XVI SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME  – CYCLE A - 2020

The readings for this Sunday increase in us the trust in God, because he is powerful and uses his power to take care of us with compassion and tenderness.   

FIRST READING: Wis 12: 13, 16-19

Ø  The reading speaks about God:  

Ø  God is Lord of all:   

o   God takes care of everything and of everyone, things, animals and human beings whom he treats with kindness and tenderness.   

o   God has power over all, and he does not have to explain himself.  

o   Because his power is the foundation of justice, and   he uses this power to show mercy to all his creatures.   

Ø  God shows his strength:

o   To those who doubt of him   

o   Punishes those who knowing him, defy him      

o   To punish is not to destroy, it is to teach, to build.  

o   He judges with mercy and governs with kindness.   

Ø  With his behavior God :

o   Has taught his people   

o   That the just has to be humane, behave as God behaves, who being Lord uses his power as he wills, and this is caring and loving.   

o   And fills his children with a sweet hope because he waits for us sinners, and gives us enough time to repent.    

Ø  What a beautiful description of who God Is! We find it in the Old Testament in this book which is considered deuterocanonical or apocryphal by our Jewish and Protestant brothers and sisters; but the church has always recognized it as inspired and uses it in its liturgy.  

RESPONSORIAL PSALM : Ps  85: 5-6. 9-10. 15-16a

R. (5a) Lord, you are good and forgiving.
You, O LORD, are good and forgiving,
abounding in kindness to all who call upon you.
Hearken, O LORD, to my prayer
and attend to the sound of my pleading.
R. Lord, you are good and forgiving.
All the nations you have made shall come
and worship you, O LORD,
and glorify your name.
For you are great, and you do wondrous deeds;
you alone are God.
R. Lord, you are good and forgiving.
You, O LORD, are a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in kindness and fidelity.
Turn toward me, and have pity on me;
give your strength to your servant.
R. Lord, you are good and forgiving.,

v This psalm is full of tenderness and trust in God.   

v It conveys the same message as the first reading   

v God is compassion, tenderness and above all he is slow to anger  

v I would rather say that God does not get angry, on the contrary, he suffers our wrong behavior because this harms us and causes us to be detached from him.

v But, as the first reading puts it, God gives us time, he waits for us, and he continues calling us. 

GOSPEL Mt 13:24-43

     The Gospel for today is the continuation of last Sunday’s Gospel 

     All these parables found in chapter 13, are about the kingdom.  

     Through them we are able to understand what Jesus felt and thought about the kingdom of God that he had come to announce to us.   

     And also to  approach the experience of Jesus himself about the way God acts.   

     Not in theory, but as a proclamation which requires a response to be understood, those who do not accept it do not understand it either.   

     The parables of the kingdom are short and suggestive accounts with images and comparisons taken from the daily life in order to help us to think.   

     They want to help the listener to question his/her own life and situation in relation to the kingdom.     

     The parables we will read today speak about what is hidden, what is little.   

o   The weed grows together with the wheat, it grows silently 

o   The mustard seed is insignificant but it gives origin to a tree where the birds make their nests.   

o   The yeast which is not seen but makes the batch of wheat flour leaven.  

     It is always hard for us to look for God in the daily events of life, in what is little, common. We prefer to look for God in the spectacular.  

     This also was the way Jesus’ contemporaries looked at the kingdom   

     He had to teach them and help them to discover the presence of God who works in silence in the daily life, in what is insignificant.   

     To discover how God works always in the silence. Even if we cannot see anything extraordinary, God continues to work in the world and in each human being.   

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SECOND READING: Rm 8: 26-27

·       Paul in this fragment of the letter to the Romans explains how the Spirit works.    

·       The Spirit comes to our aid and teaches us how to pray in the way Jesus taught us  

·       And he does so interceding for us, because we do not know what to ask for, but the Spirit knows.    

·       And God, who knows our hearts, knows also what the Spirit wants to say.   

CLARETIAN CORNER

My very dear Prelate and Father in J.C.,  Since   Your Excellency is our  first father and support, I can but to tell you the sadness I have…   that a third part of the wall, which separates the cloister from the section which is not built, collapsed but not only the wall, but the land as well; you can imagine  how I worry having the cloister open, because since during winter the weather here is humid due to the frequent rains and fogs, it is not easy under those conditions to rebuild the wall, because the land is crumbling away and there is no firm ground, and besides, this causes more expenses over the ones we already have with the construction….(Letter of María Antonia París to St. Anthony M. Claret January 11 1961)

I have received your letter from the 18th of the present month, and, informed of its content, I tell you in respect to holy poverty that I know very well what the sacred canons of the church say, and what is ordered by the laws of the kingdom; but this is in relation to what is normal and ordinary, and it seems good to me. But what is happening with us is something exceptional, that God wants, and I will prove it with two simple explanations: the first is that experience has already manifested it, as you well know, that you have not lack anything, and your will lack nothing in the future, if you put your trust in God; the second reason is that God wants that a public testimony in favor of poverty be given, since regrettably, in the present time, people have more trust in money than in God.   I only say to you that you do what is in your power; but may poverty reign over all, since it is a virtue very much loved by Jesus and Mary.    (Letter of Saint Anthony M. Claret to María Antonia París, January 30  1962)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CLARET, St. Antonio María Claret, Letters. To María Antonia París

CONFERENCIA EPISCOPAL ESPAÑOLA. Sagrada Biblia, versión oficial.

MARÍA ANTONIA PARÍS,  Letters. To San Antonio María Claret.

PAGOLA, José Antonio, El camino abierto por Jesús – Gospel of Matthew.

SCHÖKEL, Luis Alonso, La Biblia de nuestro Pueblo.