OMELIE / Omelie EN

03 lug 2022

03/07/2022 – 14th Sunday in O. T. - year C

03/07/2022 – 14^th Sunday in O. T. - year C

Reading 1 IS 66,10-14 Psalm 65 Reading 2 GAL 6,14-18 Gospel LK 10,1-12.17-20

The first reading is a song of joy, an invitation to rejoice because of the promises God makes to His people. The prophet Isaiah improves the standing of his people which is experiencing exile and slavery, with all the suffering these conditions entail. It is good news, a “gospel” in the true meaning of the word. Within grasp are the most beautiful rewards with the prospect of a future of peace, communion and serenity.

This page prepares the events in the Gospel, when we are looking at those promises coming true. In fact, Jesus is the one fulfilling the Word of God. This time He is not going around, but He sends His disciples, and He chooses 72 of them nonetheless! This number reminds us the fact that is Jesus the Scriptures are fulfilled. He is the true Moses, the true guide of God’s people, the guide entrusted with the task to accompany towards the final destination. Moses had asked for the help of 72 elders for the the task of keeping the people United and teach it to obey God’s commandments. Jesus asks for the help of 72 disciples to announce the gospel, or better to prepare the hearts to meet Him personally. Now that John the Baptist is not there anymore, others are entrusted with the task to make known the Lord’s arrival. The fact that those sent are a big number let’s us see that the Lord wants to charge the entire Church with this duty. However, He wants to meet every person directly, because He is the only saviour.

The disciples receive the instructions for the task given to them. The first recommendation is about keeping a praying practice. If they will be able to announce the kingdom, it is God’s gift. If anyone else will join for the same purpose, it is the Father’s gift. They must not looking away from the Father, nor being proud of themselves and their role. They are God’s gift too for the men they tell about Jesus’s presence to, the Son of God. Prayer and humility need to be their cloak.

Then they will need to be everywhere “like lambs among wolves”. Jesus knows they will encounter difficulties and hatred, contempt and persecution. He does not let Himself be discouraged by this hard and difficult reality: He sends them anyway. The fruit of their mission is more precious than their wellbeing and even than their personal safety. “Like lambs among wolves”: we cannot ever forget this expression of Jesus’s. It is true not only for the missionaries, but also for each one of us. We are all sent by Jesus to live and give out His love and His Word. We will do it with meekness, without changing the way we are. We are united to Him, God’s lamb come to take away the sin from the world. United to Him we carry too the weight of everyone’s sin, not only of ours. Our strength will be our union with Him, Jesus: we do not need material things. It is not being provided with everything that attracts men’s hearts to Jesus, but our bearing witness that only the Lord fills our heart and nothing else gives us joy and nothing else is on our mind.

The arrival of Jesus is prepared both by announcing His kingdom and by acting in a loving way towards the weakest and most neglected people, in particular towards the sick. Jesus’s disciples will not be afraid of touching them, like those who are worried they will become impure. Love for men is above every fear. Another recommendation is not to waste any time: if someone does not want to listen and is not interested in His coming, we do not have to water down the message in order to have Him welcomed anyway. You will need to leave those people on their own, entrusting them to God’s patience.

And if someone instead welcomes the disciples’ words, they will not boast about it, nor they will become proud, nor they will stop to consider the results of their work. He belongs to God. They will enjoy always and only the Father’s love for them: : “Rejoice because your names are written in heaven!”.

Saint Paul is giving us an example of this joy while writing to the Galatians: he is taking pride in being disciple of Jesus crucified, in suffering with Him, in being like Him also in being rejected and judged by men. United to Jesus he experiences a new life, different. With Him he has become a new creation, who does not need merits earned through his own efforts, because he can count on the merits of Jesus’s cross!

By welcoming the Lord’s invitation to rejoice in the Father’s love, we will say with the Psalm:

Accogliendo l’invito del Signore a rallegrarci dell’amore del Padre, diremo col salmista:

«How tremendous are your deeds! Let all on earth worship and sing praise to you, sing praise to your name.

Come and see the works of God, … let us rejoice in him!