XXV SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – CYCLE B – 2018
Last Sunday Jesus spoke to his disciples about his future
sufferings, and invited us to take our cross and follow him.
Today he teaches us another important lesson about the
conditions to follow him, the meaning of taking our cross, the need to be
humble, to serve with our own life.
The first reading and the psalm have always the same theme,
but today they make a very especial unity. The reading tells us what the
sinners are plotting against the just and the psalm is the prayer of the just
asking God to protect him/her.
LIBRO DE LA SABIDURÍA
Ø The book of Wisdom was written at the
beginning of the last century before Christ.
Ø It is probably the last Old Testament
Book to be written.
Ø The author is identified as Solomon
to give added stature to the book.
Ø The author is a Jew fully acquainted
with the Hellenistic culture
Ø He knows the Greek Philosophy. His anthropology is more Greek than Jewish.
He knows the teachings of the Greek, man is composed of soul and body.
Ø The human being is immortal, but this
immortality is due not to the soul but to justice and righteousness.
Ø Righteousness or justice, being God’s
attribute is immortal.
Ø To live a just life is to participate
of this eternal quality of God.
FIRST READING –
Wisdom 2:12.17-20
Ø The wicked are against the just
because his actions and his words denouncing them, their evil actions, make
them angry.
Ø He reproaches them:
o
Because
they transgress the law. Maybe they are teachers of the law who should know
better, but so many times, the law is a means to oppress those they should be
serving.
o
Because
they behave in a way, which is contrary to what they have been told in their
formation,
o
Because
they are not responding to their call.
Ø The wicked want to see whether the
words and the works of the just are true
Ø If he considers himself the son of
God, let us see what happens when we mistreat him, we put him to the test. Will
he keep being faithful? Will God defend him as he hopes and says?
Ø If, we did not know that this reading
is taken from the Old Testament, we could think that it is the enemies of Jesus
who are speaking.
Ø In a sense this is true, we have
always heard that the Old Testament is about Jesus. This does not mean that the
authors knew about Jesus, but because, being God who inspires the sacred writers
the messages have different levels of revelation. The sacred authors speak of
situations of their own time, as time goes on, and we reach the time of Jesus,
the church discovers the silent presence of Jesus in Scripture.
RESPONSORIAL
PSALM: Ps
54: 3-4.5.6-8
ü R. The Lord upholds my life.
O God, by your name save me,
and by your might defend my cause.
O God, hear my prayer;
hearken to the words of my mouth.
R. The Lord upholds my life.
For the haughty men have risen up against me,
the ruthless seek my life;
they set not God before their eyes.
R. The Lord upholds my life.
Behold, God is my helper;
the Lord sustains my life.
Freely will I offer you sacrifice;
I will praise your name, O LORD, for its goodness.
R. The Lord upholds my life.
O God, by your name save me,
and by your might defend my cause.
O God, hear my prayer;
hearken to the words of my mouth.
R. The Lord upholds my life.
For the haughty men have risen up against me,
the ruthless seek my life;
they set not God before their eyes.
R. The Lord upholds my life.
Behold, God is my helper;
the Lord sustains my life.
Freely will I offer you sacrifice;
I will praise your name, O LORD, for its goodness.
R. The Lord upholds my life.
ü This psalm tells about the conviction
of he who trusts unconditionally in the love and goodness of God the
Father.
ü The man who shares with us his trust
in God, knows that there are some who want to do wrong to him.
ü But he trusts and hopes in the help
of his God.
ü And as a consequence of this love he
plans to offer to God a sacrifice, and offering of thanksgiving because God has
been good to him.
ü
What
a beautiful psalm! Are these our feelings? Is this our trust?
GOSPEL Mk 9:30-37
v Jesus goes with his disciples from
the Decapolis to Caesarea of Philippi.
v This city is at the foot of Mount
Hermon, near to the place where the Jordan River begins, and it is very close
to the border between Israel and Syria.
v From there Jesus begins to travel
around Galilee, and Mark tells us something interesting, he did not want anyone
to know.
v On the road he tells them, for the
second time, about his future passion, his sufferings.
v Mark says that they did not
understand what he was telling them.
v Certainly, they did not understand,
because if they had understood, they would not have discussed among themselves,
about who was the greatest of all.
v When they are at home Jesus asks them
what they were discussing on the way.
v But they do not want to speak about
it, in some way, they know that their Teacher does not agree with their ambitions.
v With love and patience, Jesus sits
down and speaks to them, to help them understand what it does it means, to be his disciple.
v And using their same discussion he
began to say:
o
If
anyone wishes to be the first,he shall be the last of all, the servant of
all.
o
He
does not tell them that it is wrong to wish to be the first, what is wrong is
their interpretation of being the first.
