OMELIE / Omelie EN

02 set 2018

02/09/2018  22nd Sunday in O. T. - B

02/09/2018  22^nd Sunday in O. T. - B 

Reading 1, DT 4,1-2.6-8 * Psalm 14 * Reading 2, JAS 1,17-18.21-27 * Gospel, MK 7,1-8.14-15.21-23

The people of Israel is a people that is proud of itself, and it has a good reason for it: there is no other people with laws so wise and just. No other people can summarise its laws in ten sentences. No other people has laws that can be defined as divine, regulating the relationship between man and God and among the men. No other people has laws which you can understand the deep truth of in such an immediate way. No other people has laws so equal for everybody, poor and rich, subjects and rulers, young people and old people. These laws make the people of Israel superior to other peoples. However, woe to it if it forgets the One who gave them to it and if it contents itself of having them, without living them every day. It needs not to forget them, it needs not to make up others in order to feel proud of itself, instead of being obedient, humbly obedient. Its pride for how much God has done for it needs to become humility and meekness and desire of passing on its own wisdom to the other peoples too.

Moses wants to make the people aware of the great task that it has for the entire world: all the peoples will know their God, they will admire him and they will desire him. The obedience of the people is a missionary action towards the rest of the world, is the action that glorifies the God who has chosen it exactly for this reason!

It is not like that the behavior and the mind of the Pharisees and the scribes that approach Jesus. They, in order to look like they are better than others, have added rules over rules to the great commandments of God. All these rules make the man proud of himself and not of his God any more, and furthermore make people forget of the main commandments of the Lord. His commandments are wise and rich in life for whoever keeps them; every addition on men’s part, even taking into account their good intention, has the risk to draw the attention away from the essential, to expend the energies for things of no value, and above all to create confusion: someone in fact could think that those rules have been given by God, and therefore could be tempted to judge God as fussy, invasive and inopportune! The Pharisees have been keeping, and they keep, many rules regarding the way to eat: to wash themselves and wash everything that they use in a certain way, even to the cost of being offensive towards people with a different perception, even to the cost to take away time from their brothers’ necessities and forget to keep watch over their own feelings and interior reactions. “Hear me, all of you, and understand”: Jesus wants us to go back to the essential. Certainly, when we gather around a table, that is to say when we enjoy each other’s company, we need to be clean. But, what kind of cleanliness is more important? That of the hands or that of the heart? Who on earth can stay at the table with someone slandering other people, or complaining of everything, or following impure desires to the point of dressing in an unbecoming and indecent way, or that prides himself of the gifts that have been given to him, or planning some mischief, or twisting everything to his own advantage, or taking the liberty to insult somebody? Jesus is making a long list of vices and sins, of which is necessary to get rid of, instead of that little dirt that could be stuck to our hands or to our cutlery. It would be great if we could obey him! Whoever obeys him leaves happily and joyfully.

The way to live a life pure, or purified, exists: St James is showing it to us. “Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls”. God’s word, kept in your heart, loved and lived, this is the way to our purification! The centre of this word is love, the attention to the necessities of the people that are weaker, of whom are forgotten by everybody, the love that does not bond us to the pagan and selfish habits of whoever is living close to us! The man is God’s likeness we need to honor, serve and love! This love we ask for in the prayer, because is a gift that comes  “from above, coming down from the Father of lights”! With humility I unite myself to my brothers in this prayer. And with humility I ask some of my brothers to help me by telling me clearly if he sees in me some behavior or thought or action in contradiction with Jesus’ word! His word is the way of life: he gives it to us “that you may live, and may enter in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you”. We can enjoy also the promise of the psalm: “Whoever does these things shall never be disturbed”!

Our Lord Jesus, do not ever stop talking to my heart: your word is source of life!