13th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – CYCLE – 2022   

·         We are again in the liturgical time called “ordinary time”. A professor once said that there is nothing ordinary about this time.     

·         Ordinary life is everyday life, the life of anyone of the human beings, the life that goes unnoticed, that seems monotonous and without value. 

·         However, it is the life in which God makes himself present to us through the persons we meet and through the events of life. 

BOOK 1 Kings

Ø  The two books of Kings are the continuation of the books of 1 and 2 Samuel.  

Ø  These books are part of what we call the Deuteronomistic history, which goes from the conquest of the Promised Land to the Babylonian exile.  

Ø  In these books the monarchy is judged with the theological criteria of the book of Deuteronomy following the scheme sin – exile – return  

Ø  The author usually gives a negative judgment on the behavior of kings and of the people.   

Ø  In these books, the prophets have great importance. Elijah in 1 Kings and Elisha in 2 Kings.   

FIRST READING – 1 King 19, 16b. 19-21    

Ø  The reading has three paragraphs, we could describe them as three different scenes of a play.

Ø  In the first scene, Elijah hears God’s voice that orders him to anoint Elisha as his successor.  

o   How did he hear the voice? If we read some verses before the author tells us that Elijah hears the gentle whisper of the gentle breeze.  

o   Then he went out of the cave where he was hiding, and the voice asked him “what do you do here Elijah?”     

o   Elijah says, “I have been most zealous for the Lord, God of hosts” and he explains that things go wrong in the society where he lives.  

o   The Lord asks him to go back and to take the desert road. He should look for Elisha to anoint him as a prophet, his successor.  

o   To leave one’s ministry to another person is difficult; it is like allowing part of one’s life to be taken from, it is to accept that life has changed, that life is close to its end, to the last encounter.  

o   We do not know what Elijah thought, what he felt, Scripture does not say anything about that.  

Ø  In the second scene Elijah goes to meet Elisha 

o   Elisha is working, he is tilling with twelve yokes of oxen.  

o   Doesn’t this scene remind us of what the New Testament tells about the call of the fishermen or the tax collector…follow me?  

o   The call from God does not come to us necessarily when we are praying; it comes usually during our ordinary life. God calls me in my everyday life. Do I listen to his voice, which resounds in the persons and in the events? How has God called me…?  

o   Elijah communicates to Elisha God’s election by throwing his cloak on him.  

o   It seems to me that some of our liturgical rites have the same meaning: the Bishop’s imposition of hands on the future priests.  It is like sharing with the future priest the gift, the grace of the priesthood; we also say that faith goes from one to another, something like an infection….     

o   Elisha leaves what he is doing and says goodbye to his parents.                        

Ø  In the third scene Elisha  

o   Offers a sacrifice to Yahweh with the oxen he was using for his work, and invites the people to share the meal  

o   Then the text says that he went with Elijah. 

RESPONSORIAL PSALM 16:  1-2a y 5. 7-8. 9-10. 11

R. (cf. 5a) You are my inheritance, O Lord.
Keep me, O God, for in you I take refuge;
 I say to the LORD, "My Lord are you.
O LORD, my allotted portion, and my cup,
 you it is who hold fast my lot."
R. You are my inheritance, O Lord.
I bless the LORD who counsels me;
 even in the night my heart exhorts me.
I set the LORD ever before me;
 with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.
R. You are my inheritance, O Lord.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices,
 my body, too, abides in confidence
because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld,
 nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption.
R. You are my inheritance, O Lord.
You will show me the path to life,
 fullness of joys in your presence,
 the delights at your right hand forever.
R. You are my inheritance, O Lord.

What a beautiful prayer: You are my inheritance, Lord. Is he really our inheritance? 

GOSPEL LK 9: 51-62

v  When the days for his being taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.    

v  From chapter 9 verse 51 begins the last part of the ministry of Jesus. Jesus will teach his disciples on the way; this is his way to be Teacher, Rabbi. 

v  Doesn’t that remind us of the way to Emmaus when he spoke and taught them, and their hearts were burning?  

v  Now that we, the whole church, is doing the synodal journey, We are doing the “synodal way”. We are all on the way together to listen to the voice of the Lord, to follow it and thus build together and with our Master a better world, and a better humanity, more like the dream God has over each one of us and over the whole human community.

v  Jesus makes the resolution to go up to Jerusalem where he will give his life for us.  

v  In today’s reading Luke narrates three different vocation episodes  

o   In all these episodes Jesus says to those who offer themselves and to the one he invites, some conditions of the following, which could discourage them: the Son of man has nowhere to rest his head, not to be able to burry one’s dead, not to be able to say farewell to the family….  

o   These episodes have given plenty to think and to write regarding the life in the following of Christ. I think that the intention of the evangelist is not that we dwell on the details, but on the reality of the surrendering generously, completely and without conditions.  

o    Let us look at our own vocation history and let us ask the Lord for light to discover his presence in this history.  

