OMELIE / Omelie EN

14 lug 2019

14/07/2019 – 15th Sunday in O. T. - C

14/07/2019 – 15^th Sunday in O. T. - C

Reading 1 DT 30,10-14 * Psalm 18 * Reading 2 COL 1,15-20 * Gospel LK 10,25-37

“You would heed the voice of the Lord, your God, and keep his commandments…; when you return to the Lord, your God, with all your heart and all your soul”! This is how Moses addressed the people. The words with all your heart and all your soul are still actual to indicate the measure of the believers' love towards their God: love, if it is true, it is always complete, invests everything of its own, otherwise it is not love! We cannot certainly possibly live a perfect love towards God: our love will always be somehow limited by the selfishness we carry inside us even without knowing. We can however keep alive the desire and the will for perfect love, nay, we keep alive our unity with Jesus: in Him dwells “all the fullness”, even fullness of love for the Father! We keep ourselves united to Jesus, the image of the invisible God, whose shed blood is the symbol of perfect love both for God and for us men!

United with Jesus we find the courage to begin walking the way of obedience to God’s commandments, and with Him these will not be unbearable to us, on the contrary, they will be our pride. God’s commands express wisdom, bring – if kept – true peace, communion and harmony among men and in the whole creation. The answer that Jesus gives to the scholar of the law, who does not know how to love his neighbour, because he is afraid there are more of them than the people already considered worthy of love, let us see the beauty and usefulness of the divine commands.

Let us think of the parable Jesus told in order to answer the scribe's question.

He is talking about a man that is going from Jerusalem to Jericho: this is the opposite direction to the one Jesus is taking, who goes from Jericho to Jerusalem, where He will offer His life to the Father.

Whoever instead is leaving, is he also refusing to donate his life? Is this the reason why he meets robbers, that is to say who ruins men's life with all his plans? He is left stripped of everything, wounded, without the possibility to save himself. The same way is taken by the priest of the temple and the Levite: they are well respected people, involved socially and from a religious point of view, but they are not of any help to the suffering man. Men, even those you would expect solidarity from, are not able to help; in fact, they are all going down the path driving away from self-denial, down the path followed by those who are trying to save themselves.

If, when you are suffering, you are counting on the man, you will be disappointed. Who will be able to help you if you find yourself wounded and helpless? Whoever is going to Jerusalem will help you: whoever wants to live for the Father, even to the cost of dying! This is Jesus! The one going up to Jerusalem does not think of himself, he is able to stop, bend over, understand the needs, spend from his own pockets, to give you his time and his energies. Jesus calls him Samaritan: as to say someone no one takes into account, judged and rejected by everyone, even considered without faith. He had been called that way exactly, as an offense.

Jesus describes the Samaritan's compassion, that is to say his compassion as Child of God, using twelve different actions. Love towards the neighbours coming from the one that is ready to give his life to God is a full and perfect love, a true love. Jesus loves the Father with all His heart, all His mind and all His energies: this is why He is able to “see” the man beaten up by the devil and to take care of him. He is able to involve others in His work of salvation, giving them the right tools. He entrusts the suffering man to the innkeeper giving him two silver coins, so both what is needed to continue the healing process and the reward! Someone might say that the two silver coins are... God’s love and the neighbours’ love! This is what enables Jesus' co-operators to be useful to the man wounded by the Enemy!

Go and do likewise, Jesus concludes. Now then is my turn, it is my turn to realise if someone has fallen under the blows and the tricks of the Enemy, to get close, bend over him and carry him to the inn, to someone that will continue loving him better than me, in a more qualified way. I will help my brethren in the temptations, I will bring them to those who can love them properly, without assuming I will be able to save them by myself. I will give all my love to God, the necessary time to my brother, who I will direct to the Church, the inn devised and prepared by Jesus for all men!

In the Church He is always present, the Lord, who with His oil and His wine can heal the pain and every wound. We will be united with Him, steadfast in the Church, to enjoy and receive the light coming from His eyes and the tenderness coming from His hands, so we can use our own eyes and our own hands for Him!