The
liturgy of the Church continues to put before our eyes the teachings of Jesus
that Luke left for us in his Gospel. Today Jesus teaches us a lesson which may
help us in our society: the use of
riches.
FIRST READING - PROPHET AMOS
Ø
This prophet lived during the VIII BC. He was born in the Southern Kingdom, Judah; but the
Lord called him to do his ministry as a prophet in the Northern Kingdom.
Ø
He has been
called the prophet of the justice of God.
Ø
Justice as the
Scripture understands it, not in the way our modern states understand it. We
say that justice is to give to each one what is his or hers. We also say that
justice is to abide the law.
Ø
But for the
people of the Bible, justice has to do with human relationships and also later
on with human and divine relationships.
Ø
It has to do with
the mercy and the generosity that we
discover so abundantly and surprisingly in the relationship of God with
us.
Ø
The just deeds of
God are acts of liberation of his people from slavery.
Ø
Jesus has
manifested to us in a very clear and surprising way this justice of God, in the
fact that the Son of God personally has
come to live among us in order to make us just, with the justice of God,
liberating us from the greatest of the slaveries: sin.
Ø
Thus we may truly
say that the book of Amos is about justice, not the justice of God but the lack
of justice of the people.
Amos 8:4-7
ü
Amos describes
the lie, the lack of truth in the behavior of those who accumulate riches, to
enjoy them without worrying about those less fortunate.
ü
He describes
persons who "abide" the law, with a fake repose, but God sees something else, he sees the lack
of truth of his creature, those persons
rest because they are constraint to do it, but while they do nothing
apparently, they are planning their businesses.
ü
They not only
plan their business, they also think how they will cheat, take advantage and trick those more vulnerable.
ü
The prophet Amos,
who defended strongly the rights of all, puts in the mouth of God a sentence
which terrifies us, if we take it seriously, "never will I forget a thing they have done!"
ü
It does not
frighten us, that God who "forgets and erases" all the sins we have
committed, says that he will never forget the unjustice that we do to our
brothers and sisters?
ü
What will he say
to our generation, to our society, in which millions of our brothers and
sisters die from lack of what is most essential for the human life, while we
waste money and possessions buying worthless things and making devices to kill?
ü
Each one of us will give his or her own answer
to that question.
ü
I think that this
is the purpose to choose these readings for the liturgy
RESPONSORIAL PSALM Ps
113 PRAISE THE LORD WHO LIFTS UP THE
POOR.
Praise, you servants of the Lord
praise the name of the Lord
blessed be the name of the Lord
both now and forever.
High above all nations is the Lord
above the heavens is his glory
who is like the Lord, our God, who is enthroned on
high
and looks upon the heavens and the earth below?
He raises up the lowly from the dust
from the dunghill he lifts up the poor
to seat them with princes
with the princes of his own
people.
v
This psalm
describes the works of the power of God, who bends towards the needy, the
poorest, thus showing his mercy and justice.
GOSPEL Lk 16:1-3
This is a very
interesting parable of Jesus.
It describes the
situation of an employee, one who works for a salary, a steward to whom the
master asks him to give an account of his administration, before he is fired
from his job.
The reason to
fire him is that he has been dishonest, he has not been faithful to his master,
but has used his position for his own benefit, cheating.
Let us look more
closely to the situation of that man:
·
On one hand we
realize that the behavior of this man is
as dishonest as the behavior of those men described in the first reading. His
life is a lie. He has the appearance of
honesty and fidelity, while the truth is that he is dishonest and a
liar.
·
On the other hand
we realize also that in some way he is able to be honest sometimes. He says the
truth about himself: he cannot work because he has never worked, he is not able
to beg, to ask for help, but he finds the way. He will lower the debts of all
the debtors of his master. In this way he will continue to be in charge, he
will not be subjected to them, because he knows that they are also dishonest,
as much as he is. In a word he is
blackmailing them.
Sometimes as I meditate
on the situation of injustice in which we live in our societies, it seems to me
that it is very similar to what the parable explains to us:
§
Those who
"sell" to us, they really "buy" us instead, lowering the
prices and giving two for one
§
Then our greed
makes us blind and we do not see anymore
the injustice around us.
§
Thus we do not
denounce because if we do so, it we will be left without the benefits that they
offer to us.
Jesus continues
saying that the "children of the world", world understood as unjust
society, are more prudent than those who try to live according to the values of
the Kingdom.
Jesus continues
saying that we use what the unjust riches produce to help others, and in so doing we will transform them in just
riches if we share them with those less
fortunate than us, with our employees ...
Something very
interesting is that riches are presented as something we do not own we only are
the stewards of it.
And this is the
truth, none of us owns the riches, we only administer them. The call here is to
administer with the justice of God, which is the same as the truth of God.
Strong message,
this one, it knocks at the door of our heart strongly inviting us to live in
the truth of God, in his justice which is made of mercy.
SECOND LETTER 1 Tm 2:1-8
v The author of this letter invites us to personal and
community prayer
v A prayer with external movements.
v A prayer for those who govern us
v And not only pray for them for their own good
v But also for the good of all, so that we will be able
to live in peace.
v The reason for this is the only mediator that we have,
Christ Jesus who wants to save us.
v
This second
reading has something in common with the other two readings: peace and
justice.
I was not contented at all with
this response, rather I complained to my confessor for not having forced him to
answer if I would profess or not because only with that, would I be tranquil
since I was not eager to go or to remain, even though not to make my profession
was tearing my soul because I had been ardently desiring it not only from my
ten years of novitiate but since I had the use of reason. But, as soon as this
saint would have said that to leave the convent could be for the glory of God
(which was to divide my soul) I would have conformed myself to God’s will for,
since God our Lord made me understand the holiness of that soul and the gifts
of grace entrusted to him by his divine majesty, my confidence in him was so
great that I seemed to hear God’s voice through his. But our Lord was not
pleased to give this consolation: he preferred me to drink the chalice up to
the last drop. Venerable María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian
Missionary Sisters. Autobiography 97.
The world has always striven to hinder and persecute me,
but our Lord has taken care of me and frustrated all its evil designs. During
the month of August, 1847, a number of bands of men called "The Early
Risers" began to spring up all over Catalonia. The
newspapers put it out that the leaders of these groups would do nothing without
consulting Father Claret first. This was only a move of theirs to discredit my
name and to invent some pretext for apprehending me and putting an end to my
preaching. But God our Lord arranged matters so as to snatch me from their
clutches. He sent me to preach in the Canary Islands, as I shall now relate. Saint
Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters. Autobiography
477.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CLARET, Antonio María Claret, Autobiografía.
JENSEN,
Joseph. Ethical Dimension of the Prophets. Collegeville, Minnesota 2006.
PAGOLA,
José A. Following in the Footsteps of
Jesus. Meditations on the Gospels for Year C.
PARIS, María Antonia, Autobiografía
RAVASI, Gianfranco, Según
las Escrituras, Año C.
SCHÖKEL, Luis Alonso, Comentario a La Biblia de nuestro Pueblo.
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