19 SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME   - A – 2020 

ü  Today’s Gospel is a call to trust in Jesus who says to us “Take courage it is I.”   

ü  In the first Reading the prophet Elijah acknowledges the presence of God in the tiny whispering sound of the wind.   

ü  And Paul in his letter to the Romans tells them how much he suffers for his people, he wishes that all may know Jesus.    

THE BOOK OF KINGS

Ø  The two books of Kings are the continuation of the books of Samuel.  

Ø  In the Hebrew Bible they form an only book called   Melakim.

Ø  In the Greek translation (LXX) and in the Latin translation (The Vulgate) they are called third and fourth book of Kings, since Samuel are the first and the second of Kings.   

Ø  They are part of the Deuteronomist History which goes from the entrance into the promise land (Josuah) to the exile of Babylon (587 before Christ). This collection of books is called by the Jews: the former prophets.

Ø  Now in our Bibles they are called 1 and 2 Samuel , 1 and 2 Kings  

Ø  The reading this Sunday is taken form the part of the first book of Kings called the Cycle of Elijah (1K 14-2K 1.

  

FIRST READING   1K 19:9ª,11-13a

Ø  Elijah is on the Mountain of God,   Horeb.     

Ø  Since in the Bible we have the repetition of some passages in which Horeb is also called Sinai and vice versa, some have concluded that it is the same mountain. 

Ø  For those who think so Horeb would be the name used by the Midianites and Sinai by the Canaanites and the Amorites; the name Horeb seems to indicate the dryness of the land while Sinai would indicate its proximity to the desert of Sin. 

Ø  However there is evidence also to think that these two names indicate two different places.  

Ø  Elijah has called a long drought over the land, but he has prayed and the Lord has sent the rain.

Ø   Now he goes to the Horeb and there he waits for the Lord.

Ø  God speaks to him and says I will be passing by.

Ø  Different atmospheric phenomena happen, but Elijah does not perceive the presence of God through them, only when he experiences a tiny whispering sound.

Ø   In the Scriptures many times the theophany is represented by thunder, lightning and many other meteorological manifestations, but here God teaches Elijah something else about Him. God is in the peace, in the tenderness.

Ø  Elijah has worked very much to transmit to his people the Word of God, he has suffered much, he is older now and thus he is like the field that is prepared to receive the seed, the heart of Elijah, fiery man, man of fire whose word has stop the rain for a long time, now he is ready to discover another facet of the God he loves with all his being. God manifests himself in the softness of a breeze.

Ø   God does the same in our heart, this is why we need to stop and listen attentively this whisper of God in our heart.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM  Ps 85: 9. 10. 11-12. 13-14

Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation.

I will hear what God proclaims;
the LORD — for he proclaims peace.
Near indeed is his salvation to those who fear him,
glory dwelling in our land.
R. Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation.
Kindness and truth shall meet;
justice and peace shall kiss.
Truth shall spring out of the earth,
and justice shall look down from heaven.
R. Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation.
The LORD himself will give his benefits;
our land shall yield its increase.
Justice shall walk before him,
and prepare the way of his steps.
R. Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation

Ø  The promise of peace for those who turn to the Lord, for whoever begins a process of conversion, the closeness to God brings to him/her peace and energy.   

Ø  It seems as if the psalmist wants  to tell us that love and justice are two similar realities and that truth and peace are also similar or equal.

GOSPEL  Mt 14:22-33

v Jesus asks his disciples to go to the other shore and there wait for Him. How did he plan to reach the other shore?

v He dismissed the people he had cured and had fed, and now alone, by himself, he goes to the mountain top to pray, to talk with the Father. He could not do it when he got there for the first time because he was moved by compassion on seeing so many sick and so many hungry persons.  

v While he is at prayer the disciples are in the midst of the lake tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against them. 

v Jesus goes toward them walking on the sea.

v When the disciples see Him walking on the water of the lake they  it is a ghost.

v Jesus speaks to them and says:  it is I, do not be troubled. 

v Peter, practical man inclined to what is concrete and palpable, asks Jesus to be able to walk on the sea as Jesus is doing, and the Lord says “come.”   

v Peter rushes to the sea led by his impetuous heart, and oh! what a wonderful thing, he walks on the sea, but suddenly he doubts and,  then he begins to sink.  