SECOND READING  Gal 5: 1. 13-18

v  Paul reminds us that Christ has given us freedom.  

v  I think that freedom was given to us in creation, and it is given again back to us with the death and resurrection of Jesus.  

v  Do not let anything or anyone take freedom away from us.  

v  Paul reminds us also that law and freedom are not opposed but they go together. 

v  He reminds us also the commandment:  Love your neighbor as you love yourself. 

v  Paul says something very interesting, if we allow the Spirit to guide us, we will not be under the dominion of the law.  

v  I invite all of us to reflect during this week

o   on this last sentence to understand what he wants to tell us.

o   In the radicality of the call Jesus makes to us

o   Let each one of us see if Jesus is the true origin, center, and goal of our life.   

 

CLARETIAN CORNER

TERESITA ALBARRACÍN

From January 1945 she again suffered spiritual darkness, with struggle and "many distractions and dryness" with "repugnance towards the things of God."  This continues also in May and later in August. We can say  that the spiritual life of the Servant of God In this time, closer to her death, went through  a period of hard inner trials. Everything seems to indicate that it was the purifying night of the spirit together with infused contemplation. [...]  On some occasions the dryness and turmoil was rather external because within her spirit reigned a great peace: "... in the depths of my soul reigns a very great peace and I only wish to love God with all my heart, even if I do  not feel him  [...] The Mistress of Novices tells us that she knew of her "struggles with faith" and that she judged that it was precisely because of her resemblance to the spirit of St. Therese of Lisieux, whom she so longed to resemble and whose spirituality attuned her so much . Knowing – as we know now – that the disease at that time was already destroying her intestines, because shortly after, it led  her to her death, we see the great suffering that the Servant of God had to carry. However, according to the testimony of her sisters and superiors, she never stopped attending her classes and continuing with all the acts of community. [...] and it is in this context of the purifying night that some interior difficulties, that the Servant of God apparently experienced in her relations with her superiors, make sense. (P.91-92) 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CONGREGATIO DE CAUSIS SANCTORUM -   Mariae Teresiae – Positio super virtutibus.

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

SAGRADA BIBLIA. Versión oficial de la Conferencia episcopal española.

NEW AMERICAN BIBLE, Revised edition 2010

US CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS, webpage.

 

 

 

            CORPUS CHRISTI   - CICLO C – 2022

      Already back in ordinary time. Last Sunday we have celebrated the Solemnity of The Most Holy Trinity.

      The liturgy presents this adorable mystery through different signs and images.

      The readings go from the most distant antiquity to the life of the first Christian communities, passing through the gospel of the loaves and fishes.  

FIRST READING   Gn 14:18-20

Ø  Before today’s text, the author narrates the fight of Abram with the kings that had attacked and kidnapped Lot with all his possessions. 

Ø  Abram recovered all and when he returned, the King of Salem, Melchizedek, came to meet him. 

Ø  This King blesses him and offers a sacrifice to God.     

Ø  Salem was the city of this King, and this name means peace, thus Salem is the city of peace. Later,  this city will become Jerusalem.       

Ø  The name of Melchizedek means “King of justice”.   

Ø  This King will become for the Christian community an image of Jesus. (Hebrew 7:1-3):

v  We do not know the origin of this King .   

v  He offers bread and wine as a sacrifice to God, Most Holy.    

v  He blesses Abram

v  He continues to be a priest forever.   

RESPONSORIAL Ps 110

R (4b)  You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.
The LORD said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand
            till I make your enemies your footstool."
R You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.
The scepter of your power the LORD will stretch forth from Zion:
            "Rule in the midst of your enemies."
R You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.
"Yours is princely power in the day of your birth, in holy splendor;
            before the daystar, like the dew, I have begotten you."
R You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.
The LORD has sworn, and he will not repent:
            "You are a priest forever, according to the order of  Melchizedek."
R You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek. 

§  This psalm sings the kingship and the priesthood of this “Lord” whom we meet in the first verse.     

§  In these words, “today I beget you…” the Church acknowledges the voice of the Father who says to his Son “Today I have begotten you.”   

§  It is the “today” of eternity, always. It is the Word that the Father continues to repeat to his incarnate Son, Jesus.    

SECOND READING  1 Cor 11:23-26

      Paul transmit to his community what he has received.   

