TWENTY FIRST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

21ST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – A (Is 22:19-23; Rom 11:33-36; Math 16:13-20)
Theme: Our profession and our praise is to be “Glory be to you Jesus, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”.

Reflection:
- In the frame work of two weeks we have again the figure of Peter who has become and who has to become the “Rock of faith” for the “Construction of the Church”.
- Peter who has walked sometime back on the sea and begged his help in the moment of his drowning into the waters and thus merited a ‘comment’ of the sadness of Jesus who called him ‘You of little faith’ (Math 14:31), now after a little while, as today’s Gospel indicate, receives another ‘comment’: “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah!” (v.17) and receives the ‘commission’ as well as the result of the profession of faith which has expelled from him the doubt and little faith: “you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church” (v.18).
- Even the last week, the Gospel has highlighted the ‘recognition and appreciation’ of Jesus to the Canaanite woman, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish” (Math 15:28). Jesus is always ready to compliment us when we profess the real faith and as the premium he gives ‘each one’ who professes the true faith in him ‘a great blessing’ as “the healing of her daughter” to the Canaanite woman and as “the foundation stone of his building” to Peter.
- It shows that anyone and everyone can become the ‘part of his blessing’ only if we really recognize who he is and if we truly and with commitment profess our complete faith in him. Nothing and no one can block this ‘bond of relationship between the one who professes and the one who is professed’, that is, between Jesus and his faithful.


First Reading:
- God needs the human means:
o God has his projects for the salvation of man and the creation; He has his methods and plans to bring to the completion; but he always wills that ‘it is through the human means’ that he wants bring the salvation to its realization;
o All the prophets have spoken of this plan of ‘human means’; in fact, it is God himself who has spoken to them and through them to the humanity of particular time and history; already choosing of ‘prophets, kings and judges’ for himself and for his proclamation is itself a great significance that God does everything or wants to do everything only with the ‘human mediation’, though he could do even otherwise, that is even without it, because nothing is impossible to him;
o Time and again God transfers this ‘mediation’ from one person to the other, not because it is his play but because of the infidelity of the ‘mediator’. It happened in the instance of king Saul; when Saul has become infidel and unfaithful in his kingship for God’s sake, God immediately dethroned him and elected David to be the next ‘mediator’ for him. It is quite normal in the biblical context to find the situations of this kind;
- Transfer of power is for the ‘safeguarding of the house of Israel’:
o In today’s first reading we see the oracle of God through the prophet Isaiah;
o Prophet, who is to be the authentic interpreter of the story and the signs of the time, speaks to Shebna what God has asked him to reveal; God will always denounce those ‘officials’ who seek for the self-glory than the glory of him who has brought him to this position of being ‘a mediation for his will’. Every self seeking official will be a disgrace to the God’s loving plan of salvation and that is why the prophet is very keen and attentive in making the oracles of God.
o The context of today’s text falls under the ‘pages of oracles’ made concerning various cities (which starts from the chapter fourteen of Isaiah);
o The strong words that are used in this context are very powerful and shows the impatience of God with the ‘self-seeking stewards’ of his vineyard; while making this oracle we see in the previous verses how the prophet expresses God’s words to the present steward of God, Shebna: “O you disgrace to your master’s house” (22:18).
 Every steward is called to be the ‘throne of honor’ for the task he is entrusted with;
o That’s what God desires when he chooses someone to be the ‘mediator’ between him and his people; once it doesn’t happen he will immediate act on the particular person dethroning him and electing and appointing a new one in his place; this is exactly what has happened in the case of Shebna;
o Shebna is given the warning by the prophet Isaiah who says, “I will thrust you from your office, and you will be pulled down from your post” (v.19). God does not leave his people alone without any mediation; he immediately chooses another; here is ‘predication’ of the future steward who will take the throne of the previous unfaithful steward;
- Person and position do not matter for God, but Faith and faithfulness
o God chooses whomever he wants; he does not have any preference; it is by his grace that the person is chosen not because of the person’s merits; this is the procedure of election throughout the Old Testament pages;
o Once he elects the person and gives him the position of honor to be ‘his steward’ and his mediator; all this happens according to his will and plan for the people he has chosen for himself.
o Therefore, the person and the position he enjoys are not matters of importance for God because they are just the work of his hands; what matters for him is the ‘faith’ that has to be professed and the ‘faithfulness’ that has to be preserved by the person chosen and elected; as long as one is faithful and profess his faith by his words and actions he is worthy of the ‘throne of honor’ (v.23) for him.
- Being a Father and being a throne of honor is the task of God’s mediator:
o God take away from Shebna the power and authority and gives it (passes on, or transfers it) to the next steward and he already declares before who he is: “On that day I will call my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah……”.
o The procession of the generation is importantly shown here; Eliakim is chosen; but he is not Eliakim in the air but son of certain man called Hilkiah; by making the reference to the genealogy God manifests that:
 The election is made in the ‘particular time, in the particular place, and in the particular context’;
 The election is made in the ‘history of the certain man and therefore it is not a myth but a concrete event’.
 The election is according to the ‘procession’ (thus being generated: thus from the Father to the Son) and not according to the imagination and fantasy.
o God gives the ‘authority to his hand’ (v.21) to be the ‘father to house of Israel’;
 Authority offered/given is not for the exercising of the superiority and the power as one wishes but to be the ‘father’ after the heart of the God who has chosen him and placed him to be the father.
o God gives the ‘keys of the house of David’ (v.22) to be the ‘throne of honor’:
 Power of the key is to exercise the prudent usage of opening and closing of the door of life;
 It is not given to makes use the power as one likes and for his self glory but the glory of God and the glory of Israel; and thus “he will become a throne of honor to his ancestral house” (v.23).
- Therefore, through the passage of today the prophet invites us to discover that in the story of the Church and in the story of the salvation God has willed to have the ‘need of human mediation’.
- The keys which are the symbol of power, and the linked verbs which are referred to it ‘open and close’ which are the sign of function and authority, are now given to Peter by Christ;

Second Reading:
- Also Paul who writes to the Romans the ‘greatness and profundity’ of the mystery of God and of his knowledge through which the ‘ways’ are prepared and offered to man to receive the salvation testifies that ‘everything is from him, and through him and for him’ who has become ‘The Way’ of God, Jesus Christ who says of himself, “the Way, the Truth and the Life”.
- This is the reason why we have to ‘give glory’ to him: “to him the glory in eternity, Amen’ (v.36); We are called into the life of God and into the life of Glory and thus we have to always ‘profess and praise his glory’ telling him ‘Glory to you O Jesus, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God’ (Gospel).

Gospel:
- Jesus is John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, and one of the prophets:
o It is the comprehension of the common people and it is surprising to see how the people think and consider of Jesus to be this way;
o It is very easy to fall into this kind of misinterpretation and misunderstanding of person of Jesus; the common people who have heard of the prophets and recently of John the Baptist, have seen in Jesus all that was previously revealed to them by these personalities:
o Who are these prophets:
 John the Baptist and Jesus:
• John is the voice of God in the wilderness and specially he preached the ‘baptism of repentance’ and ‘forgiveness of sins in the waters of river Jordan’.
• Jesus came and started preaching the kingdom of God and his first words of the first proclamation, according to Mark, are: “the time has come, the kingdom of God is near, repent and believe in the good news” (1:15);
• When people heard of Jesus preaching the ‘repentance and conversion’ they have immediately seen may be ‘John the Baptist’ who was preaching the same repentance has come back in the person of Jesus and thus they are not in considering Jesus as John the Baptist with their common understanding capacity;
 Elijah and Jesus:
• The Prophet Elijah has raised to life the “widow’s son” (1Kings 17:17-24); he has manifested the power of God before the priests of Baal (1Kings 18:20-40);
• Jesus came and started doing miracles and one of them is certainly restoring to life of a girl (Math 9:18-26); although Jesus has raised to life the “widow’s son” from the dead as narrated by Luke (7:11-17) and the calling into life of the Lazer who is dead and buried (John 11), they manifested the power of Jesus to give life; Jesus also testified the ‘the Father who does everything in him’ and thus rebuked the priests of that time for their ignorance and arrogance to believe in God the Father and in Him his Son;
• When people have seen these miracles of Jesus and manifestation of the power of the Father in him, they immediately go back to see the prophet Elijah in him because of the similar acts completed by him;
 Jeremiah and Jesus:
• The prophet Jeremiah called for the new understanding of the works of God and especially he has preached the ‘piety, social justice and loyalty to God’ than to giving up of oneself to the worldly and passing powers; he also spoke of the ‘new covenant’ which will be written in the hearts of those who accept God fully and completely;
• Jesus also came and manifested in his words (the proclamation of the kingdom of God) and in his deeds (miracles and the works of mercy) the piety (his prayer), the social justice (his appeals to the authorities) and his loyalty to his Father (his obedience); he has also called to accept the Father as our Father so that the ‘new covenant will be established’.
• When people have observed all that Jesus was preaching and performing they easily compared him to the prophet Jeremiah because they have read also the scriptures in which it is written of Jeremiah;
 One of the prophets and Jesus:
• Any prophet is the ‘voice’, the ‘Law’ and the ‘the manifestation’ of God; all the old testament prophets have been like this;
• Jesus has come as the ‘word’ of God and he said, “I do not speak of anything of my own but all that my Father commands me to speak”; Jesus has come as a New Law and he has often quoted the old law which was given and how it is perfected in the new law of love which he gives; Jesus gives the testimony for the Father’s work of salvation and thus manifests God and his love for the humanity;
• When people have seen Jesus as being ‘the word’, ‘the Law’ and ‘the Manifestation’ of God, they must have, immediately, thought him to be one of the prophets;
o Therefore, for the common people Jesus is just as they have heard of him ‘in the prophets and in the scriptures’ and their understanding has not gone anyway further from here.

