24 SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME  – C – 2022

ü   A glance at the first reading and at the Gospel will reveal who God is and who we are.

ü  In the first reading through a situation of the people of the exodus the author reveals the goodness, patience, and tenderness of God.

ü  In the Gospel, Luke the evangelist narrates three parables which traditionally we call the parables of mercy. Through them we discover another facet of our Father God, the joy to find what was lost and to receive the son who comes back.

FIRST READING  Ex 32:7-11,13-14

Ø  If we go back to chapter 24, we will read that the Lord calls Moses to give to him the commandments which he had already explained on chapter 20.  

Ø  Now he is about to ratify his covenant with the people that accepted to be his people 

Ø  However, as it is usual among us, human beings, we forget what we have promised in a moment of enthusiasm. 

Ø  The people get tired to wait for Moses to come down, and they decide to make their own God, which they will be able to manipulate.  

Ø  God gets angry and decides to destroy this people, not to journey with it anymore. 

Ø  Now something interesting happens, a conversation between Moses and God in favor of the people.  

Ø  Like before, in the time of Abraham, when he had a conversation with God about the sinner cities, which God was about to destroy. 

Ø  Moses reminds God how; he himself saved the people and made of them his own people. Now is he going to destroy it?  

Ø  He asks God to remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel to whom he promised that their offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and, the sands of the seashore. 

Ø  And, now are you going to destroy the people without keeping your promise? 

Ø  And God changes his decision, like in the case of Abraham God was ready to spare the city if he could find 10 just men instead of 50 as was Abraham’s first deal. 

Ø  I find very interesting this way to portray God, he is not the immutable God of the Greeks and of the philosophers, he is not either the God who decides and does not listen to, because he knows everything. 

Ø  On the contrary it seems to me that he is the God who accepts and listens to the words of his friends. 

Ø  Do we  not believe this to be true, if not why do we pray for the cure of a sick loved one, that our kids  do good in school, that we may find a better job, a house to buy, etc…  

Ø  Let us remember   Jesus’ parables on prayer.  

During this week I think it would be good to ask ourselves, what is my golden calf?  Not the golden calf of our society, this is very easy to point it out, because we do not feel that we are part of this negative aspect of our society. But let us take this question into our life, and with sincerity let us ask the Lord that his light illumines our inner darkness, and thus we might be able to discover our golden calf, that we keep saved and protected so that we will not have to destroy it.   

Responsorial Psalm  Sal 50: 3-4, 12-13, 17 y 19

R.   I will rise and go to my father.
Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.
R. I will rise and go to my father.
A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
R. I will rise and go to my father.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.
R. I will rise and go to my father.

·          If we read verses 1 and 2 we will know that this psalm was written by David when the prophet Nathan denounced his sin of adultery because he united himself to the wife of Uriah one of his generals, whom he had killed to cover his sin

·         We perceive a great sense of humility and sorrow in front of the magnitude of his sins and because he has been ungrateful to all the benefits God has given him.

·         The church prays each Friday this psalm in the office of Lauds. As the people of the new covenant, as the people redeemed we also need to ask for forgiveness over and over again.

·         David asks God to create in  him a pure heart, a heart open to the grace of God and closed to the spirit of evil.

·         In this psalm we ask God to open our lips and our mouth shall declare his praises. 

GOSPEL  LUKE 15:1-32

v  The commentary will be on the last parable 

v  We all know this beautiful story which touches our heart, because we feel like the younger son who wants to come back home, and we also want to return home. 

v  But I would like to direct our meditation in a different direction, following something I have read, and I think can be very useful for all of us. 

v  There are two sons, let us look first at the younger one, the one who left home 

o   He asks from his father something, which does not belong to him, and his father allows him to choose his way, in spite that his heart is broken when he sees him leave.   

o   Since that money did not cost him any sacrifice or effort, he spends it without any consideration. He has friends while the money is there.  

o   He looks for a job, and accepts one which is humiliating for a Jew, so low has he fallen: to take care and feed pigs.  

o   Hunger, loneliness, low self-esteem, everything comes together for this young man to touch bottom. Then he remembers his father, and finds the energy to go back.