      This text is the center of today’s celebration, where Paul tells us that the night of his passion the Lord gave himself to us in the bread and in the wine.   

      Bread and wine, food that sustains and drink that gives joy to the human heart.   

      The Lord:

ü  Takes the bread

ü  He Pronounces the thanksgiving over the bread   

ü  He breaks it

ü  This is my body, given for you. Do this in memory of me.   

ü  He does the same with the cup: This is the cup of the New Covenant in my blood.  

ü  Do this in memory of me  

ü  Because anytime you eat the bread and drink from the cup, you will proclaim the death of the Lord until he returns.     

      The New Covenant takes us to the first Covenant on Sinai, when God made a covenant of love with his people.    

      This New Covenant is sealed with the blood of Christ, the first covenant was sealed with the blood of animals.  It was the shadow of the true covenant that Christ would make.   

      Jeremiah (Jer 31,31-34) had announced this new covenant, which would not be written on stone tablets, but on flesh stones, on the heart of every man and woman who welcomes and accepts Christ as his or her Lord. 

      And the Lord says that every time we break the bread and drink the cup, we proclaim his redeeming death until the end of times. 

      There are not several sacrifice, there is only one sacrifice of Christ which that is made present on each altar where we celebrate the Eucharist remembering his love and his surrender for love, inviting us to do the same, strengthened by the Bread and  the Wine of the Eucharist.  We have done this; we continue to do it until his return.   

      What is the meaning of “… in memory of me?”  Continually the Lord transforms us in himself when we eat his body and drink his blood. United to him, made one with him, we learn to die  to our own self to live for him and for the others.   

    This Bread and this Wine invite us to live the values of Jesus, they invite us to give our life out of love for the brothers and sisters of Jesus, for all. 

Sequence

The shorter form of the sequence begins here.

Lo! the angel’s food is given
To the pilgrim who has striven;
            see the children’s bread from heaven,
            which on dogs may not be spent.

Truth the ancient types fulfilling,
Isaac bound, a victim willing,
            Paschal lamb, its lifeblood spilling,
            manna to the fathers sent.

Very bread, good shepherd, tend us,
Jesu, of your love befriend us,
            You refresh us, you defend us,
            Your eternal goodness send us
In the land of life to see.

You who all things can and know,
Who on earth such food bestow,
            Grant us with your saints, though lowest,
            Where the heavenly feast you show,
Fellow heirs and guests to be. Amen. Alleluia 

GOSPEL Lk 9:11b-17

v  Luke describes this scene of the multiplication like the meal of the last Supper.   

v  Jesus is teaching the crowds, he speaks to them about the Kingdom, he heals the sick, making present the kingdom of which he speaks.    

v  As the day was drawing to a close, the crowds keep listening in owe, this man Jesus of Nazareth has captivated them, he speaks with tenderness of a kingdom where God will be God, where we will love each other.   

v  The disciples ask him to dismiss the people so they could go and find food to eat.  

v  Jesús says to them something surprising “Given them some food yourselves.” 

v  He will say these words to us through history, give food to those who need it, as he will say in the parable of the Samaritan man “go and do likewise.”   

v  But, how can we give food to so many people with only five loaves and two fishes? How can we feed the hungry human race? 

v  Where do we have so much money to buy food for all.   

v  Jesus enters in action and invites his twelve friends to collaborate  

v  They will see how the bread does not end, and how through their hands there is enough for all.   

v  Not only this, but there were leftovers, and there is more bread tan when they began.   

v  Maybe our problem is that we give the food ourselves and, not as collaborators of Jesus.  

v  What a beautiful sign of the overabundance of the kingdom, of the messianic times, as the prophet Isaiah had announced!  Sign of the Kingdom which brings to our minds the overabundance of the wine at the weeding at Cana. Signs of these Kingdom where nobody lacks anything, where all are submerged in the joy of the feast which never ends.    

v  The community of the disciples, the Church, has seen in this sign of the loaves the anticipation of the Eucharist, the bread given to us, the bread for the journey, the bread which is Jesus dead, given on the cross and risen to ratify the new covenant in his blood.  

v  The bread which transforms us in Jesus so that we can do the same Works, forgetting ourselves and giving ourselves through a  generous and unconditional love for every brother or sister who needs us.

CLARETIAN CORNER 

United to her Lord as his bride, she lived more and more focused on Him. Her religious experience acquires, if possible, an even more Christocentric direction. She puts all her efforts in “pleasing Jesus.”  