- Question to the disciples and the answer of Peter:
o Now is the time to enter into particular moment; now is the hour to leave the general understanding and embrace the particular comprehension of Jesus; what other said is over and now there should be the recognition from the part of the disciple who have been there with Jesus all the time;
o Now is the time to make a movement to the outside to the inner experience; now is the hour to enter into the profundity of the understand of Jesus and his ways (second reading); and it is proper only to the disciples and that’s what Jesus wants to discover and he asks them thus: ‘But, oho do you say that I am’ (v.15).
o The conjunction ‘But’ is very important; it does not wipe away all that has been said; it only keeps it aside to open up a new understanding; it only serves as the ‘foundation and basis’ for the further construction of the truth; it shows that Jesus is not fully content with the previous answers and wants to know little more and little better; and he is very happy when Peter has come up with the beautiful and incomparable answer: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (v.16).
o ‘Amazing and at the same time un-understandable answer’: Peter have not just said the answer but he has ‘professed the faith’; he himself must have surprised with the answer that has come out of his mouth and even more the other disciples; it is sometimes wonderstruck to see the ‘answers of Peter’; even some time after he would say ‘you have the words of eternal life and to whom shall we go’. Only Jesus knows how and from where has come these words of inspiration and he knows certainly that the same Father who is working in him is also now working in his disciples;
o That is the reason why Jesus immediately exclaims: “Blessed are you Simon, Son of Jonah, it is not your flesh or blood which have revealed this to you but my Father in heaven” (v.17);
 Here once again we see, the reference to the procession (first reading reflections) when speaks of Peter and from where he comes from, ‘his father’ and thus ‘son of Jonah’;
 It shows also neither the person and nor personal intelligence which has come through the sharing of ‘flesh and blood’ of the human generation, has the capacity to reveal who is unless and until ‘His Father’ works and makes him to profess;
 Therefore, the recognition of Jesus and professing the faith in him is not the work of ‘flesh and blood’ and all that man contains but ‘the grace that comes from above’, the spirit, which makes one to profess this kind of faith;
o ‘Profession of faith’ is always accompanied by the ‘blessing’ or ‘glory’: Jesus immediately makes Peter a Rock and a Foundation on which he wants to build his community of believers, the Church; and gives him ‘the keys of the kingdom’ of God as the fruit for the humble recognition and reception of Jesus as the Son of God;
- Three movements/moments: QUESTION – REVELATION – MISSION:
o Question of Jesus: the search for the true identity and presence of Jesus: who is he and what he means for us is the question we have to pose always and try to find out the answer; this search is to be present always and it should be an on-going research for the true meaning of life in Christ:
o Revelation by God: when there a sincere search and authentic disposition for the knowledge of God and his ways, there will be certainly the revelation; when our search reaches its final and yet limited sphere, there enters the Spirit of God to makes us travel still further in our understating; it is free choice of God and he offers this possibility of revelation for all those who seek him with the committed faith and that is the spiritual meaning of Jesus words, “ask and you shall be given, seek and you shall find and knock and the door shall be opened to you” (Math 7:7);
o Mission and Commission: the search and the revelation do not stop there; every search/question and every revelation has a mission; it has a further procedure; it has to be passed on from one to the other and from the other to another; as the power is passed on from the person to the person (first reading) so also the revelation has to be passed (given in succession) from one to another; this act of passing on this revelation is the mission of each one who receives this revelation;

- Revelation sustains the ‘unity’ between the ‘question’ and the ‘mission’:
o It is the revelation of God that makes the true seeker to find an answer for the question of meaning of life and meaning of God’s presence;
o It is the same revelation that makes the faithful finder to carry on the act of passing on of this faith by his words and deeds and in one word, by the testimony of his life;
o It is the revelation who balances the ‘true seeker’ and ‘faithful finder’ to be always and at same time a man of the profession of faith;

Conclusion

- Meaning of the readings for us today:
o We are here in the Church, the place of revelation and the mountain of manifestation of God;
o We are here ‘in the moment of revelation’ between ‘the question of life’ with which we have entered into this presence of God and ‘the mission of faith’ with which we will proceed after this revelation of the truth of God;
o Therefore, the revelation, which comes to us in the form of the word proclaimed (the Scriptures) and the bread broken (the Eucharist), is the central and important and sustaining moment of our Christian life;
o Without this revelation (the mass and the prayers) our questions of life and the quest for the truth has no meaning; and without this revelation our life has no mission and thus we do not manifest what we are and thus we become ‘the men of little faith’ or ‘the men of the world’, not of God;
o In this way, this moment of the mass is very important to know what is God for me and you and what is his mission from now on for me and for you; if we miss this moment of revelation (and thus the moment of meeting Jesus and having his manifestation in the Word and in Sacraments) we miss everything in life: we miss our true identity and we miss our destiny; without ‘identity’ and ‘destiny’ what are we on earth?

- Each one of us is called to be the ‘custodian’ of the family of God, the Church:
o Each one of us is given the ‘authority’ to be the master of himself and the ‘responsibility’ to be the ‘guardian’ of the community; and not vice-versa, that is, we are not called to be the masters of others, making use of the authority given to us for our self-glory and self-growth (first reading); we are to accept God’s ways in Jesus for whom everything exists and for whom and in whom we have life (second reading) and thus give glory to God by professing our faith in Him by giving him glory because He is ‘The Christ, the Son of the Living God’ (Gospel);
- Thus let us all proclaim and profess with one voice our faith: “Glory to you Jesus, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Amen.”

TWENTIETH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

XX SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – A: (Is 56:1,6-7; Rom 11:13-15, 29-32; Math 15:21-28)
Theme: My dear, great is your faith and let it be done as you wish

Reflection:

- Last Sunday we have reflected on the miraculous walk of Peter on the waters on the command of Jesus and though he has wavered looking around with fear of winds and drowning, at the end, with the prayer of trust “Lord, save me” he is been helped by Jesus with the words, ‘man of little faith, why did you doubt’.
- This Sunday we are provided with totally different scene: the woman of great faith who is a stranger and the woman who did not doubt in spite of Jesus’ provocation; instead, she kept saying time and again, “Lord, help me”; though there were discouraging words from Jesus she did not lose confidence and trust in him and at the end, Jesus helps her with the words, ‘woman great is your faith’.
- The Church, in this way, gives us the possibility to reflect on the different dispositions of the various people who come into contact with him: the peter and the disciple in the last week who had fear of seeing a ghost and finally recognizing him at the calming of the winds and waters of the sea; and, the Canaanite woman on the other hand who from the beginning till the end manifested the same trust and faith in him though being a woman stranger to the Hebrews; the Church asks us to question ourselves how we are in the confrontations with Jesus, in the prayer or in the asking of help: do we keep on asking till the end of receiving the favor with the persistence of the manifestation of the proper trust in the person who is to help us like that of the Canaanite woman or do we fall back from the request when we see the ‘waves of doubt’ either by the silence or of the discouraging words of the people around us or of the one who is to help us like that of Peter;
- Who are we today in front of Jesus? Is the biggest question to be asked; Are we Peter who was the man of little faith, or are we Canaanite who was the woman of great faith? We have to return home today with the clear answer and clear identification of ourselves with regard to the matters of faith and trust in Jesus and thus hearing him say to each one of us: ‘my dear one, great is your faith and let it be done as you have asked for’.


First Reading: God’s presence is the house of prayer for all

- The message of hope of Isaiah:
o Prophet Isaiah is a prophet of God’s providence and God’s hope for the people of Israel who are in the slavery of Babylon; they are in desperate situation and disguising condition of life. They lost all hope of returning to be God’s people and thus people of life.
o God never leaves anyone abandoned and never allows anyone of his chosen people to be left alone in the difficulty and in the slavery; this is the principal message of the prophet for the chosen people who are at present in the situation of shame and disguise.
- It passes from the chosen ones to all the peoples:
o The message of the prophets and especially, of the Isaiah today, is the message first to the people of Israel of whom God said ‘I will be your God and you will be my people’ and that is the ‘gracious condition’ of the chosen race. Therefore, the message first apply and imply to the people of Israel and we have to take it in the context of the prophecy than giving it immediately the universal significance: “Thus says the Lord: maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come and my deliverance be revealed” (v. 1) is the first lines of the prophecy of today which clearly indicates that it is directed first towards the people of Israel;
o Only then, it passes from/through them to others, whom they consider to be strangers just because they are not chosen by their God. But the ‘passing’ of the word of hope and salvation is sure and definitive: “And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant – these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer” (vv.6-7). As the chosen ones are to practice the justice and to do what is right, so the foreigners who want to be joyful with the help of the Lord are to ‘join themselves to him’ and to ‘be his servants’.
o Therefore, the necessity of the disposition of the part of the faithful, be it the chosen one or be it the foreigner, is demanded; they have to be available for the ACT of the Lord, the act of his salvation and the act of his love for his people;
o In this way, God’s covenant and God’s salvation is extended to all the people passing through the ‘way of the Israel’. Therefore, the prophecy which was in the particular context becomes open to all who keep themselves available for it.
- The prophecy has two stages of fulfillment:
o One is Immediate: the prophecy made by God of the Old Testament is always has its immediate response; it happens in the context of near future; its effect is immediately seen in the life of the one who has received the prophecy: for example, today’s first reading speaks of the house of prayer on the holy mountain: it signifies the salvation of the people of Israel from the bondage and they would go to Jerusalem once again to worship him;
o The other is in the appointed time and thus in the long future with the fulfillment of the promise: here the prophecy would be fulfilled in the highest and perfect way the God has chosen to reveal and about the time and person he has promised to fulfill, and thus in his beloved son Jesus; it happens when the Word revealed manifests itself in the Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. He is the highest and perfect fulfillment of God’s revelation of the prophecies: for example, Jesus tells that the Kingdom of God is open to all and invites all the people, without any difference of any type, to embrace it and to be part of it;
o In this way, by the Act of Jesus the worship of God takes another dimension and another root; it is an invitation for all; the immediate effect of the prophecy is ‘return of the Israel from slavery to the worship of God in Jerusalem’ in the temple that God has appointed; the future effect of the prophecy is ‘the return of all the people of the world from the bondage of the sin and the evil to the acceptance and worship of God in the Kingdom of God’ with the spirit and the truth (John 20-24);