v  Jesus grasps him and rebukes him saying: man of little faith!

v When Jesus gets to the boat the wind calms down, and those men are amazed, they are troubled, and probably they   feel ashamed because they have doubted, thus they say to him “truly you are the Son of God!”

v I think this gospel can help us very much in this moment of our human history, men, women and children who live on this our planet earth. We experience suffering, death, limitation, poverty and our sin.

v Like those disciples who lived more than 2000 years ago, filled with fear we cry out to Jesus. Have mercy of us! We do not know what to do in the midst of this pandemic. Let us make silence in and around us to listen to the voice of Jesus who says to us: woman, man of little faith, I have conquered death! Like Peter let us grasp the hand of Jesus and listen to Him to discover ways to cooperate together in the fight against the evil that surrounds us inside and outside.

SECOND READING   Rom 9:1-5

      Paul confesses with simplicity to the community of Rome that he is suffering for his people, because his people do not acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah  they have waited for such a long time.   

     He suffers so much that he wishes, if this could be possible, to be separated from the Lord for the sake of his people

     He thinks aloud on who his people is, and mentions all that makes of it the people of the election, the people of the promise, but  they have forgotten it.     

     We need to abandon ourselves into the arms of our God, of our Lord Jesus and   never boast of our own strength, our vanity and our pride. Faith is a gift, a precious gift which may wither like a flower, break as the crystal, get lost like we lose what the thieves steal.    

     The Lord is always with us, “it is I,” but we need to be with Him.

 CLARETIAN CORNER

 When the ship was so full with the water which was entering in (by the crack that I mentioned above), and it was impossible to resist (humanly speaking), without sinking, then the butler went to Santa Barbara (store room) to look for sugar. An interior force moved him, as he himself confessed, because he had no need of that sugar and at that time – it was 4:30 in the morning (no body used to go to that place). But God our Lord who took this navigation under his grace, wanted to announce the danger when there was no more human remedy for the prodigy to be more manifested. When the butler entered the store room he found himself in an immense pond of water since this had entered already in very great quantity that reach up to a man’s height.

I had made many  acts of abandonment and self- offering in the arms of the Divine providence in the midst of so many perils, being certain and most sure  that God is never short of means to help his children in their necessities even in that immense space of waters where we had no other refuge than the violent waves . This faith so alive, that God has put in my soul made me be calm in the midst of so many fights. And in this way God willed to show that the one who puts all his hope in his infinite power would never be confounded

Venerable María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 146, 152. 

We continued our voyage to Cuba in high spirits and excellent order. The ship's cabin space was divided into two parts: I and my companions were quartered in the space between the main mast and the poop; the nuns were quartered all to themselves in the space between the main mast and the bow, and separated from the rest of us by shuttered doors. My group got up every day on schedule, I washed, and made a half-hour's meditation together. The nuns did the same in their quarters. After meditation I celebrated Mass in our quarters, where an altar had been set up. I said Mass every day of our voyage. It was attended by all in my group as well as by the sisters, who heard it from their own quarters by pushing back the shuttered doors that formed the dividing line between them and us. The sisters and priests all received Communion, except for one of the priests who celebrated a second Mass, during which we made our thanksgiving. There was a system of rotation for the priest who said the second Mass, so that every day we had two Masses--one said by me, the other by the priest whose turn it was that day.

On reaching the Gulf of Damas, I began conducting a mission on deck.  Everyone on board attended it, passengers and crew, from captain to cabin boy, and everyone went to confession and received Communion at a general Communion service. We were on friendly terms with the crew, and on every voyage they would make to Cuba they used to come and visit us.  Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, 506,509. 

     

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CLARET, Antonio María Claret, Autobiografía.

PAGOLA, José A.   El camino abierto por Jesús. PPC 2012

PARIS, María Antonia, Autobiografía

STOCK, Klemens. La Liturgia de la Palabra. Ciclo A (Mateo)  2007

ENCICLOPEDIA DE LA BIBLIA, cuarto volumen. Editorial Éxito 1963.

LA BIBLIA, traducción tomada de la página web del Vaticano. 

SAGRADA BIBLIA. Versión oficial de la Conferencia Episcopal Española, Madrid 2012.