EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

ü  The first reading and the Gospel invite us to trust in God.  

ü  Both sacred authors choose images of a tenderness and beauty  

ü  After listening during two Sundays the demands of the Law, now Jesus invites us to rest trustfully in the hands of the Father that, not only makes rain fall and sun rise on good and bad, but he also takes care of all his creatures even the flowers and the birds.   

FIRST READING   Is 49:14-15

v  Isaiah presents Zion, the holy city, as a woman who complains that “her Lord” has forgotten her, has abandoned her. 

v  And th Lord answers her using an image so tender that she will not doubt anymore about the love of her God.   

v  The tender love of a mother is what almost all of us have for sure in the first years of our life and throughout of our life.   

v  In her arms the baby  feels secure and at peace, they reassure him  or her that they are not abandoned.   

v  The author says that such is the love of God for all of us. 

v  And he adds something else to give us full peace and security, and in this way conquer our love: Even if a mother could forget and abandon the baby she has conceived in her womb I will never forget you, never abandon you.   

v  We need to hear this words, but more than hear we need to believe them and abandon ourselves in the arms of our God like a baby in her mother’s arms. 

v  God is described in different ways in the different books of Scripture, especially like a father, but also as a mother. From him we, human beings, have learned to be father and mother, we have received from him the capacity to have love and tenderness.    

RESPONSORIAL PSALM  62: 2-3. 6-7. 8-9

Rest in God alone, my soul 

Only in God is my soul at rest

From him comes my salvation

He only is  my rock and  my salvation

My stronghold, I shall not be disturbed at all.

 

Only in God be at rest my soul

For from him comes my hope

He only is my rock and my salvation

My stronghold I shall not be disturbed.

 

With God is my safety and my glory

He is the rock of my strength: my refuge is in God

Trust in him at all times, O my people

Pour out your hearts before him

      This psalm has the same tone as the first reading and the Gospel that we will see. 

      God is hope, salvation, refuge, saving rock. 

      There is an invitation to trust, to pour out our soul before God

      We all are in need of pour out our heart in someone, the sacred author says that we can do that with God since he is our refuge.   

GOSPEL , Mt 6:24-34

Ø  Today we will rea done of the most beautiful pages of Scripture

Ø  In the first reading Isaiah invited us to trust, and he uses the tender image of a mother.   

Ø  Matthew takes us by hand and invites us to look the creation who surrounds us with all its beauty, and he helps us to realize what God is doing, and that maybe we have given for granted.   

Ø  In the past Sundays Matthew presented Jesus teaching and unfolding the deep  truth and demands  of the Law  

Ø  Today he says to us that we cannot serve two masters God and money. Maybe we could rephrase this saying that we cannot serve God in large case and god in small case, that is to say a false god an idol,   

Ø  After that Matthew invites us not to be worried and to trust  

o   He invites us to look at our life with all its needs, he mentions only some basic ones and then he asks us, what is more important life or food o clothing…. 

o   The birds do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, but the Father feeds them.  

o   The flowers of the field, he does not say the flowers that we use to decorate our churches, banquets…, no, but those flowers that we step on, those we do not pay attention to, and are not object of our profit.   

o   Jesus invites us to look at them and see their beauty, he makes us realice that these flowers do not weave but they dress up better than Solomon, because the Father clothes them.   

o   If God feeds the birds and clothes the flowers, will he not do much more for us

o   And Jesus, as he asks us this question says also “men and women of little faith.   

o   Do not worry for tomorrow, when it comes it will bring its own worries but it will bring  also the presence of God in our life.   

Ø  This reading is not an invitation to do nothing, but to trust.   

Ø  Work is not only to cover our needs, work is a right of the human being called to be co-creator with his God.   

Ø  Through our work we are called to develop this gift that we have received, to be co-creators, to transform the creation that God has begun and that now he continues creating with our cooperation.  

Ø  Thus this reading is an invitation to work, to provide, to do whatever is needed, but knowing that there is  a Father who takes care of us with the tender love of a mother.   

Ø  There is another theme, that probably we will share some other day, is the sin of those who change  the human being from co-creator into an instrument of production, of profit, not respecting the dignity given to them by God.  The dignity to be the image of the creator and thus with the capacity to transform creation, and not to be used as an object.      

CLARETIAN CORNER

 

 After some months, that I wrote to Archbishop Claret, this most Rev. MGR. was pleased to answer my letter saying that we could go already, that we would be most welcome. That, by the moment, he could not be able to found a monastery that we could live of our work and he promised all his protection as he was sure that all our activities would be pleasing to God.

 So, we ought to sail as soon as possible – I think he said on October of that year. On the “Teresa Cubana” whose captain was for him, totally trustworthy and he would bring us with much care. I received this letter as an express call of God because, since His divine majesty had assured me that this holy man would give me a hand to found the first house of the order, I did not harbor the least doubt that this New World was the place where God our Lord  had determined to start His work. In spite of the many difficulties of a travel so frightful for a woman, nothing intimidated me always trusting in the all powerful grace of God to whom everything is subject, the earth as well as the sea.

This letter calmed all the anxiety with which the whole hell had tormented me since I left my beloved enclosure until this moment, because since this good servant of God delayed his answer so much I thought: “Who knows if this step has been permitted to be mistaken as a punishment for my sins? So, all my doubts being banished, and I myself certified of the Divine will, I did not think of anything  but to make plans for the long trip. Venerable Maria Antonia Paris, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, 126-127

Toward the beginning of May, 1849, I left the Islands. The bishop wanted to give me a new hat and coat, but I wouldn't hear of it. All I took away with me were five big rips in my old coat, which I got from the crowds that always used to press about me as I went from town to town. I spent 15 months in those islands and worked every day, with God's help. I had no appetite whatsoever, and I underwent a few trials, but I did it all gladly because I knew that it was the will of the Lord and the Blessed Virgin Mary, and, furthermore, because so many souls were converted and saved.

My God, how good you are! What unexpected means you use to convert sinners. The worldly sought to discredit me in Catalonia, and yet this was the very thing you took advantage of to send me to the Canary Islands.  Thus you freed me from the prison that was planned for me and took me to those islands to pasture those sheep of your heavenly Father's flock, for whom I would gladly have laid down my life to see them living the life of grace. Blessed be your love and the great providence you have always shown me. Now and forever I shall sing your eternal mercies. Amen. Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 486-87.