As a result of her profession, she composed a "portrait of Jesus and Teresita" that supposes both a contemplative attitude and a great ascetic effort to resemble her Lord. The spousal union was called to be fulfilled in a complete assimilation to Jesus and identification with Him. This spousal donation of the profession brought for the Servant of God a brief period of peace.

  "By the mercy of God, since I have professed, peace reigns in my heart and a great joy invades everything in me as I remember the consecration, I have made of myself to God our Lord. That had not stopped the feelings of dryness, distractions, annoyance, and sadness, but in all these moments, Jesus and Mary have supported me in such a way that I have even been able to smile, even when tears poked into my eyes. Blessed be God!"

 (Positio p. 90-91). 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CONGREGATIO DE CAUSIS SANCTORUM, MARIAE TERESIAE, POSITIO SUPER VIRTUTIBUS. Roma 1994

PAGOLA, José, Following in the Footsteps of Jesus. Meditations on the Gospels for Year C. 2012.   

RAVASI, Gianfranco, Según Las Escrituras, Año C, 2006

SCHÖKEL, Luis Alonso. Comentario a La Biblia de nuestro Pueblo. 2010.  

             THE MOST HOLY TRINITY  - CICLO C – 2022

      On the first Sunday after Pentecost the Liturgy of the Church invites us to celebrate the greatness of our God, to adore him, to contemplate him, to allow ourselves to be fascinated with his beauty and goodness

      Through the readings we will   enter into the mystery of our  one and triune God. Like Moses, we will remove the sandals from our feet because we are on sacred ground.   

      Let us enter into his presence with our imagination and our feelings and overall, with our love.

      More than to try to understand the mystery that goes beyond our mind, let us allow God to seduce our heart, let us allow our imagination and our feelings move freely..     

THE BOOK OF PROVERBS  

v  When we open this book, we are surprised by his miscellaneous nature.  It contains long poems as   well as very short ones, two lines in parallel.   

v  Another thing that makes us wonder, is the apparent lack of theological reflection, it is a very pragmatic book, and we ask, why  has it  been included in the Bible, which is the word of God?  

v  Together with the books of Job, Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth),  Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus)   Wisdom  the book of Proverbs is classified as wisdom literature.    

v  I have read in a commentary that the Book of Proverbs is the most secular of these five books.   

v  Its author is not Solomon, as we could think on reading the first verse “The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel” 1.1.   In the same way as the books about the Law (Pentateuch) are attributed to Moses, the Psalms to David, the book of Proverbs is attributed to Solomon, because he was such a wise man. However, he is not the author of the book, maybe he is the author of some proverbs, but not the whole book. 

v  For an Israelite there existed only the cosmos and the web of social relationships, both realities derive from the creation made by God.   The mission of the wise person was to seek the harmony hidden within these two realities and transmit this knowledge by means of sentences and instructions, to help the human beings to live a good life, a truly human life.      

FIRST READING   Proverbs 8:22-31 

Ø  Wisdom speaks and says that she existed from the beginning.  

Ø  Wisdom describes for us the works of God. Let our imagination go to the places where Wisdom takes us: 

·         oceans, springs of water, rivers.

·         mountains and hills  

·         earth and fields   

Ø  She says that she was present when God made the sky 

Ø  when he put the sky as a dome  over the ocean.   

Ø  when he set boundaries to the sea     

Ø  If we pay attention to what Wisdom is saying, God is building a home. The home he has prepared for us to live in.  

Ø  And Wisdoms tells us that she was there beside him as his craftsman, and that she played before him, and was delighted to be with the human beings.

Ø  What a wonderful word, the Wisdom of God, God himself found and still finds his delight among the human beings, in each one of us. 

Ø  The Church sees in this Wisdom the Son of God, through whom all things were made. He became one of us.  In the Eastern Churches they see in this Wisdom an image of the Holy Creator Spirit.   

 RESPONSORIAL PSALM  Ps  8

R.  O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!
When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars which you set in place —
What is man that you should be mindful of him,
or the son of man that you should care for him?
R. O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!
You have made him little less than the angels,
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him rule over the works of your hands,
putting all things under his feet:
R. O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!
All sheep and oxen,
yes, and the beasts of the field,
The birds of the air, the fishes of the sea,
and whatever swims the paths of the seas.
R. O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth! 

ü  The psalmist is in awe to see how God takes care of his creatures.

ü  In a very special way of the human being, to whom he has given power over them.

ü  The psalmist  asks, what is man?

ü  We repeat the same question, who are we that the Son of the Father became one like us, and put his tent among us?  Who are we that God comes to dwell in us?  

SECOND READING  Rom 5:1-5

      Paul speaks of the redemptive work of God for his creation.  

