jesus. And we desire this because we think of ourselves as made to serve, and not to enjoy life. He who seeks finds, and he who knocks is opened to: look for wisdom and judgment, and you will find them, knock in order to to meet mercy, and it will come to you!

We will learn how not to ever complain about anything, to be content with everything. “All things”, in fact, Saint Paul is suggesting,“work for good for those who love God”. I am left amazed when I meet people facing great sufferings, but joyful, nay, happy, because they know that their sufferings are communion with Jesus on the cross and become also a reason for someone else to find the faith. These sufferings make them similar to the Son of God, to Jesus, who has suffered for love of us, so we may become aware of how truly God loves us. They are happy if someone else finds faith in Jesus, because they have proof of how much joy gives knowing the Lord, how much new and holy life comes from welcoming Him and loving Him! For these people the parables  Jesus is giving us today do not really need any explanation.

The man who finds the treasure hidden in the field, maybe a worthless field and despised by everyone, does not mind what the others say or think: he sells all he has in order to buy that field and his treasure with it. Whoever discovers Jesus, even experiencing a life which gives him spite and annoyance, is able to give up even his motherland in order not to lose the perfect joy that the Lord gives. And he who really is looking for Jesus, having enjoyed the joy, gives everything else up, like that woman I have met this morning: she has decided to live according to the Lord's commandments, even knowing that this means changing the life with the man she is living with. The pearl merchant, who is looking for the precious one, makes every possible sacrifice in order to get the one that comes with great value, and he is ready to give up all the other pearls he owns.

The last parable Jesus is telling us today is opening for us a window on the last moments: what is going to happen at the end? We can see today that close to us, who want to live in the faith in the Son of God, there are many who are not interested in anything, who ignore our faith, despise it, if not even block it. Well, God is patient. He is waiting, like the fishermen who are choosing the fish only after they have dragged the net on shore. However, the choosing is taking place, carefully. In the end, those who have loved Jesus will not have the same fate of those who have ignored or rejected Him.

Therefore, let us ask for the true wisdom and the true judgement, so we can always choose what God likes, so we can always choose the One He has sent for our joy! He is the true image of the true man: we are destined, Saint Paul is revealing us today, to become like Him, like Jesus. Is it too much to think something like this might happen?  No, on the contrary! He is the man who lived exactly like God the Father since the beginning had thought all men should live. It is He, and not the heroes or the stars who shallow people like, the true face which needs to become our portrait.