o   “I will go back… I will say… I am not worthy… receive me as…

v  The other son, the eldest 

o   He is a “wise” and hardworking man, but has allowed his heart to harden, so much is the hate he feels for the way his brother behaves.  

o   He obeys and serves, not willingly and lovingly, but only because it is his duty; and this is what he has to do to be an honorable man. 

o   He is incapable to forgive his brother, neither to rejoice because his father is happy now; this causes more resentment in his heart.   

o   You have never given me… all the time I have served…  

v  None of these sons has known who their father is  

o   Maybe the youngest knows him better, at least he knows that he will be in some way accepted 

o   The eldest who has always been at home close to his father has been unable to know him nor to be happy with his father, he has lived everything as a burden. 

o   The paradox is that the one who started off badly ends well; on the contrary the one who began well, on seeing how everything ends,  we discover that he was never well

v  But what happens with the father. I am going to transcribe some thoughts  from Jose Antonio Pagola, which I find very interesting, and I prefer that you read them directly yourselves instead of giving my interpretation.  

o   More and more the contemporary interpreters of the Bible have open a new way to read this parable… to discover in it the tragedy of a father that, in spite of his “incredible love” for his  sons, he cannot build a united family. That would be, according to Jesus, the tragedy of God.   

o   The father (who went out to meet his younger son) goes now to meet his eldest and reveals to him the most deep desire of his heart: to see his children sitting at the same table, friendly sharing a festive banquet, in spite of  any confrontation, hate and condemnations.   

o   Peoples   in war to each other, blind terrorisms, lack of solidarity by political groups, religions with a harden heart, countries plunged in hunger… We will never share the earth in a dignified and happy way, if we do not look at each other with the compassionate love of God. 

o   This fresh look, is the most important thing that as followers of Jesus, we can introduce today in our world.  

v  I think that these paragraphs do not need any explanation, and also they can help us to look at the parable with new eyes, new ears and new heart. 

SECOND READING   1 Tm 1:12-17 

      Paul is grateful because the Lord has considered him faithful and has entrusted to him the ministry 

      This generosity of the Lord reminds to Paul his previous condition of persecutor. 

      This thought never abandoned Paul, I imagine that this helped him very much to be humble in the midst of all the gifts and graces he had received.

       He acknowledges, however, that all that he did was caused by ignorance.  

      Grace, faith and Jesus Christ love had been abundant in Paul. 

      Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and Paul says that he knows that this is true.

      He ends this fragment of his letter with a praise to Christ Jesus, King of the ages.  

CLARETIAN CORNER – The Initial Vision or Experience (continued)

2.1 Perception of the Divine

The manifestation of God can be "materialized" in very different ways, vr.gr. "The angel of the Lord" or "The burning bush"; but it is always a sensitive and direct perception of the Divine. We say "sensitive", but not necessarily through the materiality of the senses, eyes or ears, but as something "real", "experiential", not "imaginary". The manifestation always consists of two essential elements: vision and hearing.

The vision: 

Here I saw Our Lord Jesus Christ,  with so much sorrow for the evils of the Church, that it seemed as if tears were springing from his eyes …(Autobiography M. Paris 9).

The audition:

... and he said to me: "Look, my child, if I could renew the spirit of my Church with tears, I would weep them with living blood"... (Aut. 9). 

hearing:  

…and it was this way to lay before me the guard of his Most Holy Law and Evangelical Counsels,  (Aut. 3).

And in a much more direct way in this other passage of the description of the "Initial Vision":

   This vision was imprinted in my heart, and all the words that Christ our Lord said so present, that now    that I write them, which have already passed more than fourteen years, it seems to me that I am hearing Our Lord Jesus Christ in the same way…  (Aut. 10)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ALVAREZ GÓMEZ, Jesús, cmf. “La Vision inicial”. 

PAGOLA, José A.sj.  Following in the Footsteps of Jesus. Meditations on the Gospels for Year C.  

RAVASI, Gianfranco, Según las Escrituras, Año C.

SCHÖKEL, Luis Alonso, Comentario a La Biblia de nuestro Pueblo.