OMELIE / Omelie EN

31 lug 2022

31/07/2022 - 18th Sunday T. O. - Year C

31/07/2022 - 18th Sunday T. O. - Year C

1st reading Qo 1,2; 2,21-23 from Psalm 94 2nd reading Col 3,1-5 9-11 Gospel Lk 12,13-21

Saint Paul is spending time with the faithful people of the community in Colossus very lovingly and wisely. He has noticed that not all those who have been baptized in Jesus’ name have also got to understand the consequences of this great gift from God, they cannot live in the faith which they have joined with their heart and mind: they need to be helped! There are those who think they can continue with their habits full of lies, like thefts, impurities, sexual talk, gossip and other behaviours we know well, because, sadly, they are known to us too. No says the apostle: now that you have committed to Christ Jesus, you will put up a good show for Him with your way of living: you will make sure to show His beauty and His holiness. He has forgiven you, He has died for you, and you can keep on living like you didn’t know Him, like when you were a pagan, like nothing had happened? This would not be good for you either, nay, it would make those who know you despise your Lord too, He who has saved you. From the way you talk, from the way you behave in sexual relationships, from your way to consider worldly things and riches, from your desires, it must become clear that you do not belong to this world anymore, but you belong to God. From all your behaviour must be clear the beauty of that God who is Father for all, also for those who do not know it and do not know Him.

The Christian lives a pure life, internally free from riches, free from accusations and condemnations against others, even to the cost of suffering, because he wants to be a witness: the believer testifies that God loves men, testifies that Jesus has died for them and is waiting for all of them in the resurrection. The Christian is witness to the holiness of God, is the one to show the true God to men, to his brethren and to those who have no idea, but wrong ones, of divinity. We will get used to consider our life as the occasion to glorify God, otherwise we would do everything without joy, as a duty, as slavery, and the effort would weight on us, sometimes intolerably.

Many do not understand why they need to be pure in their behaviours, others do not understand why they need to be honest even when they could get away with it. If we consider our being Christians only as a way to follow one of the many religions or a way to follow some rules, we have not understood anything about the Gospel. We would be like the ones who “store up treasure for themselves, but are not rich in what matters to God”.

In order to believe and be able to love like the Gospel, so like God’s wisdom, we will make fully ours the notion that Jesus is giving us today with the parable of the rich man. This man is not a man of the past, on the contrary, he describes very well each one of us. We are the ones who continue to calculate the possibility of having more, more work, more means, more fun, more travelling, more entertainment. Sounds weird, but we could easily realise we are poor: the man in the parable, once he became rich he realised he did not have big enough storage for his goods, he realised he was... missing out. And he worried about it!

But, Jesus says, he was being silly.

We are silly when we forget to add the presence and the fatherhood of God to our calculations.

We are silly when we forget that the goods of this world will never make us happy, nor will put in a good word for us at the last judgement.

We are silly when we forget that the richness is given us to enrich the world with generous love, to alleviate the sufferings of the poor, to witness that God is thoughtful towards those who do not have anything.

We are silly when we think we own what we hold in our hands, not only managers of it: we do not even know if tomorrow we will still be here. Jesus ends His parable with what we often can see happen at the end of the rich’s life. Richness did not save him from death and will not help him on judgement day.

The Ecclesiastes is telling the truth when he says that everything is vanity, everything is a trick, everything is an illusion. The only reality is God, and the only goal of our life is therefore to be part of His.

Let’s us be even more interested in the apostle’s Paul advice, who is inviting us to be focused on the things of above, not to let ourselves be influenced by the worldly things. All our life will be luminous, we will not tell lies and cheat our brethren, but we will help everyone to enjoy the truth of the Father’s love!