SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – CYCLE C – 2019 

INTRODUCTION.

v Last Sunday we meditated on the vocation of the first disciples who the Lord called to make them fishers of men and women.   

v Today the Lord teaches us where to find the true happiness.  

FIRST READING : Jer 17:5-8

ü  We find this theme in the prophet Jeremiah. He says: 

o   Cursed he who puts his/her trust in human beings. I do not think the prophet invites us to mistrust everyone.   

o   I think that what he is saying is that all of us need to put our trust in the God, who manifests himself through the other human beings that live together with us on our planet. 

o   Using images taken from nature, Jeremiah describes for us the person that departs from God. 

§  a barren bush in the desert

§  that enjoys no change of season,

§  but stands in a lava waste,

§  a salt and empty earth.   

On the contrary the person who trusts in God:   

§  Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,

§  He is like a tree planted beside the waters

§  that stretches out its roots to the stream:

§  it fears not the heat when it comes;

§  in the year of drought it shows no distress,

§  but still bears fruit.   

ü  We may apply what Jeremiah says about the tree to our own life.   

RESPONSORIAL PSALM  – Ps 39 

R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked,
nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
but delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
that yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

v This psalm has the same theme as the first reading.

v It explains a little bit more, what it means to be “blessed.”  

GOSPEL  LK 6:17.20-26

Ø  In this same Gospel in Matthew, Jesus goes up to the mountain to speak with them of the beatitudes. To go up requires an effort, entails a difficulty.  

Ø  Luke says that He went down the mountain with the “12”. If they go down it means that they had gone up before. 

Ø  Luke tells us that they stood on a stretch of level ground. Could that mean that the beatitudes are for everyone, not only for very special persons? For the wise and those who are not wise, for the simple, the sinners, the good people, those nobody knows and those the newspapers speak about, those who are happy and those who are not…      

Ø  Who are the happy, the blessed?  

o   The Poor, what poor?  

§  Those that do not have food, clothing, house…? According to what we read in the Scriptures, in the Old and in the New Testament, we are called to work to eliminate these situations that produce poverty. Than Jesus is not speaking about this.  Probably he  is speaking about the “anawin” the poor, those who trust their lives in the hands of God. 

o   Those who are now hungry, hungry of what?  If we look at the beatitudes in Matthew we see that they are hungry and thirsty for justice.    Happy and blessed those who are hungry and thirsty for justice, goodness, mercy, respect for the dignity of every human being. Happy because if that fight seems wasted on this earth, God will satisfy their hunger and thirst for all eternity. Than they will see that, their efforts neither were in vain, nor wasted.   

o   Those who weep,  why do they weep?   Probably they weep for all the things that do not go well in this world, for what is sin, for what goes against the human dignity. Luke says that they will laugh. They will be happy  because they will see that what they always wanted and for what they suffered has become a reality, they did not suffer in vain, because God the Father never left them alone even when they felt lonely and abandoned, God was always there.  

o   And the fourth beatitude is very interesting; we do not speak too much about it, and much less we think about it:  

§  Happy when they insult you, exclude you and denounce you because of the Son of man-Jesus.  

§  Why do they insult us? Because we seek the good of our brothers and sisters, and Jesus has said to us that when we do good to one of our brothers or sisters we do it to him. v

§  Luke says not only “happy are they” he adds “jump for joy on that day.” What day? The day we are insulted, persecuted…  

§  Because your recopense will be great in heaven. I think that the recompense begins during our life time on earth. We are happy when we allow the Lord to make us able to answer with love...  

Ø  Luke speaks to us also of what is the contrary of the blessings.  

SECOND READING  1Cor 15:12.6-20

Ø  Paul continues to speak to his community of Corinth, and the Church does the same to the community of believers.   

Ø  How is it possible that we doubt o we do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus, and we even dare to say it to our brothers and sisters?  

o   If Jesus is not risen, nobody will be.  

o   And if we only believe in Jesus during our life time on earth, because we do not believe that there is anything else after death, 

o   Than as Paul says if for this life only we have hoped in Christ,
we are the most pitiable people of all.

Ø  But Jesus is truly risen as first fruits of those who sleep, that is the dead.  

Ø 

If he is risen, we will also, because he is our head and we are his body.            

 CLARETIAN CORNER

 In this petition which, later I understood, was very much to the liking of His Divine Majesty, because it was done with much simplicity and good will, our Lord has deigned to teach me with much pleasure how He would like to be served by this ungrateful creature, it was in this how He set before my eyes the observance of His most Holy Law and evangelical counsels, and told me to observe them with much perfection; he told me with intense sorrow that He had no body in Hid house to observe  them, for the great extend that all the religious orders had gone lax in the observance of His most Holy Law and because of this He permitted with grief, their destruction. Venerable María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 3.     

I was christened Anthony Adjutor John. My mother's brother, Anthony Clara, was my godfather, and he wanted me to be named after him. My father's sister, Mary Claret, was my godmother. She was married to Adjutor Canudas, so they gave me her husband's Christian name. My third name, John, was my father's name. Later, out of devotion to Mary Most Holy, I added the sweet name of Mary, my mother, my patroness, my mistress, my directress and my all, after Jesus. Thus my name is Anthony Mary Adjutor John Claret y Clara. St. Anthony Mary Claret, Founder if the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 5

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CLARET, Saint Anthony Mary, Autobiography.

PARIS, Venerable María Antonia,  Autobiography.