OMELIE / Omelie EN

27 ott 2019

27/10/2019 - Sunday 30th in O. T. - Year C

27/10/2019 - Sunday 30^th in O. T. - Year C

Reading 1 SIR 35,12-14.16-18 Psalm 33 – Reading 2 2TIM 4,6-8.16-18 Gospel LK 18,9-14

Jesus’ continues to instruct us about prayer. The latter is remembered very often in the Gospel according to Luke: in fact, he begins his recollection opening on the whole people praying in the temple, and he closes it with the prayer of praise of the Church, God's people gathered by Jesus! The Lord Himself, ten times in this Gospel, is introduced on His way to get away, alone or with the disciples, in lonely places where to pray; when asked, willingly He teaches the prayer that the Father enjoys, the one which gives us the Holy Spirit!

Last Sunday He has pushed us with a parable to always pray, without getting tired, to keep our faith in the Father firm, to not even dream of asking someone else instead of Him, to hope only in His help. Today we listen to another parable Jesus has told for those people who think they are fine and, believing they have some credit with God, they dare to spread judgements about others. This parable gives us the possibility to examine our prayer, or, more precisely, the feelings we have while we pray.

Let us look at the two men described by Jesus. The first one is religious and also honoured thanks to his good deeds. He is praying looking at himself, feeling happy about himself and making comparisons with the others. He has nothing to be sorry for, nothing to ask God, no desire to be brought to love others. The second one instead knows he needs the forgiveness both from the men and God: he does not try to compare himself with worse people in order to find reasons to justify himself and to feel fine, but he compares himself with God’s holiness and His mercy. In this way he hopes to receive that forgiveness he needs to find peace. This man meets God, Who feels considered, desired and longed for by him. In fact, God has always promised love and mercy to the contrite man, to whom has a wounded heart, to the humbles who turn to Him, to the sinner who would like to change life, to whom acknowledge their sins.

Jesus ends the story in the parable of the two praying men with His interpretation. He knows that God looks at the man's heart and therefore He is positive that the one who recognises he is a sinner gets the Father’s sympathy. This man has taken the place of the righteous, the place of the humble, of whom needs salvation, of whom is waiting for and is able to welcome the Son, the place of whoever values the gift that God gives to the world. This man, truly a sinner as he can recognise, will be able to welcome Jesus as soon as he will hear about Him, and he will be happy to meet Him. So will Zacchaeus do in Gericho, so I try to do myself every day. I realise afterwards that, when I am firm in my acknowledgement of my sin and my unworthiness, I am more open to understand the others too, more ready to forgive, able to look for and make excuses for the defects and the sins of whom makes me suffer and makes me exercise my patience over and over again.

In addition to Jesus’ parable the reading from the Sirach too makes me desire to be humble, to keep a contrite heart. “The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds”, says the Author of this book of wisdom. The prayer of the lowly keeps raising up even when the sky is not visible, even when this seems closed and it seems that nobody is  listening. The lowly perseveres in the prayer and his heart sticks to God, he does not lose hope even in the moments of barrenness or oppression, solitude or apparent uselessness.

The confidence that Saint Paul shows Timothy comes at the right moment in a difficult period, a period of great suffering: the apostle, who is in prison, sees how some of his friends are abandoning him. He takes part in the Lord’s passion also from this point of view. As Jesus has been abandoned by the disciples, so he now has to fight alone. The humility grown in his heart in remembering his sins, as he himself has reminded us of some Sundays ago, helps him to forgive men and confide only in the Lord, who gives him the strength to continue preaching the God's gospel. He is sure he has reached the end of his journey on earth: he is happy he was able to persevere in the faith and to be able to wait for the prize promised by Jesus to whoever remains in Him. He ends his life with a prayer of praise to God, a prayer that becomes certainty to be able to enter the eternal kingdom, where all the children loved by the Father are awaited.

I give thanks to Jesus, who teaches me how to pray, he teaches me to make of the prayer a moment of the truest and most certain conversion. If I convert myself to Him, my life becomes a mission for the conversion of the whole world.