Second Reading:

- Paul and the salvation to the gentiles:
o As we know from his letters and from his own testimony, Paul is called to be the messenger of God’s project of salvation to the gentiles; accordingly he dedicates all his life and preaching; but he never excluded completely the Jews who are the first chosen people of God.
o As we see today’s second reading this is clear that “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (v.29) and thus, the gift of life and call of salvation that is offered to the people of Israel are valid for all the time because God’s words and deeds are not take back; his promises are true and they take place in the appointed time and through the appointed person.
o Paul spends almost three continuous chapters in his letter to the Romans (chapters 9, 10 and 11) dedicating them all to the discourse of the project of God for his people Israel; he recalls the call of God for them in the ninth chapter speaking about the “election of Israel” and how they in return shown many a times their unbelief; and he talks about the salvific design of God which is extended to all because of their infidelity and disbelief in the tenth chapter and immediately, in the eleventh chapter he says that the rejection of Israel is not final and with the same mercy with which God has called even the gentiles into the salvation, he calls back also the people of Israel who have gone astray with their disobedience.
o Finally, the disobedience of the few becomes the door open for revelation of the mercy of God; in this way, God makes it possible for the grace to reach man even in the time of ‘disobedience of others’.


Gospel:

- The context of the gospel:
o Jesus after finishing the multiplication of the bread and the rebuking the little faith of Peter in the zone of the Jewish people, now he goes into the zone of the foreigners who do not belong to the people of God and more over, as considered in the given time, to the people abandoned and rejected by God;
o It is not surprising that all the people who will be coming into contact with him or whom he will meet in this area are strangers; no wonder in it because it is very normal to find out only strangers in the strange land;
o The zone that Jesus enter into is “the district of Tyre and Sidon” (v.21); and then there is a Canaanite woman who ‘on seeing Jesus’ immediately shouts for help “have mercy on me Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon” (v.22);
o The three strange response of Jesus:
 Silence (v.23): “But he did not answer her at all”.
 The priority of the chosen race to be manifested, an answer to his disciples (v.24): “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”.
 Direct confrontation with the woman (v.26): “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
o The persistent prayer of the woman: repeated request with the hope and the insisting asking without losing heart with the ‘strange attitude’ of Jesus:
 Have mercy on me, Lord (v.22)
 Lord, help me (v.25)
 “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table” (v.27)
o Final result is the ‘donation of the favor asked’:
 With the compliment for the perseverance of the prayer: “woman, great is your faith!” (v.28);
 With the completion of the request made: “Let it be done for you as you wish” (v.28).

- Revelation of its truth:
o The Initiative of Jesus:
 No one asked him to come to the strange land; Jesus is always aware of his mission of bring the salvation to all, not only to the chosen people of God, but to the whole humanity;
 It is he who makes the first step towards the ‘foreign land’ and to the ‘foreign people’ leaving his own sheep: “Jesus left that place (place of his people) and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon; therefore, the first step is always Jesus’.
 That’s is the reason why we should not be surprised to see a different attitude in the Jesus treatment of others and specially foreigners; His knows that he has to go to other sheep also as he says somewhere that he has other villages also to go and proclaim the kingdom of God;

o The strange attitude of Jesus:
 His attitude seems to be different only because of his silence; his preference for the lost sheep of the proper house and his provoking confrontation with the woman; but it is only an act of verification of the faith of the person who asks the favor.
 This kind of attitude we see many times: Jesus verifies the faith of people who come to him to ask for the help or to be with him or to follow him:
• Jesus’ long discourse with the Samaritan woman in which Jesus slowly and patiently brings out what is in her and finally reveals her the truth and thus leads her to the salvation/finding of the Messiah (John chapter four);
• Jesus’ triple question to Peter after the resurrection: “Peter, son of Simon, do you love me?” is not only because of the former’s betrayal of the latter three times but also for the verifying the disposition of him for the work of the Lord. Thus Jesus asking him again and again tests his consistency and firm faith that he has to expose and reveals the truth of ‘leading the flock’ and thus leads him to be the witness of salvation;
• In the same manner, even here, Jesus wants to verify how persistent she is in her request and how confidence she is in him that he would do something;
 It is not to frighten the people that he exposes this kind of attitude and to makes the strong and firm in the faith that they manifest;
 He already knows that ‘as the seed is so the fruit shall be’; and as the ‘seed of faith manifested’ is so the ‘fruit of the grace/favor shall be’ and consequently, he wonders and appreciates with great joy the unwavering faith and un-diminishing confident of the woman, though only a Canaanite, a stranger.
 What he wants is not who that person is, be it Jew or Gentile (as Paul puts it), but what he expects is “how the person puts out his disposition to the act of the Lord” which is an act of ‘total faith’ in him. The Canaanite woman expressed this kind of ‘verified and committed faith’ and she received a favor asked.

Conclusion:

- It’s meaning for us today:
o It is Jesus who, fulfilling God’s will of salvation for all, makes the first step towards the people and with his approach invites them to embrace his call;
o There is certainly the requirement from the part of the follower or the one who asks for the need, that is, the faith; faith is being available for the Act of God in our life without losing the trust and confidence even if he is belated in fulfilling our need;
o Many a time we are discouraged when some favor does not occur to us if after the prayer; it is because we want to have an immediate answer and when this doesn’t happen we lose heart and we give up cursing and blaming God for his silence;
o We have to learn from the Canaanite woman who, in spite of Jesus’ silence to her, kept on asking with the firm confidence and finally Jesus, viewing the continuous and unwavering faith of her, grant her what she asks for;
o It is not difficult to Jesus to give (or do) immediately what is asked; but we want to verify the disposition of the person in the confrontation with him and that’s the reason why, many a time, we see him either silent or taking his time in granting us what we ask; His silence and his slowness in responding does not make our faith stumble or waver;
- What is faith that can be derived from the reading of today:
o Faith is not just believing everything without verifying its contextual content;
o It is not following immediately and blindly all that is asked without knowing its truth;
o It is ‘being exposed or being available’ to the Act of God and this act of God could be in various forms; may be the manifestation in a miracle or a call for the renunciation of everything for him;
o We are called to be available for this act of God with total commitment and firm faith and persistent prayer and complete disposition;
o When we are like this Jesus would surely tell us: my dear, great is your faith! Let it be done as you have wished!

NINETEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

19TH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – A (1Kgs 19:9a, 11-13a; Rom 9:1-5; Math 14:22-33)
Theme: We can be calm and tranquil when we are in the boat of Jesus

Reflections:

- “We are the bread of life for others” and “It is we who have to feed others with the bread of life”: they are the theme of Last Sunday and concluded that we should be ready ‘to become the bread’ for the spiritual nourishment of the people around us by the kind word and merciful deed; Yes, indeed, people do not need and do not expect much from us the material help or some material food; they really seek for a - kind look (eye and thus, keenly observing their actual needs), loving presence (heart burning for them and thus, feeling for their situation and be ready to be with them) and finally (and only as last resort) an extension of the help (the hands moved towards them and thus providing them with what they need if one is able to do it); Thus, people around us expect from us only a kind look and loving presence more than anything else. In this condition of life and in this need of life, we are called to give bread of Life to them or we ourselves become bread for them and it ultimately means, we have to give them life;
- This week, this Sunday, Jesus wants us to be calm and quite amidst the winds and storms of life because we are still in his boat, the church; we need to acknowledge and be conscious of the presence of Jesus with us always, and it is his promise for us: “I will be with you until the end of the time”. We should never forget his ‘hidden’ but certain presence with us and thus we can courageously walk on the sea of dangers with confidence and with trust because Jesus is there in front of us with the extension of his hand calling us ‘Come’. We have to, fixing our eyes only ON HIM, walk towards him and thus He and We can be in the same boat of serenity and tranquility.

