XIV SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – B – 2021

Ø  The last two Sundays we have listened to the narration of some miracles o signs performed by Jesus.

Ø  Today Jesus will tell us that a prophet is not without honor except in his native place

BOOK OF EZEKIEL

I copy here a paragraph from one of the commentators of the Boof of the Prophet Ezequiel. “The last chapters of the book […] are the great final choir of the hope of Israel.  A magnificent Temple, a worship organized in its minor details, a concern for the justice of the prince in his relationship with the people, and a just distribution of the land, all of this are part of that utopic kingdom which never existed or will ever exist. The Kingdom that Jesus will come to proclaim and establish. The justification and the message of this utopic vision is that men and nations need hope, and even if these conditions are never fulfilled completely, but they allow us to continue the journey until we find the currents of the life-giving waters that cover everything.” The waters that Ezekiel saw flowing from the temple.

FIRST READING  Ez 2:2-5

v  Ezekiel says that the Lord asked him to stand up, that means to pay attention to what the Lord was going to tell him

v  The message from the Lord was to let him know that He was giving him a mission, and this mission was to go to the children of Israel, his people, and bring them the word of God.

v  God describes this people as a people of rebels, obstinate, that the parents as well as the children had betrayed the Lord.

v  Ezekiel has to bring the word of God to this people

v  God let Ezekiel know that this task will be difficult, maybe without immediate results

v  But either if they listen or if they reject him, the people will know that

o   There is a prophet in their midst

o   A prophet sent by the God they had rejected

o   A prophet that brings them the salvation of God.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM – Ps 122

R. Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy.
To you I lift up my eyes
    who are enthroned in heaven —
As the eyes of servants
    are on the hands of their masters.
R. Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy.
As the eyes of a maid
    are on the hands of her mistress,
So are our eyes on the LORD, our God,
    till he have pity on us.
R. Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy.
Have pity on us, O LORD, have pity on us,
    for we are more than sated with contempt;
our souls are more than sated
    with the mockery of the arrogant,
    with the contempt of the proud.
R. Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy.

ü  We see combined in this psalm the cry for the mercy of God and at the same time images of the trust of the servants in the hands of their masters.

ü  The reason for this cry asking for help is because those who sing or recite the psalm are sated with the mockery of the arrogant and the contempt of the proud.

GOSPEL – Mk 6:1-6

      Jesus goes to his village with his disciples

      On the Sabbath, as it was costumery, He goes to the Synagogue and they probably invite him to read. After the reading he reflects on the word He has proclaimed

      People listen to him with attention, but they wonder in their heart, where does He get this wisdom?

      How must that preaching had been that people listened to it with pleasure and they even had questions!

      His fellow countrymen find difficult to accept that one of them, not only one of them, but an insignificant man such as the carpenter of their village could have so much wisdom.

      And, as many of us do, they did not welcome the message, and they discussed in their heart with envy the words that Jesus was saying to them. In our case the words of someone we consider less educated and less intelligent than we are.  

      Jesus who reads the hearts, repeats for them the saying about the welcoming of a prophet in his own land.

      What Mark writes at the end this gospel, makes us think and worry: So, he was not able to perform any mighty deed there […]  He was amazed at their lack of faith.

      Maybe the verse of the alleluia before the Gospel can give some light:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for he sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor.

      Would it be that his countrymen did not consider themselves poor? Would that be the cause that they could not welcome his word that was addressed to the poor?

      And what is the real meaning of poor in the Scriptures?

SECOND READING – 2Co 12:7-10

·         Paul tells us something confidentially. In order that he did not become proud due to the sublimity, beauty and grandeur of what the Lord had revealed to him from the moment He encounter him on the way to Damascus,  Paul feels a thorn, or a strong temptation, that does not leave him in peace.

·         He has asked the Lord for three times to be liberated from this thorn that humiliates him so much

·         The answer of the Lord is simple and clear, Paul I am enough for you, my grace is enough, it will give you strength to continue the fight against the thorn of evil.

·         Is that situation of Paul in front of temptation like our situation before temptation adversity, before all which is a thorn in our flesh?

·         Paul responds to this situation with the beautiful words we find  at the end of the reading:

Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults,
hardships, persecutions, and constraints,
for the sake of Christ;
for when I am weak, then I am strong.

      Paul prefers to be poor in the true meaning of the word. Poor, because he does not have anything his own, since everything has been given to him. He does not want to be self-sufficient which is the opposite to the biblical poverty.

CLARETIAN CORNER

To Mother Antonia Paris de S. Pedro

Zarauz, September 5  1866

            My dear sister in J.C.: I have received your last letters and I see what Rv. Bofarrull says, that what is important is that the agent in Madrid finishes to prepare the File [about the foundation of Reus] and send it to the Minister’s Office, which is waiting anxiously to receive it in order to dispatch it immediately.

I see in your letter that you worry about my health; thanks to God I am good. I have been away from this town for 14 days, I went to the city of St. Sebastian, capital of this Province at 3 miles from here.  I have directed Spiritual Exercises to the Clergy and Missions to the people of the city with a very good attendance and fruit, thanks to God. I have preached also to the men and women of the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul, I have preached to the Nuns of St. Theresa. God wanted to use me, poor instrument, to establish the Congregation of St. Aloysius Gonzaga for the conservation of the young men and the Congregation of the Daughters of Mary for the conservation of the girls; I have put a devoted priest, warmed up by the spiritual exercises as head of each one of the congregations; many boys and girls have already joined the Congregations, and there are many more that want to join, I preached and gave the Sacred Communion to both groups. (Fragment of the letter 251 of the book in Spanish Letters from The Origins, p.361. I have done the translation)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

RR. de María Inmaculada Misioneras Claretianas. Cartas de los Orígenes (Letters of the Origins).Madrid 2009.

SAGRADA BIBLIA, official version of the Conference of Spanish Bishops. Madrid 2012