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OMELIE / Omelie EN

26/6/2016
09/07/2017 -  Sunday 14th  of O. T. - A 

09/07/2017 -  Sunday 14th  of O. T. - A 

1ª reading Zach 9,9-10 * from Psalm 144 * 2nd reading Rom 8,9.11-13 * Gospel Mt 11,25-30


The first of today’s invitations it is a pressing appeal for joy! There is a reason for it, the only one, for it is stable and expected. The reason for joy is this: “Look, your king is approaching, he is vindicated and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey”! We already know whom we have to think of. The approaching king, the one we were expecting, is the King of the kingdom of Heaven. Saint John the Baptiste have been announcing in the desert that “the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand”, and then Jesus Himself has solemnly repeated the same exact words. Jesus is the King, and He is the humble one, who borrowed a donkey to ride in entering the holy City. Whoever rides a donkey is not certainly a warrior, he does not promote the use of weapons, he becomes instead a gentle and patient servant. His kingdom is not going to be a kingdom that is forced, that compels, that frightens. His kingdom will be the kingdom of the Lamb. The kingdom of Heaven is thus called exactly because it is different from every other kingdom on earth: in these kingdoms, men are either subjects or ministers, in the kingdom of Heaven instead all are relatives, competing with the others to serve one another, because this is the very example set by the King. Let us rejoice, then: we really can finally be jubilant for the arrival of such a King!

In the first page of the Gospel, Jesus’ joy echoes the people’s and our exultancy. He himself, our King, rejoices and blesses the Father that has given Him this very mission, to be our King. And the Father Himself, according to what Jesus says thanking and blessing Him, behaves like humble and simple people. The latter, as a matter of fact, open their hearts to whoever shows himself as a simple and humble person, but they cannot open up, they cannot confide themselves and tell their own little or great secrets to whom is haughty, to whoever brags about their knowledge or their erudition. In Jesus’ time “the learned and the clever” were Scribes and the Pharisees, friends of theirs, going around bragging about their knowledge of the pages of the Bible or about their commitment and their struggle to live in a way that was pleasant for God. But because of they were bragging about it, they were not pleasing God at all, whom had to close His heart for them and keep His secret hidden.

And, what about us, are we humble? Or do we have something to brag about in front of him? If we do not boast about anything, we can ask ourselves and ask Him what His secret is, what is the precious thing that keeps His heart busy and fills it. Will we then use His confidence to pride ourselves on it or to put ourselves at His service instead? Behold, the thing that fills the Father’s heart is the Son! The Father is showing Him in all His aspects, the one of knowledge and the one of suffering, the one of self-sacrifice and the one of perfect joy, too. Do we persevere in humility? We can hope then that the Father will keep deepening our knowledge of His Son, to the point that we become one with Him. It is Him, the Son, showing us today His life: “Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father”. What is that “everything”? The Father does not have anything but love! All the Father’s love is in the Son, the merciful love and the faithful love, the holy love and the love-tenderness, the generous love and the strong love, the persevering love and the completely-selfless love! If we know the Son like this, we then know the Father as well. We know Him when at least a little bit of His love can guide our thoughts and our actions, too. We will know him from within, because we will have the same holy life He has.

All this is the gift of the Holy Spirit, the interior breath that animates the will of the Father and the Son. That Spirit lives within us and makes us feel alive, as Saint Paul is telling us today. Our mortal bodies are made containers of the divine life, eternal, as to say of the holy and beautiful love of the Father. Jesus concludes His praise for the Father by addressing us to invite us to remain with Him, source of all the wellbeing. He is not ashamed of us, he knows that we “labour and are overburdened”. He also knows what brings tiredness and a feeling of constriction on us, he knows that those come from our sins and from sin always here and active around us. We do not know how to set this right, how to find rest and get back on our feet, free from the constrictions that render us powerless. Exactly for this reason He is calling us. He is life, he is fullness of peace and joy: when we will be beside Him, he will fill us with all His richness! We will accept the invitation. We will go to Jesus: how? We will stop in front of a tabernacle in the silence of an empty church, we will take part in the celebration of the presence of Jesus’ love among us, the same Jesus who offers Himself up – body and blood –, and we will seek His company in the sacrament of His mercy. He will welcome us and will fill us with life, and then he will send us back where we will be ready in our turn to lavish this love on whoever is suffering and is oppressed, whoever knows too well the tiredness coming from the emptiness of the world.