First Reading:

- God’s presence is in the silence of the nature:
o God’s presence is experienced not in the great incidents or terrible causalities but in the soft and calm silence:
o This is the experience of the prophet Elijah and we can find an answer even for our trials and for our desire to see God and his face;
o God told Elijah to wait for him because He is passing before him; Suddenly there was first:
 A great and strong wind which can break the mountains and pluck out the trees; Elijah hoped to see God in that wind because he might have thought that God is great and strong like wind so his presence will be surely there in that; but alas! God was not there; and God will not be there in the ‘storm of the winds’;
 Then, there was an earthquake; Elijah in vain search for God and God was not there; and God will not be there in the ‘breaking of the earth’;
 Then, there was a fire; Elijah once again searched for God in his eagerness to find him at least in the fire but God was not there; and God will not be there in the ‘devouring fire’
o There are many disturbances, calamities and imbalances in the nature which was created in ‘Order’ and in ‘systematic unity’; God is not and cannot be the cause for all these because he has created everything by his word and hands and found everything ‘being good’.
o Many time we are tempted to search for God in the unusual happenings of life, or to understand more easily, we expect God to be present in the unwanted circumstances of life, for example, when we are depressed and discouraged, when we have problems and sufferings, when we lose heart in the different trials of life; But one thing is sure, and we can conclude from the experience of Elijah, that God is not present and God is not there in those moments;
o God will be present and God likes to reveal to us his amazing presence when we are ‘calm, quite and with the tranquility’ without being burdened by the preoccupations of many other things; This is the reason why, God who is not found ‘so called strong wind’, ‘so called breaking of the earth’ and ‘so called devouring fire’, which, in fact, are terrible things for the understanding of man, is finally found and made is presence possible, at the end of all these great things, in the small and unnoticeable breeze, in which there is serenity and silence; God likes to be present when everything is calm; therefore,
 It is futile to search for God when we are wavering with the ‘disturbing winds of many faiths and many religions’ which hit us and attack us so much that we try to see the presence of God in them; It is not fault or dubious to search for God in the true religion but once we accept and embrace the ‘True God’ we should not waver or we should not falter and go around other preoccupations such as ‘the false attractions of various faiths’; God does not will to reveal himself in these conditions and in these situations which disturb them so much; He wills that man comes out of this wavering life and firm himself on the true faith and only then he can experience the presence of His God.
 It is not useful to search for God when we are broken by the ‘earthquakes of technologies’ which in fact, break us into two parts; the attractions of the world and the development of the technology which has to help man to realize the true self and true meaning of life is, instead, leading man into the division of life and division of values; the modern man is divided into ‘the man of faith’ on the one hand and ‘the man of materials’ on the other hand; the man of God on the one hand and the man of the world on the other hand; in this way, the modern man is ‘split’ into the ‘two natured man’ between which he is creating an abyss into which often he falls and loses his life; even in these situations God does not want to reveal himself; he wants the man to come out of this ‘double nature’ and embrace completely the ‘desires of the spirit’ and only then man can experience the presence of His God.
 It is not at all meaningful to search for God when we are burnt with the ‘fire of difficulties, sufferings and problems’ which make man to lose confidence and trust in God and finally, make man to go away from God and trust his own self rather than the hand of God; in these fires of life we lose the integrity of the life, we lose the common sense and finally we lose the light of God; man desires to find God in these moments of life which are opposed to the moments of joy and happiness in which man tends to forget God and his presence; God doesn’t like that man wishes to find him only in these situations forgetting his real efficacy in the joyful conditions of life; God wants that man leaves aside all these worries and puts all the burden on the shoulders of God with trust and seek with the serenity of the heart His Face;
o We have to leave aside all these conditions and burdens and keep ourselves in the available for the ‘passing of God in the silence of our life’; certainly there will be the calm and serenity after all these unwanted disturbances and eventualities in life and we have to ‘patiently and with the peace’ wait for those moments and then only we can see the face of God and experience his presence;
- Coming out of the cave for the meeting of the Lord:
o Elijah was hiding in the cave for the fear of life; and we can understand this when we read the preceding the passages; he has escaped from the hands of Jezebel and after a long journey and the miraculous feeding of an angel ‘he came to a cave and spent the night there’ (v.9); this was the condition of the prophet when God wanted to meet him.
o God told him to come out of the cave, out of the resting place, out of comfortable and secured life telling him, “go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by” (v.11);
o Therefore, the first demand that God makes in order to have the revelation of his presence is: ‘to come out of our zone’; it may mean that, we are called to come out of our houses, out of our secure lives, out of our circled life, out of our comfortable zones and for this motive even Jesus invites his followers to leave aside all that they have to gain the eternal life; it also means, that we have to forego all that we have (renounce) and we have to put all our trust in him (taking up the word of the Lord) and thus wait for his presence;
o We can see the face of God only when we - accepting the invitation of God who calls us to – come out of our caves, also coming out of our preoccupations and leaving silence in the hearts;
o And therefore, we experience the presence of God in the ‘coming out of our house/caves’ and in the ‘leaving aside of all the winds of doubts, earthquakes of the falling into the attractions of the world, and fires of problems’ and finally, in the ‘creating of silence and serenity of the heart’.

Gospel:

- The priority of the prayer even after the completion of the work:
o Today’s gospel reading is preceded by the multiplication of the five loaves and two fish which has become nourishment for five thousand men excluding numerous women and children.
o Soon after the miracle which Jesus has accomplished with the will and the for the Glory of God, he has not rested or remained in the praise of the people or for the recognition of his glory by the people but he has set apart to pray;
o He has sent his disciples to go to the other side of the river so that the proclamation of the wonderful deeds of God will be possible also to the other people; he has also dismissed the people to go back to their homes to continue their daily living in the continual praise of the Lord; thus he has created a space to be with his Father alone; the spiritual meaning of the event could be,
 First of all, to leave aside all what one owns (dismissal of his disciples) and
 Also, to leave aside all that is around (dismissal of all the crowds);
 In other words, keeping aside what one has and what one is surrounded by, therefore, what is personal and what is social;
 Only then, the presence of the Lord is possible and will be revealed and realized fully and completely;
o For this reason Jesus has sent all his disciples and dismissed the crowed and thus created ‘the space and the time’ for the Lord, to put it clearly, being exposed and available for the revelation of the Lord; and this is where our prayer helps us to be with the Lord and makes us experience his presence in the silence and solicitude of our life;
o We see Jesus going to pray alone even after the completion of the miracle or wonder; this gives us explanation for what we lack; we not only pray for the good things to happen to us but also we need to give glory and praise to the Lord even after the good things being done and being happened without forgetting that it is He who has fulfilled these ‘goods’ for us; we often forget the presence and effect of Jesus once everything that we want takes place; today Jesus teaches us to be always ‘grateful’ to the merciful deeds of God amidst us;
- Jesus makes the first step: “Early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea”: here we can reflect this phrase in three parts : ‘he came walking toward them – early in the morning – and on the sea’:
o He comes walking toward them: It is Jesus who makes the initiative; it is he who takes the first step to come to meet us; even before we are ready to meet him who comes towards us in order to be with us; that is what we see in today’s gospel; “he came walking toward them” (v.25)
o Early in the morning: when we see the Italian translation we find other phrase used: ‘at the end of the night’ for the English translation of ‘Early in the morning’; though at the first impression both look alike in the meaning we can go deeper in understanding the two phrases:
 At the end of the night: it is only after the ‘night’ that the meeting of Jesus is made possible; for this reason we can also listen to Paul who says that we are no more children of the night; the night is gone and the day has started; therefore, we have to leave aside the works of the night and start the works of the light; we meet Jesus and we can feel his presence in the light and the light is possible only once we dispel the night; Jesus comes walking towards the disciples once the nigh is over and the day is started;
 Early in the morning: the first action, either of Jesus or his disciples, on the starting of the day is ‘mutual meeting’ in which, as we said above, the first step is always Jesus’. It was in the early morning of the first day of the week that Jesus rose up from the dead and appeared to the women;
 Therefore, both ‘end of the night’ or making the night end, and ‘the early morning’ or initiating the first action, make us leave aside the deeds and the powers of the night and to embrace the possibility of the meeting Jesus;
o On the sea:
 In the biblical world the sea (waters of the sea) signify the ‘powers of hell’, the power of the evil and also ‘power of death’;
 Walking on the sea, therefore, signify that Jesus has crushed down these evil powers and walking over them victoriously;
 He is coming towards the disciples walking on the sea ‘as the victorious king of who keeps the kingdom of evil under his feet’ to make the disciples participate in his victory over the evil and keep the ‘ability to win over them’ in their proper hands;
- The invitation of Jesus to be ‘victorious’ with the faith and trust: Come
o After the fearful cry of the disciple as seeing the ghost Jesus assures them that it is He himself and thus not to be afraid: “take heart, it is I; do not be afraid” (v.27);
o Keeping aside the split and contradictory personality of Peter, we see him immediately asking Jesus if it is He, to make him also walk on the water;
o Jesus did not ask him ‘not to take risk since any way he is reaching them’ but he asked to “COME”; it is the invitation of Jesus to Peter, as the Rock who will be given the keys of heaven, and to all other disciples who follow his word; it is an invitation to the disciples to throw all the trust and confidence in him and just walk on the waters;
o Peter did the same thing; on the word of Jesus he, with all the faith in him (most of the time ‘little faith’ as Jesus would remind him little later, “man of little faith why did you doubt?”) started walking on the water and he was able to do it as long as he had the faith in him and his eyes being fixed on him;
o The reality of the temptations and fears will always be there; we need not be preoccupied with this; because we are called to be over these and win over them with the confrontation of faith and trust; but Peter started looking around and lost his ‘look’ on Jesus and feared the winds and storms and immediately ‘the downfall started’ and the ‘drowning into the powers of evil’ started.
- The invitation: COME is always followed by an EXTENDING OF HAND
o Jesus knows the fragility and weakness of his disciples and more over of Peter; and thus he is always ready to extend his hand to save them from the dangers of water; that is the efficacy of the presence of Jesus; in the presence of Jesus and on the word of Jesus we can always put our complete trust; he is certainly there to lead us (bring out) out of the evil powers that press us down; but only when we are ready to ask his help and ready to cry out for salvation with the words that drowning Peter himself has used: ‘Lord, save me!’.
o The hands of Jesus are always ‘being extended’ towards us; it is only our part that we have to, raising our hands, take his hand to be secure and saved; Peter did it and is saved;
- With Jesus everything is peaceful and calm:
o Once Jesus entered into the boat the winds have ceased and everything became calm and serene;
o The presence of Jesus gives us peace and tranquility; he makes us to be silent and calm in the midst of trials and tribulations;
o The boat travels peacefully only because Jesus is there and he moves it towards its final destiny;
- The Church is the Boat of Jesus Christ:
o Once Jesus climbs the boat the wind has stopped; disciples were safe and secure;
o Jesus is always present in the Church and makes his revelation in the silent growth of the Church although the Church is tormented and disturbed by ‘the winds of doubts and wrong interpretations’, ‘the earthquake of division of desires between the world and the faith’, and ‘the fires of problems and temptations’, she can still go ahead with the confidence and trust that Jesus is with her.


