OMELIE / Omelie EN

14 ago 2022

14/08/2022 – 20th Sunday in O. T. – year C

14/08/2022 – 20^th Sunday in O. T. – year C

Reading 1 JER 38,4-6.8-10 Psalm 39 Reading 2 HEB 12,1-4 Gospel LK 12,49-57

“Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus”! It is the recommendation we are given today. Our eyes must be on Jesus while we progress on the path, a difficult journey, because it is always burdened by the sin, ours and our brethren’s, without mentioning the entire world’s. Every day we are kept busy by work, relationships with others, the changings in our health, worries of different nature. All these things confuse us and scatter us: we struggle to answer always clearly to the questions which resurface again in quiet times: why am I here? What is the meaning of my fretting? Where am I going?

“Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus”: this gaze gives us support, this gaze finds the answers to all our questions. Jesus is “the leader and perfecter of faith”: the faith is the gift we need so our life can be complete, and it is really our faith the thing which needs always Jesus. By keeping our eyes focused on Him, we are impressed particularly by the suffering He has endured without complaining, nay, even looking forward to it. He has not looked forward to it as if it was something good, but because He knew that His obedience to the Father needed to go down this path too. He knew that it was His duty to fulfill all the prophecies, the ones uttered and lived by the prophets.

We know above all about Isaiah’s prophecies, which tell about the sufferings of God’s servant who has to die for our iniquities. Jeremiah instead at different times has been a prophet by living his very sufferings. The first reading is showing us exactly one of the times in which he had been persecuted. God’s Word he had to proclaim was going against the diplomatic and economical principles of the great people of the city of Jerusalem. This is why he had been put in a prison where, if one of the King’s servants hadn’t spoken in his favour, he would have died of starvation and deprivation.

Jesus knows these prophecies and knows he needs to be the one to fulfill them. This is why he says: “There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished”. He thinks of the baptism as a passage through the terrible suffering of the rejection and violent death. He knows it has to happen, and waiting makes Him almost restless. That time will be a difficult hour, like the spreading of a purifying fire. His death will be the judgment over the world, a judgment which is likened to a fire: who is with Him will see the light, the joy and peace, like the good thief, while who will be ashamed of Him or will despise Him will meet the fate of the rich man among the flames.

Who welcomes Jesus as his saviour will be saved, who will want to save himself using religious practices and rites or with their so called goodness, will remain where he is, in the condition of those who are not saved, like the world. Everyone will have to take a stand in front of Him: and this is not going to be ever easy, because even in their own house there will be misunderstandings and hostility.

So the Christian will take part in Jesus’ mission to save the world with the passion and death, and walks through the fire Jesus’ Himself has kindled on earth. Jesus is inviting us to watch out, to be able to make up our mind regarding the times in which we live. Our days too are the days of His fire and His baptism. Our faith is publicly despised and the faithful are publicly prevented to show themselves as Jesus’ disciples. If they do so, they can understand right away Jeremiah’s situation and the Lord’s.

Let us prepare ourselves to suffer for the faith, and we prepare ourselves by living the unity with our brothers and sisters, by sharing the prayer and the love for God’s Word, always keeping our eyes bolted on Jesus!