21st SUNDAY
IN ORDINARY TIME – C – 2022
The Word of God of today’s liturgy r eminds
us that the Lord trusts always in humankind.
Let us give fruits of justice and peace
on our journey.
Let us believe as Jesus did in the God
of the impossible.
FIRST
READING Is 66:18-21
v This text belongs to the third part of the Book of
Isaiah, Third Isaiah. The
historical time is the time after the return from the exile.
v The Lord says:
o I know their works and their thoughts, I know them.
o I come to gather the nations, the peoples who speak different
languages.
o But in spite of this diversity they will come and they
will see the glory of God.
o How will God go about to gather the peoples? He will
send the fugitives to their nations to announce the good news.
o And on coming back to Israel they will bring the exiled, their brothers and sisters
from Israel, as an offering to the Lord.
o Those who had been exiled will return in glory, riding
horses and camels, proud and strong animals.
o They will arrive into Jerusalem, the sacred mountain
of God
o The author compares this return to the worship which
the chosen people was giving to God in the temple
o From among them, God will call priests and Levites,
men who will serve God in the temple.
o What a grandiose vision of the return from the exile.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM: Ps
117:1-2
This psalm belongs to the group
of hymns, psalms which are considered hymns, which praise God singing his greatness.
R. Go out to all the world and tell the Good
News.
Praise
the LORD all you nations;
glorify him, all you peoples!
R. Go out to all the world and tell the
Good News.
For steadfast is his kindness toward us,
and the fidelity of the LORD endures forever.
R. Go out to all the world and tell the
Good News.
The psalmist invites us, invites all the nations, to praise
the Lord because his love is great and He is always faithful.
GOSPEL – Lk 13:22-30
Jesus on his way
to Jerusalem passes through towns and villages.
In one of these
places or on the road, someone asks: Lord, are they few those who will be
saved?
Jesus does not
give a concrete answer, but he says that each one is called to follow the way
of goodness “the narrow gate.”
As humans, we are
very much accustomed to measure everything by means of statistic. How
many?
I think that this
question is wrong; each human being is the work of God who loves him or her
because they are his work of art, his son or his daughter.
He works
mysteriously in the human heart. We see only the outside and we dare to judge
what we do not know.
In each human
heart, we say, that a battle takes place between good and evil, and this is
certainly true
But I prefer to
think that in each human heart, during the lifetime of each one of us, a love
story between the Creator and his creature is being weaved.
And many of us,
we do not realize this until some especial moment in our life, moments of
joy but especially moments of suffering.
In these situations of suffering we are more ready to discover the presence of
our God in our life. Then we become
aware of his tender and merciful love for us.
Jesus speaks of
those, who believe they save themselves with
their efforts, that they have the “passport” to enter into God’s Kingdom. They
do not know or have forgotten that the Kingdom is a gift.
They know much
about God and speak also very much about him, but they do not speak to
Him.
Jesus does not
recognize their teaching, probably because they did it for their own pride not
for the service of their brothers and sisters.
Again, here in
the Gospel we are given a sense of universality: East, West, North, South… This
is the image of the eternity, of salvation with Jesus.
Let our heart be
filled with this light, this hope, this trust and security in the unconditional
love of God our Father.
But let us be at
the same time vigilant and alert, to avoid the possibility to be of those who
teach with pride and treat their fellow men and women with arrogance,
oppressing them instead of serving them.
SECOND READING :
Hebrews 12:5-7.11-13
ü The author of
this letter reminds us the exhortation that had been given to us
ü “Do not disdain the discipline of the Lord “
ü These words can help us in difficult times, when it
seems that God is deaf when we call him, that he does not listen to our prayers.
ü And thus we think that what is happening is his
punishment for our sins
ü I do not think that God sends the sickness, allows the accidents, or the bad relationships among
the members of the family, between the couples, or makes our children do drugs….
ü But I really believe that when we find ourselves in
any difficulty, when we found ourselves completely lost; it is the moment when
we are ready to discover the presence of God in our life.
ü The suffering we endure, may sometimes for a while, harden
our heart, make us bitter, proud, rebellious,
but it will eventually help us to open up to God, whom we have ignored for so many years.
ü It is the time to begin a journey of conversion, a
change in direction in our life, to encounter the God who has been waiting for
us since the first moment of our conception, when he has created us and loved
us. It is also the time when we realize the existence of the other human
beings, our brothers and sisters.
ü God says to us the same words he said to Jeremiah
“before you were fashioned in your
mother’s womb I had chosen you, before you were born I consecrated you….
ü Let these thoughts and words fill us with tenderness, trust
and thankfulness to our Father for loving us unconditionally
ü His commandments, his calls, his admonitions and
exhortations have the purpose to make easy the way of salvation, there are not
meant to make it difficult or complicated.
ü Let us always remember that he knows us and loves us.
CLARETIAN CORNER
INTRODUCTION "INITIAL VISION" – The Charismatic Identity Of The Claretian Missionary Sisters.The Claretian Missionary Sisters have their origin in a charism that was initially given to the Founders. The foundational charism, as a grace, is a personal gift granted by God to Saint Anthony Mary Claret and to the Servant of God M. Marie Antonia Paris of Saint Peter. But since this charism has given rise to the Institute, this personal gift necessarily has a resonance in the Claretian Missionary Sisters, who, also by special gift of grace from the Lord, have embraced the same lifestyle and mission of the Founders.
The Claretian Missionaries, in fact, have to make their own the attitude that derives from the way of thinking and carrying out the apostolic works entrusted to them. From this perspective, the grace that began as a personal gift becomes a community gift; that is, it becomes the peculiar vision, the way of understanding and acting of the collective formed by the Claretian Missionary Sisters.
The charism
of the Institute, which has its starting point in the Initial Vision (Initial experience) of Mother Foundress, is a peculiar way of
existing that implies an attitude laden with faith and love:
-
In
relation to God
-
In
relation to the brothers and sisters
-
In
relation to the things .
An attitude
full of faith and love, because this personal gift and this community gift will
allow the Claretian Missionary Sisters to see things that no one has noticed,
and to hear calls that no one has heard; because their eyes and ears have been
enabled to see and to hear.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ALVAREZ,
Jesús cmf. Visión Inicial – Booklet on the Charismatic Identity of the
Claretian Missionary Sisters.
MATHIEU, Yvan. « Dieu toujours à l’œuvre. » Prions en Église, Août 2019.
SCHÖKEL, Luis Alonso. Comentario a La
Biblia de nuestro Pueblo.
No comments:
Post a Comment