o
The
first will have to be the last, the servant of all.
o
To
make this lesson clearer Jesus takes a child, and puts him in the center.
o
Why
a child? Probably because a child in that society was the last of all. A child
did not have a legal status, no voice, he did not count. His existence was always related to an adult:
parents, owners. They could make him work or do whatever they
wanted with and to him.
o
What
a good image to help us understand Jesus mind, he wants us to be servants and
not masters, this is the only way to be his disciple.
o
The
consequences are clear, but it frightens us, if we have not reached there, if
serving in this way is not a real part of our life, if we continue to consider
ourselves superiors to others because we go to church and “fulfill” what is
prescribed, we have not even started the first steps in the following of
Jesus, no matter how long we have been
part of the church.
o
Jesus
gives us one of the most beautiful and, at the same time challenging lessons, we
are called to be like him, that, being God like the Father and the Holy Spirit
has made himself servant of all, he has become nothing, he has put himself into
our hands.
o
But
as human beings, do not have any power over Him, we may want to make him
disappear from our world, but he will continue to be always with us because he
lives forever, because he is God.
o
Last
Sunday Jesus asked us: who do you say that I am? Who am I for you? Today he
asks us: do you understand what it means to serve as I serve? And, he asks us
something else: Are you ready and willing to follow me as I am showing
you?
SECOND
READING Jas 3:16-4,3
In his letter James makes a beautiful reflection, which will
help us to live up to the invitation, Jesus
makes to us in the Gospel.
·
Disorder
comes from jealousy and selfish ambition.
·
On
the contrary the wisdom, which comes from above, from God produces other fruits,
·
And
James describes those fruits with words, which make us desire to live in such a
society.
·
This
is the litany he presents of this way of living: peace, goodness, mercy, good
fruits and sincerity.
·
He
insists on peace as a fruit of this kind of life.
·
He
asks us: where do wars come from?
·
They
come from our evil desires, which we cannot satisfy: we want to possess for the
wrong reasons, and we do not get it, and thus we kill. Remember that we can
kill in many different ways. We may kill taking the life of someone, but we may
kill also destroying his or her reputation, his/her feelings.
·
James
ends saying that we ask and we do not get what we ask, because we ask for the wrong reasons, because
we ask moved by our selfishness.
·
In
our daily life, do we cultivate and promote peace or division among ourselves,
in our families, in our faith community, at work…?
·
This
coming Sunday the Lord, through the liturgy of the Church invites us to peace,
joy, and happiness. Are we going to follow him?
CLARETIAN CORNER
|
I am sorry in my soul for the suffering of Your Excellency, I would
like to alleviate it, thus I have thought about a means, that seems easy to my
short understanding; Your Excellency will judge if it is possible. If Rev.
Caixal can accept the foundation in his diocese, we may buy a building, in the
town he considers appropriate for the House of Teaching (which in many places
are very much needed,) in this way Your Excellency will already have the place where we have to
go, thus point out the document in that direction, as you say in your letter.
The Nuncio and the Minister will not
care whether it is here or there, and
for us any place of the Peninsula will be better than this new
world (to gather, and see which young women are more suitable) and later when
the Order will expend, then we will establish the Novitiate in the place we
consider more appropriate. Maria
Antonia Paris, Foundress of the Religious of Mary Immaculate Missionary
Sisters. Letter to Claret, October 31st 1857.
…no
worldly interest has brought me here from Spain. I resisted at the beginning; I
insisted in my refusal and the third time I accepted by obedience: I have never
had anything; today I see myself vested of a dignity which I repel, and whose
weight is very superior to my forces, I continue surrendered in the hands of
the Providence. Under the tinsel of my
dignity, I only see my misery; I was poor; I lived poor and I remain poor. Only obedience has been able to reduce me, I
repeat it, but in the hope that I could give more fuel to the charity, to the
love of God and to my neighbors in which I want to burn. The day I see that they put the slightest
stumbling block to my mission; the day I
see that they tied my hands to prevent them to do good; or that my voice will not
be heard
when my expectations be founded
in justice and charity, which are the only incentives to work that I
acknowledge, that day I will leave my position, and certainly I will lose
nothing in relation to my person, because the nature of missionary is enough to be poor, to love God,
to love my neighbors and to gain their souls at the same time that mine. St.Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Religious
of Mary Immaculate Claretian Missionary Sisters. Letter to General de la
Concha, March 28, 1851.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CLARET, St. Anthony Mary. History of the Religious of
Mary Immaculate Claretian Missionary Sisters, chapter VII note 126.
PARIS, Venerable María Antonia. History of the
Religious of Mary Immaculate Claretian Missionary Sisters, chapter VIII note 9.
No comments:
Post a Comment