      We have been justified by faith, and this gives us peace with God by Jesus Christ. 

      Christ is he who has given us the grace in which we live, and at the same time we rejoice in hope of the   glory of God. 

      He says that we do not only rejoice in hope, but also in our afflictions.  

      Knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character hope.  

      He says that hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.  

      The Holy Spirit is he who completes the work that God has begun in us.  

GOSPEL  Jn 16,12-15

v  Jesus says to his disciples that, he has many more things to tell them, but they cannot bear them at that moment.  

v  The Holy Spirit will help them to understand and to live what Jesus has taught them during his earthly life. The Spirit will guide them to the whole truth. He will remind them, all the words of Jesus.

v  He will not speak on his own; he will speak what he hears in the intimacy of the Trinitarian life. 

v  He will glorify Jesus, because he will take what is Jesus' and declare  it to them.   

v  Why does Jesus say that the Spirit will not speak on his own? 

v  Jesus had said to his disciples that the Spirit was the promise of the Father, the Father was giving the Spirit to them.  However, it seems as if the Spirit was given by Jesus.

v  The answer is found in the next verse: everything that the Father has belongs to Jesus.

v  The mission of the Spirit among us has been, to make possible the creating and redemptive plan of the Father in the Church and in the world. 

v  This is our God, the Christian God, God who is a Trinity of persons, a community of persons united by the love generated between the three divine persons. He is the Creator, the Redeemer and the Sanctifier.   

 I want to share with you a homily on the Most Holy Trinity given by Bishop Baron from Winona-Rochester, USA in 2017.

o   He invites us  to go with our imagination and look at the different beings of creation, from the tiniest ones to the larger ones, plants, animals and inanimate beings. He takes us  in this tour into matter itself and asks us to look at the atoms, protons, neutrons, etc… to go inside our own body composed by so many cells each one with its task. Afterwards he takes us to the celestial bodies, the galaxies the millions and millions of stars and planets. Finally he invites us to contemplate with awe this creation and to discover in it a constant communication and the capacity of each created being to reproduce itself.

o   From this contemplation Bishop Baron leads us to the contemplation of our God: the Father reproduces his own image exactly equal to himself, it is the Son, equal to the Father but another autonomous being , when both look at each other with love.  They are in awe ah! and this sigh or breath is the Holy Spirit who is another person the third person of the Trinity.

o   The Holy Spirit is the love that is communicated among the three divine Persons inside the Trinity.

o   God the Father has the capacity to reproduce his own image equal to himself and at the same time different as we say in the Profession of faith  God from God, light from Light begotten not made of one being with the Father… we say also I  believe in the Holy Spirit who proceed from the Father and the Son…

o   God has a continuous communication of love, admiration, and dedication among the three Persons of the Trinity, our only God.

o   The three divine Persons want to share their being and their happiness and the result is the wonderful creation that we have which has come to existence through the overflow of their love and, has  imprinted in some way their image in it,  making creation able to reproduce and to communicate.

CLARETIAN CORNER                    

 

 TERESITA ALBARRACIN

There was the tradition that when a young woman began her novitiate her name would be changed. Mari Carmen, this was her baptismal name, manifested the wish to be called like the young French Carmelite Little Theresa of Lisieux. Her wish was granted by her superiors and she was called Teresita. On April 10 1944 she made her first profession, beginning her life as a Claretian Missionary Sister, in the newly acquired house of Sarria ( one of the neighborhoods of Barcelona -Spain). From the rooftop she probably had contemplated   many times the city of Barcelona and, on very clear days, she could even have seen the Mediterranean sea which had cradled her since her birth.

A short time after her profession, she was assigned to the kindergarten class. She had always been very apostolic and manifested her desires to be sent as a missionary to save souls (Information give by her first Master of Novices in the Information Process);  but the superiors, for the moment, gave her that assignment.

She wrote “I love my vows and ask and want to fulfill them until death, because being poor I detach myself from the earthly things, being chaste and pure I resemble Jesus and Mary and, being obedient, I touch God Himself.”(Positio pp.88-90)

   

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

BARRON,Robert, Bishop. Homily on the Most Holy Trinity, 2017 in YouTube.

CONFERENCIA EPISCOPAL ESPAÑOLA, Sagrada Biblia, versión oficial, 2012

CONGREGATIO DE CAUSIS SANCTORUM, Mariae Teresiae, Positio super virtutibus 1994.

RAVASI, Gianfranco, Según Las Escrituras, Año C, 2006

SCHÖKEL, Luis Alonso. Comentario a La Biblia de nuestro Pueblo. 2010.