Conclusion

- We have to seek for the face of the Lord in the serenity and silence of the heart, because God makes himself known not in the storms of life but in the tranquility of the soul.
- Like Peter we have to thrown all our burdens and difficulties on the word of Jesus and just walk towards him with faith and trust and with the ‘eyes’ fixed on him.
- We have to be always ready to take his extended hand with the cry of salvation: ‘Lord, save me!”.
- If we are in the boat of Jesus, or if we invite and makes Jesus enter into our boat of life, in other words, when we give ‘space and time’ for Jesus to be with us we can be still and calm.
- Let us be, finally, in the boat of the Church in which Christ is always present and in whose presence all the winds of the life are being stopped.
- Therefore, we can be serene and tranquil in the boat of Jesus: we will climb it and remain in it until its destiny to the shore of the eternal joy.

EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

18TH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – A: (Is 55:1-3; Rom 8:35, 37-39; Math 14:13-21)
Theme: We are called to be the ‘Living Bread’ for the people

Reflections:

- After three or four weeks of the reflection on the parables of the mystery of the Kingdom of God, in which we have mediated that we have to be ‘the good soil - the good seed among the weeds – the mustard seed – the yeast and finally – the hidden treasure – the precious pearl and the net thrown into the sea’ and thus have mediated that we are to participate in this mystery of the kingdom of God by being available and being in search and being ready to embrace it, now we move on to see the ‘marvelous operations’ of Jesus.
- The thirteen chapter of Mathew stands as an ‘introduction’ or ‘the departure point’ to all the next chapter that follow just as the chapter 5-6-7 stand for the following chapters. Thus Mathews gospel structure and more over his ‘Messianic message’ in and through Jesus seems to be like this: reminding of the Old Covenant – the advent of the New Covenant – the fulfillment of the both in the person of Jesus – the word/preaching of Jesus – the deed/miracles of the mercy of Jesus;
- In this way, the Gospel of Mathew seems to be having ‘two parts’ exactly in the midst of which there stands the ‘parables of the kingdom’; If we see from the beginning apart from his childhood narrations, we find the so-called ‘Sermon on the Mountain’( for three chapters of 5-6-7) in which he speaks of What Was Earlier and What Is Now and thus the combining and completion of both Covenants in his person; and then there are his miracles (for two chapters 8-9) and thus the word proclaimed and referred to him is now put into the deed and thus ‘word transformed into action’ of Jesus; and once he has shown who he is and for what he has come, now he starts ‘building his company’ (the church) by calling to himself the Apostles, giving them the instructions and sending them to the mission (for three chapters 10-11-12) and thus everything that was done finds its fulfillment in the ‘realization of the kingdom of God’ (the parables of the 13th chapter); everything is said and done in the view and realization of the kingdom of God.
- The same structure will be seen in the chapters following; from the revelation of the kingdom of God through the parables (chapter 13) Jesus puts them into the daily activities and necessities of life. In this line, the first miracle he does after the parables of the kingdom of God is ‘the feeding of the five thousand’ or the multiplication of the bread and from there he moves ahead how God’s love and mercy, proclaimed and revealed until now through the sermons and parables and the few miracles, is intensified in its ‘task and effect’ and thus entering into the mystery of ‘self-denial’ (chap 16) and ‘being little and small’ (chap 18) by which the real greatness of the follower of Jesus is measured, being ‘forgiving’ in the relations with others and specially with the offenders (chap 19) and thus creating the community of forgiveness and peace, being ‘the vineyards’ (chapter 20), being ‘watchful and waiting’ with the preparation for the good judgment (chapters 21-25) and finally for the complete realization of the saving kingdom in his ‘suffering-death-resurrection’ of Jesus.
- Though it looks little ‘out of the way’ we can still take it as an important departure by which we start walking with Jesus participating in his ‘intensifying work’ of God with his words and deeds and for this reason, it appears to be, the great chapter on the parables of the kingdom of God is set in the exact middle chapter of the Gospel; the central point is the kingdom in view of which and in the following of which every ‘word and action’ of Jesus takes place; from today, as we reflect the chapters following the kingdom, we concentrate more on the ‘mission in the continuation of its realization in the person of Christ’ and on our own call ‘to be partakers’ of this mission;


First Reading: invitation into the ‘eternal alliance’

- Invitation of God:
o God’s invites the people of Israel: it’s first of all, and always, God’s initiative to call his people to himself and to enter into the life which he offers them;
o He invites them – unlike the alliance which he made through Moses on the Mount Sinai, which always falls within the limits of time and space and disappears in the shades of another to come – into the alliance which has its origins from the beginning of the foundation of the world, since everything is made through and for him who is the invisible image of the Father, Jesus (Col 1), which still enters into the ‘history’ and thus into the time and space, but which, without being dissolved into the emptiness, goes back to its eternal origin and thus it remains ‘always’ a ‘eternal alliance’.
- The free entrance:
o The conditions for the entrance into this alliance are not very burdensome; the entrance is free and available for all and we see it in the invitation of God to all, even those who do not have ‘the capacity’ or ‘the proper means’ to enter: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come; buy wine and milk without money and without price” (55:1).
o It is not the question of ‘having’ but a question of ‘making effort’ to enter into the ‘act of alliance’; the banquet or the fellowship of God is not limited and it has no boundaries; to reaches all and it includes all; and thus it is a great and enormous banquet which would be sufficient, ‘still will be remaining’ (Gospel) for all who the invitees;
o Therefore, there is no more an excuse of scarcity of the ‘meals’; there is no more any blame of not being sufficient; No one can escape from this invitation to the abundant life; because, the banquet - the fellowship and the fraternity – is prepared from the beginning of the creation until its final consummation in the end of the creation; therefore, invitation is valid and available ‘ALWAYS AND TO EVERYONE’.
- The two conditions for the alliance:
o Listening to the Word of God: God asks his people to listen to him, not just because of his own glory and omnipotence but for their own life and that’s what he expresses: “Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live” (v.3); listening to God makes his people live; life comes from the listening of the Word of God; and we know clearly that even Jesus confirms it when telling that ‘man lives not by bread alone but by the word that comes from the mouth of God’ (Mt 4:4); listening means following ‘every word’ of God which may appear ‘in his laws, in his commands, and in his instructions’, through the prophets, through the kings and through the pastors and more over, through HIS ETERNAL WORD, Jesus Christ;
o Participating in his banquet: “listen carefully to me, and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food” (v.2b). First comes the ‘listening’ to the word of God, not as we like, but with carefulness of not trampling it under our foot, but bearing its ‘cause and effect’ in our lives; then comes ‘eating’ what is good and rich food: God calls his people to have ‘a rich food’; the only good and rich food a man can have is the ‘banquet’ that he himself prepared for his people. God cautions us not to go after what is not remaining and strive for what is not a real bread: “why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” (v.2a); every piece of bread we eat is not real bread and does not really satisfy our hunger; we need to know the difference between the ‘bread that perishes’ as Jesus says in the St. John’s Gospel, chapter six, and the ‘bread that remains for ever’ and the ‘living bread’ that gives the life (John 6 – every word the discourse on the bread);


Second Reading: we are victorious only in the love of Christ

- Christ who loves us first:
o St. Paul is very much eager to proclaim the love of God, manifested in Jesus Christ and especially in his death and resurrection; therefore, for Paul, the love of God revealed and realized in Christ stands in the first place and stands as the central point around which ‘all other life and love’ moves and rotates;
o In this way, Paul dedicates many chapters in his epistles to express and lead the people into this love of God and one fine day he tells that, all that we have is nothing if we do not love with the same love that Christ showed us (1Cor 13).
o Therefore, it is God who loved us first; it is Jesus who loved us first; and with this love he has made us his brothers and sisters;
- Nobody and Nothing can separate us from this love:
o Since it is his love which flows in us and since it is he who has injected in us the ‘sperms of life’ in us, this love stays long and in eternity;
o If it were to be our love, it would have limits; it would have failed soon; it would have fallen away and broken apart because when ‘many storms hit our boat’ we immediate sink and drown into the sea of destruction;
o Since it is love of Christ, no storms touch us; no winds make us sink; because in all the ‘storm of life; we are victorious;
o That’s why “hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword” cannot separate us from the love of Christ;
- Victory in the love of Christ:
o We are still victorious in all these trials of life, not because we are strong and capable of winning but it is through the love of Christ, which makes us bear and endure and live these trials, that makes us victorious;
o We are, thus, no more slaves to these ‘unavoidable and ever present’ storms of live but we are the ‘victorious soldiers’ who combat them every day and win over them easily with the weapon of love of Christ; therefore, let us be ‘thankful’ and let us be ‘sinking’ in this love of Christ;


