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OMELIE / Omelie EN

17 ott 2021
17/10/2021 – 29th Sunday in O.T. - year B

17/10/2021 – 29th Sunday in O.T. - year B

Reading 1 IS 53,2-3.10-11 Psalm 32/33 Reading 2 HEB 4,14-16 Gospel MK 10,35-45

Let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help”. This is how the letter to the Hebrews is encouraging and advising us to trust Jesus: He is not indifferent to our condition of suffering sinners, on the contrary, He has lived through our life with all the challenges it is full of, obviously “yet without sin”, and so He has demonstrated His solidarity with us.

Jesus’ suffering is not a sign of weakness, but an occasion for Him to gain our sympathy, even more, our full trust. We are suffering because of our sins, and Jesus, even if He was not a sinner, has taken upon Himself the weight of our wickedness: this is why the biggest share of the punishment we deserve has befallen Him. This is why we now look at Him carefully and with a feeling of friendship and gratitude. His suffering does not scandalise us at all, is not pushing us away, but on the contrary is attracting us to love Him.

He knew from the sacred Scriptures that He would have to offer Himself to die as a sacrifice in order to fulfill the Father’s will to save men. When the two sons of Zebedee put forward their desire, Jesus has understood immediately that they had forgotten what the true role of the Messiah was, or they had never understood it. They thought to be seated at the Lord’s side meant to be in a place of honour and power, as it was for those who were seated next to Herod. They understood the kingdom of God in the same way as the earthly and worldly kingdoms.

Jesus does not despise their desire to be close to Him, He enjoys it, but He is disappointed they think being with Him means fulfilling ambitions and dreams of human vainglory. So all the other apostles were thinking and desiring too, and the same, often, we think too.

The Lord’s answer to the Twelve is a great gift. He assures them that is not God’s will for us that we imitate or envy the leaders of the nations: they are looking after their interests, even if that means ruling by oppressing and making their subjects suffer, commanding and getting richer at their pleasure. We instead, wanting to be children of God, will desire the typical greatness of God. God is great because He loves, because He takes care of the little and the weak, because He wants us to be all children of His, and brothers devoted to their brothers' good.

We will be great when our life will become a gift, when we will serve the true good of those who are suffering and are looking for eternal life. We will imitate the Son of God and the Son of man: He has avoided the place of command and has offered to free everyone from the punishment for their sin. We will drink the chalice of His suffering and we will be baptized too in blood, like Him.

We, members of His Church, will continue to offer our life for the salvation of everyone: we will take part in this way in His mission, to show and let everyone enjoy the Father’s love, above all those who still do not know they are loved by Him.

We too will fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy, which says: “my servant shall justify many”. The latter is obviously Jesus, but He owns us, we are His limbs, we live the justice and the service with Him and like Him, so we will take part too in the justification of “many”. Is it not maybe this your deepest desire? We will therefore abandon our desires of vainglory, the attempts to shine and be admired, and we will let grow in us the humility while trying to remain hidden.