ME
NU

OMELIE / Omelie EN

26/6/2016
19/02/2017 – 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time del Tempo Ordinary – year A

19/02/2017 – 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time  – year A 

1st reading Lev 19,1-2.17-18 * from Psalm  102 * 2ª reading 1Cor 3,16-23 * Gospel Mt 5,38-48


Today’s Psalm is a marvel. It is a prayer, but not only, it is also a profession  in a God who knows how to love with tenderness of a father, who knows how to accept and welcomes men with the mercy of a mother, who is always ready to wish well to man, to that man who, easily takes refuge in sin, thinking of finding there freedom and peace. How many cheatings in our hearts! This Psalm may help us every day! “Bless the Lord, my soul, do not forget all his benefits!”. The goodness of the Lord makes us wanting to imitate him, to be like him. Even God desires it. It is a joy for him and it is a great gift for us the fact that his love can stay and “work” in our life and bear fruit.

Already the commandment transmitted to Moses was: “Be saints because I, the Lord, I am holy”. And the way to live the God’s holiness was to love the brothers. To love, Moses says, is not satisfying the others, but to help them to be obedient to God. Love is helping them to take distance from sin, that is from the disobedience to God: infact He says: “Correct openly your neighbor”.

This teaching of Moses is taken and amplified by Jesus in a sublime manner. Today’s reading propose to us three simple but strong examples of holiness. Living the God’s love means, not to react to the wrong received, but reacting always to the love  received from God. If someone gives you a whip in the face? If you react instinctively, you will put your hand up, and you will thus learn from sinner. In that moment you will become like you never wanted to be, you will become violent and bad. When you receive the whip in the face from someone, you should think that your God  continues to caress you. You should react to the God’s tenderness, and offer to your brother the smile of your cheek that has not been offended by his hand.

Someone wants to take away your possessions? Make him see that you are detached from the things of the world, that they don’t occupy your heart and don’t dominate you. Take the occasion to give testimony of Jesus who from being rich he become poor for us. Show that the Lord made you generous. And when someone expects from you an act of generosity, like taking a luggage for one kilometer, you should not delude him, neither if he requires it without motive. Rather, show him that your request is small and you instead can double it. We say that such an attitude is the attitude of the saints, which is not normal. Yes, it is of saints: Jesus wants us to be saints! He doesn’t want in his Kingdom disciples who does not have the holiness as the ultimate scope.

To love our enemies and pray for the persecutors: this is the continuation of Jesus’ teaching. Why does he teaches in this way? Because this is the example which we receive every day from the Father. The Father infact sends sun and rain without making differences between the field of the right person and of the wicked. Everyday we enjoy this love of the Father. Every day, if we are not superficial and indifferent, we learn this way of doing. We who would like to be the children of the Father, we must bring to the world this new way of life. In this way the world will start to change and it will become as we would like it to be. Who will start? Shall we leave it to others? No one will ever start and the world will continue to get worse. The God’s children must be really children of God, because if they accept to be equal to the world’s children they will become children of the world. And Jesus concludes: “You must be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect”. Being perfect is the same as being saints because it means living the perfection of love. Adam was tempted from the desire to be like God but he thought about a God who is inexistent, a God who makes what he wants and not a God who loves. Jesus brings us this desire to be like God, but God the Father, God of Love, God who is attentive to the suffering of his own children.

The Apostles continued the teaching of Moses and of Jesus. Today we hear Saint Paul who reminds us of our own dignity: we are temples of God. If we are temple of God, doesn’t live in us the spirit of egoism neither the spirit of  vengeance or of enmity, but always and only the Holy Spirit, spirit of love and peace. The temple of God is holy: if we are this temple, in our life the holiness must be shown and tasted, be seen and given to those who come close to us. Today we try to ask ourselves: have I lived in the holiness of love? Have I been able to love someone with the Love of God? To react with bounty of God instead of pretending? Let us try to accumulate some experience of holiness, for the joy of our Father who looks down from heaven seeking those that resemble him!