Gospel: We are the bread for others

- Miracle of the multiplication of the five bread and two fish:
o This miracle of the multiplication is one and the first of the two that Mathew narrates in his gospel;
o Though we have read, re-read and reflected many a time this miracle, this miracle remains only a miracle written in the Gospel unless we become a miracle of the multiplication;
o We are the ‘five loaves of bread and two fish’ as the community of believers who can feed the ‘multitude of the nations’ with the ‘goodness of bread and the love the wine’ and thus – we are called to be the bread of life for others;
- Two moments of the Mission of Jesus:
o One, the Mission Accomplished: Jesus from the morning of that day till evening does everything for the people; he talks to them and reveals the mystery of God’s love in the words;
o Second, the Mission Commissioned: After a day-long word and work, Jesus, in the evening, asks his disciples, his community of followers those who called to witness his ‘words and actions’ of the kingdom, to continue this mission and thus he says: ‘you give them something to eat’.
- Four steps of Jesus to reach the people and to be with them and to save them:
o We will just exact sentence of the fourteenth verse: “When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.”
o To understand better, let us read the Italian text which is little closer to the Greek translation in which it appears as: “coming down from the boat, he saw a great crowd, felt compassion for them and cured their sick”.
o The difference is clear in the verbs used here: ‘coming down’ (or descending in Italian), ‘seeing’, ‘feeling’ and ‘healing’: now let us analyze these four words and verbs and we should keep in mind that they are not mere words and verbs in the nature of the Gospel and in its Theology but they have a greater and significant meaning:
 Descending from the boat: although English text say that ‘he went ashore’, it is in the Italian text, ‘descending from the boat’: the first step of Jesus reach his people and save them; Jesus comes down from the ‘boat’ of his glory; from the bosom of his Father; from ‘being God himself’; coming down is ‘leaving aside’ all his conditions and all his status and all his ‘being’;
 Seeing the great crowd: the second step of Jesus to reach his people and save them; Jesus descending from his Father Right Side SEES the people and sees the world in the pit of destruction and in the clutches of evil; Jesus comes down first from his glory and sees the pain of the crowds (the difficult and suffering condition of the people) and here, he leaves ‘his being’ for ‘being with the people’;
 Feeling compassion for them: the third step of Jesus to reach his people and to save them; Jesus, who has descended and seen personally the affliction of the people, cannot but feel compassion for them; his mercy is an out-pouring grace that embraces all the people; feeling compassion means ‘being with, for and by the people.’ It is an assurance of ‘continuous presence’ for them in times of well being as well as in times of difficulty; it is to say to them that ‘I am with and for you’ and you can very safely rest in my presence because I will look after all that you need and all that you have to do. Compassion is not only a beautiful word which gives lot of joy in pronouncing it but a wonderful deed that can create marvels in the recipient. Jesus who has given him ‘his being’ for ‘being with the people’ is now proceeds still ahead to ‘being one with them’;
 Curing the sick, or healing the sick: the final step of Jesus, as we see in this particular instance, to reach his people and to save them; the one who has come down to be and to be one with the people, now offers the healing for all the sicknesses of life. The one who feels compassion cannot but extend a healing hand; this is what exactly Jesus did here; he offers salvation not only by the pious words of his proclamation but also by the concrete deeds of his compassion and love for the people;
o From Jesus to the Disciples:
 Now it is the time of disciples to continue the work of Jesus because they are asked to ‘provide the bread themselves’ without looking for some other provider.
 They have done the same and as demanded: they have left their families and all that they have (descending from their safe circles), have seen the needs of the people and specially for the word of God and bread of life (the work of attending to the needs), have felt love and compassion for them (thus decided to stay with them by their living witness) and finally, they have offered them courage and confidence in following their Master, Jesus (and thus spreading the leaves of healing).
 Thus the disciples are called to be:
• Guardians of the flock and the faithful and their community: they have to pay keen attention to the needs of the time and provide them with their ultimate sacrifice of life;
• Intermediaries between Jesus and the community of the believers: they are called to take from Jesus what is His and give them to the people who are waiting and praying for it; they have to build the bridge between the Giver of life and the life of the believers;
o Miracle of multiplication has to be transformed into the daily living event:
 Jesus doesn’t want that his followers to be just passive to all that takes place in their life; he wants them to be active and participative and thus become themselves a miracle for others;
 Jesus doesn’t count the quantity of sources but quality of the spirit; Jesus who is able to multiply five loaves and two fish into an abundant and overflowing grace for the people, can he not multiply and increase the power of testimony though the faithful is small number and only if they move ahead to share their life with others?
 This miracle which has happened once in the life time of Jesus can become a daily living event; it has nourish so many people and it has to satisfy the ‘hunger for the justice and the thirst for the peace’ of many people;

Conclusion:

- We are called to be ‘the living and life giving bread’ to the people around us;
- We are chosen to ‘feed our community with the word and with the bread’ and thus with the ‘preaching of the word of God and with the breaking of the bread’.
- We are called to ‘reach the people and to be with them and to save them’ just after the example of Jesus and it is not so difficult for us if we keep Jesus and his gestures in front of our eyes; we shall do just as he has done:
- Let us always keep in mind the mission he has accomplished in his life and the mission he has entrusted to us in the evening of the day (it was in the evening that the Risen Jesus has given the Spirit to the apostles);
- We have four steps that we can follow in order to be ‘the instruments of love and healing for the people’:
o Descending: we need to come down from the boat of our life; from our confined circle and from our comforts; from our limited mentality and from our walled life;
o Seeing the people: coming down from our houses we have to see the needs of the people; if we do not extend our sigh to observe the difficulties and sufferings of people, our descending from the house does not have any meaning;
o Feeling compassion: we come down and see their need and we feel for them and we feel like staying with them and by their shoulder to support them;
o Healing the sick: we can heal the sick and the discouraged and depressed with the ‘word of comfort and consolation’ – just one kind word, and with the ‘deed of charity and love – just one deed of compassion; thus we can become the healers;
- Then WE BECOME THE MIRACLE OF MERCIFUL LOVE OF GOD FOR OTHERS.
- Thus, Let us give the bread for other and let us ourselves become the ‘living bread for others’ and thus the miracle of multiplication becomes multiplied in our life and we become the ‘living miracles’ for those around us.

SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

17TH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – A (1Kings 3:5, 7-12; Rom 8:28-30; Math 13:44-52)

Theme: Let us preserve and safeguard with the great joy the treasure of the life in Christ which we have searched and we have found

Reflections:
- From three Sundays we have been reflecting on the parable of the Kingdom of God and thus we are still in the thirteenth chapter of Mathew;
- Jesus would not have said all the parables in sequence (one after the other); He would have narrated and spoken to the people or sometimes only to the disciples in private there parables; but it was the work of Mathew who has gathered all these parables about the mystery of the kingdom of God and has put them together in one chapter;
- Even the Church has divided this chapter into three/four Sundays, so that, the mystery will be revealed and the kingdom of God will be searched and found easily by the people.
- We still have to ‘give thanks and praise’ to the Father, the Lord of heaven and earth because he has revealed these mysteries of kingdom to the little ones (Alleluia verse – which is being repeated every week from three Sundays) and we should be happy because we are those ‘little ones’, ‘meek and humble’ because we are still ready and prepared to listen and embrace these mysteries of the faith in God and his kingdom which is ‘fulfilled and realized perfectly’ in the person of Jesus Christ;
- Today’s reading are the answers for the two often asked questions:
o What have we to ask for in the prayer? And the answer is found in the first reading of today, in the request/prayer made by Solomon who asks for the discernment;
o What have we to search for in life/ in the Christian life? And the answer is found in the Gospel of today, in the parables of Jesus , of the hidden treasure – the precious diamond – the net that is thrown into the sea, that we have to search for the kingdom of God which is amidst us;

