OMELIE / Omelie EN

26/6/2016

26/02/2017 – 8th Sunday of O. T. - Year A

26/02/2017 – 8th  Sunday of O. T. - Year A 

1ª reading Is 49,14-15 * from Psalm 61/62 * 2^nd reading 1Cor 4,1-5 * Gospel Mt 6,24-34

 “Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock, my safety, my stronghold so that I stand unshaken.” It is a comforting word that of the Psalm, a word that accompanied the entire life of the people of Israel, and therefore, in particular, the Blessed Mary’s and Jesus’s lives. Our Christian brothers and sisters continued to recite it throughout the ages and now we keep on doing it to find comfort. It is a Word that accompanies these daily readings, that put us in touch with the “Gospel” proclaimed by Jesus, the “good news” which is this: we have a loving Father, a Father we cannot doubt, because he knows the history of men and all their thoughts.

He knows our weaknesses, and he is not afraid of our sins. His only interest is to save us from Evil and to fill our life with joy and peace. This is the “good news” which is very well summarized today by the prophet Isaiah in the example we heard: “Can a woman forget her baby at the breast?” even if someone forgot, “I shall not forget”! So we can finish the Psalm with confidence and say: “trust in him, you people, at all times. Pour out your hearts to him.”

Jesus was born and raised in this complete trust. He had his mother Mary’s, his father Joseph’s and others’ example. He himself experienced it in several occasions: we can see this in the confidence with which he urges the disciples and the crowd: “That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and what you are to wear.”. He insists at length in complete confidence, that trust that only comes from experiencing many times His Father’s love. To be worried about things seems to be the most spread  and common feeling among men.

Because we cannot see God with our own eyes, it would seem normal for us to behave as if he did not exist, he did not see us and as if he could not do anything for us. Instead, Jesus insists four times in the Gospel: “do not worry”! We must take seriously the fact that we are sons of God, His divine paternity. He needs to be always present in our thoughts and desires: “Set your hearts on His kingdom first, and on God's saving justice”: we must immerse ourselves in God’s thoughts and make ours His desires, which are great and just. These thoughts and desires make us great as well, full of divine Grace, they expand our humanity and make us grow, and become more and more similar to our Father!

 “Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on God's saving justice:” while harboring thoughts and desires aiming to the Kingdom of Heaven, we free ourselves from materialism and superficiality and we become absorbed in our Father’s heart. Our heart broadens and our life does not remain constrained in our daily worries. Seeking God’s Kingdom is the same desire that we express in the prayer of the Our Father, when we say: “Your kingdom come”. It is this desire that makes us eager to meet Jesus, the King of the Kingdom, to announce his presence among us and put his Word into practice. Seeking his justice means also to be willing to put into practice our Lord’s teachings, without obstructing them with our own reasoning.

Not only His life becomes the goal of our existence, but He Himself becomes our true life! When our existence is completely immersed in God’s light, He Himself takes care of our needs, and He provides us with the material things that we used to be worried about. We will see the miracles coming from our Father’s providence.

When our only concern is for the Kingdom of Heaven, then we can truthfully say with the Apostle “People should think of us as Christ's servants, stewards entrusted with the mysteries of God.”. At this point our life is truly in our Father’s hands and nothing else occupies our thoughts. We are not interested in other people’s opinion any more and, as St. Paul says, we cannot keep on judging our lives neither positively nor negatively as well: they are in God’s hands, he will make good use of them, he will take good care of our lives.

It is truly blessed and bright the freedom that we can experience if we serve our Lord. We are loved by Him more than a little baby by his own mother, just like the prophet Isaiah said. As long as the mother is there, the child is not worried about what he will eat or what he will wear: his mother thinks about everything, in the right moment. We are always in our Father’s thoughts, because now we live in union with the Son and we are one with him. We will become richer if we serve the Richness Itself.