OMELIE / Omelie EN

04/03/2012

04/03/2012 – 2nd Sunday in Lent - B

04/03/2012 – 2nd Sunday in Lent - B

1Reading Gen 22,1-2.9.10-13.15-18 Psalm 115 2Reading Rom 8,31-34 Gospel Mk 9,1-9

The reading that tells us about Abram’s trail is always new. Every time it leaves one on the tips of one’s toes with several questions. Can God ask a father to offer his son by killing him? How can a man accept to do such an obedience? A son who sees himself being sacrificed, can’t he turn against his father? At the end of the story we come to realize that these are all useless questions. Man cannot doubt God’s goodness, nor of his wisdom, not even of his kindness. Our questions come from the sins that reigns in us. It is sin that makes us see God as evil and unjust, make us think that we are better than him. And it is this that we do not see in Abram. His faith is a trusting faith, is letting go to God’s will, as if he knows and wants firmly to believe that what God says and demands is the best for him.

Abram obeys without reasoning, even, without doubting. He argues with that the wisdom of the one who knows that the will of God is far much more superior that to our way of seeing things. To obey is wisdom, to obey is the most secure reasoning, because God does not betray. And so we see Abram preparing his son and the necessary needs for the sacrifice; we accompany them towards the mountain, we listen to the silent dialogue with the son. Above all this we contemplate the satisfaction of God towards his faithful, who remained faithful throughout a fierce trail we can never think off.

Today this Reading is put next to the one from the Gospel that helps us contemplate Jesus on the mountain. He went up to be alone with three of his twelve disciples. This fact makes us thinks that for him this was a very important and delicate moment, that was to be reserved. The mountain, and go up the mountain, makes one remember those stories in the Bible, in which important persons have up in decisive moments in their lives. Among them the prophet Eliajah who goes up the Carmel and mountain Horeb, and Moses on the Sinai, when he received the tablets of the Law, but before all of them, Abram. Jesus on the mountain, accompanied only by three of his disciples, with a listening heart to God, the Father, to receive his light and immerge himself in it. Usually, when Jesus sets himself apart, does so to pray, that is to offer himself to the will of the Father, that by which he loves the world. Here he is, clothed in light. It is a divine light. Even so, light emanates from him and reveals his deep identity. He shares in the divine, he fulfills the love of the Father for men. He is the one whom Moses and Elajah had spoken about and waited for, and here they are to witness for him. And they together with him they are sharing about the fulfillment of the other prophecy, the one which he becomes an image of Abram and Isaak going up the mountain. Isaak on the mountain with father Abram is a prophecy: the fulfilment of this prophecy will be lived by Jesus on that little hill that becomes the highest mountain in all the earth: Calvary!

Jesus, Moses and Eliajah are not a mystery: the disciples could stay and listen, because the Master had already told them of his death and resurrection. And the Father himself listens to all and gave his approval by echoing up the mountain the word Abram had in his heart: “the beloved”. “This is my Son, the beloved”! Jesus is the true Isaack, the sacrificed offerred by humanity, the offer of the one who is not only loved by the Father, but by all men. Jesus is the sacrifice who express the faith and the obedience of all men to God. Not all men are aware, because blind folded by pride and sin. But when this pride and sin will be overcome, therefore they too will be happy for having represented the Son, the beloved. Of this speak Jesus with Moses and Eliajah, and for this he prepares himself with prayer. The disciples have not yet understood, but only had a glimse of the mystery. There is still a word they need to hear: “listen to him”. By obeying they will come to understand.

Let us join them to listen to him. He, as st. Paul says, is the testimony that God loves us. Let us therefore open our ears to hear good his to his words, making out of them a treasure, translating them into real acts of love, of forgiveness, of mercy and charity. Lent is the time which trains us towards that mercy and love that are born in us from listening to the voice of the Lord.