XXVII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – CYCLE C – OCTOBER 2, 2016    

The theme of the celebration seems to be “faith”    

Ø  Faith so full of trust that allows  us to  present to  God our complains, because he seems not to listen to  our supplications   

Ø  Faith so strong as to have the strength needed to uproot a strong tree    

Ø  Faith so full of novelty as it would be to plant a tree in the sea   

Ø  Faith so simple which discovers the presence of the God who is behind all reality.  

THE PROPHET  HABAKKUK

Ø  The name of this prophet is unique in the Bible, it could come from the name of a plant “basil” 

Ø  We do not know either his origen, or his family, or his place  

Ø  The three chapter of this book are difficult to understand.  

Ø  The content is a proclamation received during a vision   

Ø  The prophet does not understand and, suffers for the social situation,  and asks God for an explanation  

Ø  The time of its composition is between   606 a.C  and the Babylonian exile 587 a.C)

Ø  The message seems to be: we must abandon the traditional  way to understand the retribution from God.  We must understand the intervention of God in our human history in a different way.  

FIRST READING  Habakkuk 1:2-3;2:2-4

ü  The prophet complains because he asks help from God, and it seems that God does not listen  

ü  Why do I have to see violence and destruction?    

ü  The answer from God is to tell the prophet to write the vision   

ü  “If it delays, wait for it, because it will certainly come, without delay.”  

ü  The reading ends saying “the just will live by his faith”  

ü  We have this same reading in the Liturgy of the Hours one of the days of Advent.

ü  To know that He will certainly come, fills our heart with hope and enkindles in it the fire of love.  

ü  And certainly the Lord has come, and He continues to come into our life; sometimes we complain, like the prophet, because we do not realize that He is already here.    

Salmo 94, 1-2. 6-7. 8-9

 R.  If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.”
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. 

v  The psalmist invites us   

o   To praise God,  

o   To adore God

o   To listen to God   

GOSPEL  Lk 17:5-10

Ø    This Reading has two parts.    

Ø  In the first part the Apostles ask Jesus to increase their faith   

Ø  Maybe when they heard  the mission that Jesus wanted to entrust to them, they realized that the traditional faith, still childlike, would not help them.  

Ø  Thus their petition, sometimes we do the same petition to the Lord.  

Ø  It does not mean that we do not have faith, but that our faith is still the faith the First Communion Catechesis, or the faith taught to us by our grand-mother, but that we have not made it our own yet, thus it does not help us.  

Ø  And Jesus gives them a surprising answer.   

Ø  It seems that with this comparison He wants to tell them that they need:   

o   A faith as strong as the strength needed to uproot  a mulberry tree, a strong tree, difficult to uproot   

o   A faith able to accept and propose the novelty, as it would be a novelty to plant a tree in the sea.  

Ø  I copy below a fragment from a book of José Antonio Pagola, it has helped me a lot, and I wish to share it with you. (it is my own translation from Spanish)  

The theologian  Karl Rahner said, this “abandonment” proper of faith is the “maximum audacity of man.”  A tiny particle of the cosmos (universe) dares to enter into a relationship with the “incomprehensible and foundational wholeness of the universe,”   and it does it, trusting absolutely in his power and in his love. As Christians we have to be more aware of the audacity of daring  to trust in the mystery of God.  

The original message of Jesus is precisely, to invite the human being to trust unconditionally in the  unfathomable Mystery, which is at the origin of everything.    This is what we hear in his proclamation “do not fear… trust in God…. call Him Abbá, loving Father. He takes care  of you. Even the hears of you head are counted. Have faith in God.”   

SECOND READING  2Tm 1,6-8;13-14

ü  Rekindle the gifts you received with the imposition of my hands. Return to your first love.  

ü  God does not want us to be cowards but daring, motivated by love and not by fear  

ü  Do not be ashamed to witness to Jesus.    

ü  Carry the hard work allotted to you, what work? The proclamation of the Gospel in words and deeds.  

ü  Keep the treasure which is in you, and in all of us, with the help of the Holy Spirit.  

ü  What treasure? The faith we have received at our Baptism, and which we need to make it grow, with the friendship and intimacy with Jesus in our prayer and in our life.   

POST-SYNODAL  APOSTOLIC  EXHORTATION AMORIS  LÆTITIA OF      

POPE  FRANCIS

“Migration is another sign of the times to be faced and understood in terms of its negative effects on family life”.30  The recent Synod drew attention to this issue, noting that “in various ways, migration affects whole populations in different parts of the world.  The Church has exercised a major role in this area.  Maintaining and expanding this witness to the Gospel (cf. Mt 25:35) is urgently needed today more than ever…  Human mobility, which corresponds to the natural historical movement of peoples, can prove to be a genuine enrichment for both families that migrate and countries that welcome them.  Furthermore, forced migration of families, resulting from situations of war, persecution, poverty and injustice, and marked by the vicissitudes of a journey that often puts lives at risk, traumatizes people and destabilizes families.  In accompanying migrants, the Church needs a specific pastoral programme addressed not only to families that migrate but also to those family members who remain behind.  This pastoral activity must be implemented with due respect for their cultures, for the human and religious formation from which they come and for the spiritual richness of their rites and traditions, even by means of a specific pastoral care…  Migration is particularly dramatic and devastating to families and individuals when it takes place illegally and is supported by international networks of human trafficking.  This is equally true when it involves women or unaccompanied children who are forced to endure long periods of time in temporary facilities and refugee camps, where it is impossible to start a process of integration.  Extreme poverty and other situations of family breakdown sometimes even lead families to sell their children for prostitution or for organ trafficking”.31  “The persecution of Christians and ethnic and religious minorities in many parts of the world, especially in the Middle East, are a great trial not only for the Church but also the entire international community.  Every effort should be encouraged, even in a practical way, to assist families and Christian communities to remain in their native lands”. (46)  

 BIBLIOGRAFÍA:

PAGOLA, José Antonio. El camino abierto por Jesús. Lucas.

SAGRADA BIBLIA. Versión oficial de la Conferecia Episcopal Española.

DAILY ROMAN MISSAL