First Reading: discernment to know and choose what is good

- The prayer of Solomon has been pleased by God:
o As we have said above, this prayer could be the answer for anyone who is confused of what to ask in the prayer; every prayer that is raised to God should please him; the only prayer that pleases him will be the ‘offering of glory and praise to him’; the only prayer that reaches God and touches him would be the prayer of ‘doing his will’; we may ask so many things in prayer and we may be of lot of confusion of how to pray; and with this same kind of situation that the disciples asked Jesus ‘teach us how to pray’ and there emerged the great prayer of ‘Our Father’ which is comprised of ‘Praise of his Glory – his Will to be done – his bread/Eucharist for us – his pardon in our pardoning – and finally his Protection’.
o That’s what Solomon asked for; his prayers was NOT for:
 the riches – because he knows of the futility/limitedness of the riches of the world and Jesus confirms this when he says: “do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where the moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal” (Mt 6:19-20; Luke 12:33-34). And the prayer of the Psalmist in the ‘folly of Trust in riches’ (Ps 49:16ff).
 the years – because he knows the inutility and perishing nature of the life on earth and the Psalm confirms it that man can live only few years and after the he has go down into the Hades;
 the life of his enemies – because he knows the enemies can only spoil the outward/exterior life or status but not the inner/interior life or communion with God;
o His prayer IS FOR: the discernment
 Discernment is not a just ‘being able to distinguish and know what is good and what is bad’;
 It is, more than that, as a consequence of knowing it, ‘being able to choose and live what is good’;
 To find out what is bad and choose it one does not need discernment; therefore, the discernment is always a positive ‘path’ to know and choose good and to follow it;
 Solomon has asked for this: to know how to distinguish the good from the bad and to guide the people in the right path;
- Assimilation of the prayer into one’s life:
o We can also make the same prayer; we can also ask for the same gift of wisdom; and we shall try to ‘translate the prayerful words of Solomon’ into our own words; let us take the text/reading (vv. 7-9) and make our own prayer keeping always in mind our ‘status of being baptized and called into the life of communion with God’: “O Lord my God, you have made your servant ‘you son’ (king) in the place of ‘our ancestor’ (my father) David, although I am only a little child ‘who always is in need of spiritual guidance’; I do not know how to go out or come in ‘to your presence’. And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted ‘as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore’. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to ‘offer good testimony of life’ (govern) to your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can ‘lead with the spirit of witness and faith’ (govern) this your great people?
o Though it looks very simple and peripheral, the profundity of the personalization of the prayer of Solomon as one’s own is a great task; there he is a ‘king’ and asked discernment to ‘govern’ the people; in the personal realization we are ‘his children’ and we ask for the same ‘understanding and discernment’ to ‘give good example of life and faith’ to the great and numerous people that God has chosen and amidst whom we are placed;
o Therefore, it is not only ‘the play of the words’ as we easily can mean, we can easily laugh at and put aside but it is ‘a task’, which is personal and profound, to seek for God’s guidance and God’s will to be happening in our life; we keep aside (sell all what we have – the gospel) our will and our desires ‘of riches, of many years of life and the destruction of our enemies’ in order to ‘find and chose’ the great will of God (the hidden treasure – the gospel);


Second Reading: being conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus

- The project of God for those who love him:
o God always takes care of those who love him and Paul affirms that God has a special design and project for them and it is: ‘to be conformed to the image of his Son’.
o God has created everything of that is visible and invisible and everything of what is on earth and under the earth and in the heavens, For Him and in View of Him, that is of His Son; therefore, as Paul still says in the letter to Colossians, Jesus is the ‘Invisible Image of God’ (1:15) and in this image that God has made ‘each man and woman’, in his image and in his likeness; therefore, we (all those choose him an love and live for him) are already predestined (God’s will is that we have to be in the conformation of his Son’s image; this does not signify that we do not have to do anything because God has already ‘destined’ it; indeed, it is destined, but with the freedom of the recipient and the believer ‘who has the freedom either to be ‘IN’ it or ‘OUT’ of it) and now the ‘choice’ is ours to be or not to be ‘conformed’.
o Everything else will follow once we ‘choose to be conformed’ with the way of life that God asks us (by discerning his will and following it – the first reading); what follows is that ‘the effect is his call – the consequence of the justice – and the fruit of the glory’ of being his children (v.30);
- Our participation in this project: by searching the ‘hidden treasure of life in Christ’
o The project of God is not in vain or in air but it is present in the concrete situation of our life; it is an event which needs ‘the fulfillment of the will’ of the one who has called us to share in his life;
o The project of God needs a response from those to whom ‘it is projected’ and ‘destined’ and it is we who have to respond to this ‘call of participation’ by loving him because once we love him ‘we keep his commandments’ and we ‘do his will’.
o The participation is not a ‘one time event’ but a ‘continuous process’; therefore, there needs to be always a continuous entering and re-entering (how to go out and come in – the first reading) into the mystery of being conformed to the ‘Image of His Son’;


Gospel: we are the ‘hidden treasure’, the ‘precious pearl’ and the ‘net thrown into the sea’

- Situation of the last three parables of the kingdom of God:
o Mathew pens down the last three parables that has come out from the mouth of Jesus about the kingdom of God; they may be the last three in the order chosen to be put in the thirteenth chapter of Mathew, still, last these three could be like the first three spiritual virtues: faith, hope and love; we do not mean them small and unnoticed just because they are ‘small’ and ‘put at the end’; they express ‘the great value’ of the Christian life and search for the meaning of life;
o Just as we have mentioned in the introduction to this reflection, these parables of Jesus can stand as the answer for the yet another ‘often asked question’ – what have we to search for? And what could be meaning of Christian Life?
o We have to search for the valuable and hidden treasure because it stays long and it gives us ‘nourishment and growth of the relationship with God’ and that’s what Jesus affirms once again when he talks about the treasures in heaven: “but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Mt 6:20) and where your ‘valuable treasure’ is there your ‘precious heart’ will be.
- The meaning of the three parables:
o ‘Hidden Treasure in the Field’:
 We should not forget that the kingdom of God is compared, by Jesus, to the ‘hidden treasure’ which is ‘in the field’ and at the end the man buys not just the hidden treasure but the whole field;
 Therefore, it is a treasure hidden ‘in the field of the faith’; in the midst of the people; in the very soil of creation;
 This ‘hidden treasure’ is ‘the invisible presence of Jesus himself’ in the field of the faith;
 Once ‘he is found’ the man who finds him goes home and with the lot of joy sells and gives away what he has and returns to possess him and here, we can just remember the parable of the ‘rich young man’ (Mathew himself narrates it in Chapter 19:16-30) in which Jesus asks him “go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me” (v.21) and the young man went away with grief; to possess Jesus, the hidden treasure, we have to forego our possessions;
 The man who found the treasure went and with the great joy he sold out everything in order to possess it; but the young man who wanted to possess the fellowship of Jesus would not be able to give away his possession; went away with grief of not getting the ‘treasure of Jesus’ but could not leave what he has for the ‘gaining of the treasure’;
 What could be the final result if one finds the treasure but could not possess it either by negligence or by avarice of the riches? He loses his soul and “what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” (Mt 16:26), Jesus tells this about those who wanted to have their own life and their own possession and their own security even after ‘finding the treasure’ of life in Christ;
o ‘A Merchant in search’:
 Again, here, the kingdom of God is compared, by Jesus, to the merchant not who is sitting at his house and resting but who is in search; This parable of merchant and the ‘pearl of great value’ found could have two analogies:
 The first one could be: the kingdom in search as the merchant: therefore, the kingdom of God is in search for the precious pearls and these could be and must be ‘we’. We are the precious pearls; the pearl of great value will be either the one who is in perfect communion and fellowship with Jesus or could also be the one ‘who is always ready to return’ to the Father’s house. But the kingdom of God is full of ‘precious pearls’ and we could be ‘the pearl of great value’ found in this kingdom;
 The second one could be: ‘we as the merchants – precious pearls as the different religions – the pearl of great value as the Church: we do not fall into confusion if we compare the Church with the other religions; every human being who is in search for the pearl is like a merchant; every religion as the means of faith and peace could be the precious pearl because it also could contain the portions of the truth of God and dignity of man and integrity of the creation; but only one ‘pearl of great value’ is found by the merchant and we can find only one Christian faith as the pearl of great value for which we can leave aside everything else and have the pearl with ourselves and thus ‘once we find the great value of the Christian faith and doctrine of the Church’ we try all the ways possible to be in it;
o ‘The net thrown into the sea’:
 Again, the kingdom of God, is compared to the net, not which is just lying on the seashore, but the one which is thrown into the sea;
 The net could be the ‘Church which is thrown into the world’ which embraces and invites both the ‘good ones’ to lead still a committed life and the ‘bad ones’ too for the conversion and change of heart;
 The net could be ‘we’ also, because each one of us is called to a net which is thrown into the world of ‘community of faith’ in which we have to ‘with the fraternal love and correction’ embrace all good and bad ones;
 Without judging anyone we have to reach everyone; we shall leave the judgment to God who will separate good ones from bad ones on the day of final harvest; but from our part we have to live a life of fellowship;
- ‘to comprehend’ the parables of Jesus:
o At the end of the day or at the end of discourse Jesus will ask: ‘have you understood all this?’ (v.52):
 To comprehend is a process: as the first step, it is an understanding of the words and language; as the second step, it is an entering into the sense of the words spoken and expressions shown; and as the final step, it is ‘assimilating as our own’ the meaning of the parable;
o Jesus wants us to say: ‘yes’
 We have to say ‘yes, we have understood’; this is the answer that Jesus expects from us; often we say ‘yes’ to the word of God proclaimed; after every reading the reader says, “this is the word of the Lord” and we say “thanks be to God” and in this way we say ‘yes’ to the words we have just heard; after every Gospel reading also the similar response takes place;
 This ‘yes’ of ours should be the sincere one; if we say ‘yes’ without listening to it and understanding it and without deciding to put it into practice, then, we are liars who just ‘say’ but do ‘not do’; and to these people Jesus would repeat: “who listens to my word and keeps it into practice would be worthy of the kingdom of God”.
 From Jesus to each and every saint, including Mary, teach us what is the exact meaning of saying ‘yes’ to the Word of God/Will of God; it is not just listening but living it (the discernment of the first reading); and if needed and demanded giving one’s own life and blood for the will of God; Jesus wants us to say this real and authentic yes;

Conclusion:
- We are to pray for the gift of wisdom and discernment to distinguish and choose what is good as in the great example of Solomon (first reading);
- We are to, in the freedom we are endowed with, choose to be conformed to the image of Jesus and that is the call we are offered and ‘justice and glory’ will follow if we are true to our call (second reading);
- We are to be ‘hidden treasure’, ‘precious pearl’ and the ‘net thrown’ for the people around us; We have to share and sow the seeds of joy to the people amidst whom we are placed;
- Therefore, let us preserve and safeguard with the great joy the treasure of life in Christ which we have found.

SIXTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

16th SUNDAY – A (Wis 12:13, 16-19; Rom 8:26-27; Mt 13:23-43)
Theme: We shall remain firm and grow well as the good seeds in the field of the Lord


Reflections:

- Last Sunday we have meditated upon the first parable of the thirteenth chapter of Mathew, in which Jesus using the parable, speaks of good seed that has fallen on the good soil and give proper fruit and we have come to conclusion that ‘we reap/collect only what we sow’: if we sow only thirty percent we reap only thirty, if sixty we reap sixty and if we sow hundred percent by listening and embracing the word/seed of Christ, we reap hundred percent.
- This shows, on the one part, the work of the good Sower who sows the seed abundantly into the camp/field of the world: that means that God has called to himself all the seed and God has destined that all the seed fall in his camp of intimacy with him; it depends on the seed to choose and embrace the kind of ground it desires and in and by which, it deepens itself for its growth; Even though God has destined the good soil of faith/church for its stay and grow, it is always the freedom of the seed to accept and embrace the soil; if it stops itself on the road side it will have its own result; if it stops itself on the rocky ground it will have its minimum and perishing growth; if it stops itself in the bushy thorns it will have its fast growth with the fast disappearance. But the good soil is always OPEN and PROVIDED for all the seed EQUALLY. It is only the choice of the seed which comes from the hands of sower (the one who wills that seed to be fallen into the good ground because no sower sows carelessly and with negligence but some seeds escape his hands little early to search for its own soil and its own joy).
- This shows, on the other part, on the choice that seed makes for its ‘residence and growth’ as we have just said above. Its sprouting, its blossoming and its flourishing completely depend on its free choice; No need of blaming the sower because the Good Sower does all the sowing with the good intention of ‘giving life to each and every seed’ and he doesn’t want to block and impede the ‘free going’ (like that of prodigal son who goes out with his own freedom and the father who respects the freedom of the son) of the seed from his hand or from his presence;
- Therefore, we reap only what we sow; that was the message of the last Sunday and it is the not the intention of repeating what has been said but continuing the message of last Sunday to today and from today to tomorrow, because, we are on the walk towards the understanding of the mysteries of the kingdom of God;
- It’s also the intention of the Church and its liturgy; not that we divide the weeks and read the word of God; but every week is a step for another week; each week is built up on the previous week; therefore, there is a link between each Sunday; Our Liturgy is the process or circle of the mysteries of God and Us; It is with this reason we unite and tie each week with the previous and following ones. Though little strange, we also see today, the Church is asking us to go back and hold the ‘starting point/point of departure’ of these readings and therefore, we find in today’s verse for Alleluia a strange verse than that of today’s gospel. It goes back to remind us of the prayer of praise and thanksgiving of Jesus (Mt 11:25f – the gospel of two weeks back) for revealing the mysteries of the kingdom to the little ones.
- In listening to the word of God we have to be always little ones and we are the same: being little, being meek and being humble we embrace what Jesus teaches us in the manner of parables and thus enter into the ‘intimate relationship’ that Jesus prepares between ‘God and Us’ by being mediator himself and that’s why Jesus affirms little ahead: ‘no can come to the Father except through me’. That’s what the Church wants us to continue to do and to enter into the mystery of the kingdom of God;
- Jesus chooses to reveal the secrets of the kingdom of God in the way of parables and therefore, the parables are not simple stories and not simple fables and not even simple messages to be just listened but ‘a means’ of making the listeners enter into the depths of God’s revelation;

First reading: Justice is the measurement

- The book of Wisdom and today’s first reading shows that Our God is God of justice; everything will be measured with the justice fulfilled; therefore, all our words and actions will be judges at the end of the world with the ‘measure of justice’; If we show justice we receive justice and even the contrary is true; if we do not sow the justice we cannot reap justice;

Second Reading: the aid of the Holy Spirit

- We need not worry about our weakness and we can, as believer and followers of Christ, easily fight/overcome the moments of our difficulties, our temptations and our weakness, not by our own effort, but with the ‘help’ of the Holy Spirit who always comes to our aid as St. Paul assures us in today’s second reading;
- Even before we pray and raise our cries to God, the Spirit himself prays and cries for us with God. What we need to do is only ‘heeding’ to his voice and paying ‘attention’ to his cries and finally join with him ‘offer’ our life, weak and fragile, to God.

Gospel reading:
Let us grow into the big tree to give a shelter to the many people who look at us

- The parable of good seed and the weeds:
o Parable as it is:
 It is the second parable that Jesus exposes to his listeners to reveal the mystery of the kingdom of God;
 There is a grain of wheat and also the appearance of weeds, suddenly and one fine morning, as the result of the work of the ‘enemy’ and Jesus never speaks of the ‘devil’ here in this particular account of the parable but speaks of only ‘an enemy’;
 The dialogue between the ‘householder and the slaves (not even servants)’ about the presence of the weeds among wheat (good works that are being fulfilled by the master and thus the slaves ask him the question: Master did not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?: this dialogue again indicates us that ‘the Master’ (God) do not sow ‘bad seed’ or sow badly, but at the same time there is the visible reality of the ‘work of the enemy’;
 The time of the harvest: first there will be the collection of the weeds (the acts of the enemy) to be burnt and then the gathering of the wheat (good works) to the barn.
o The parable explained:
 Jesus explains also this parable; also because he has already explained the first parable of the good sower; now he explains the second one, and this would be last explanation of the parables.
 The place/condition of explanation: it is a noteworthy to see the disciples asking Jesus for the explanation of the parable not immediately and not in the public but ‘little later when they have come home’ and ‘in private’ when they are alone with Jesus: it could be either the disciples are scared/afraid of asking their master anything in public; could be also because of how the crowds would feels about them if they ask for it in the public; in this way, they have shown themselves ‘pretending’ and ‘fearing’; but the reaction of Jesus seems to be normal; without telling anything about this he goes on to explain the parable;
 Though we do not need to explain again here all the Jesus has done, we can notice that, Jesus reveals the mysteries of ‘Son of Man’, ‘the world’, the children of the kingdom, the work of the devil, the judgment as the harvest time, the angels and also the hell ‘the furnace of fire’; After everything has done and fulfilled by the Son of God, all those who remain firm and grow as good seeds will shine in the kingdom of their Father; by ending the explanation by calling the name of the Father, Jesus reaffirms the fruit of embracing the kingdom: ‘shining in the presence of the Father’.
o The answers for the three important question we may ask in life:
 ‘How this evil has entered into the world?’: the first question for which we can find an answer in the verse 28: ‘the enemy has done this’ and little later Jesus indicates that this enemy is the devil and its followers; from the time of the creation there is the reality of evil that always works against the good that God intends; this is an unavoidable situation; we have to always be reminded of this ‘presence and effect’ of the evil that surrounds us to disturb us and thus leading us out of the ‘way we have chosen’, the faith and the church;
 ‘When will this evil/devil take chance in our lives?’: this is the second question which comes out as the result of the first; in the verse 25 Jesus in the mode of the parable gives us an answer, “but while everybody was asleep’. The time of the sleep is the time the devil; we can easily means here, the spiritual sleep in the form of ‘negligence of prayer’ and ‘less attention towards the spiritual life’ and ‘giving less importance to the works of the spirit’; it is the spiritual sleep into which we often fall and it is the perfect time for the devil to enter into us to take the chance of ‘our weakness’ and thus making us fall away from the ‘camp of the Lord’. Here we have to stay awake; St. Paul tells us that we are not the children of the night/darkness but the children of light; we have to keep awake as the children of the day without giving any chance to the night or to the hour of sleep to take control of us; sometimes, all of a sudden, and on the fine morning we find the ‘weed’ in our life and we are disappointed with it and ask so many questions with the worry, how and why this weed/evil has come; we need not wonder at it because we have already an answer for this; it is the work of the enemy/devil in our ‘weak’ time/hour of sleep; but we have the Holy Spirit who comes to our aid in the time of our weakness (second reading); we have to fight back with the strength of the spirit against the weeds that try to press us down in our faith and in our life;
 ‘But how long?’ would be the immediate question that arise; how long this evil show its power? Why God is so silent about it? Why doesn’t eradicate it completely? Why the Church is so silent about the injustices/weeds that are taking place without giving ‘IMMEDIATE’ reaction? From one question flow out many more of this kind; and for all these questions just only one answer is given by Jesus in today’s parable, “Until the Harvest” (v.30); we need not judge God’s silence; we are not capable of understanding his love; we cannot that easily measure his mercy; He is so kind and merciful that he gives ‘one more chance’ for the return of the evil/weed to him; He is God who does not want the death of the sinner but he desires that the sinner comes back with the conversion of the heart; For this He show lot of patience even beyond our measure, human measure;
o Our attitude should be: instead of murmuring and blaming God for his silence, we also learn to be in tune with the mercy of God and thus show patience and mercy even in our own daily situations in which we find ourselves with the same kind of question; and thus our attitude should that of ‘being in reality (first answer), being vigilant (second answer) and being patient and merciful (third answer) and it should be our Christian attitude until the time of harvest (time of judgment according to the justice – firs reading).

- The parable of Mustard Seed: growing into love of God and of neighbors
o The nature of the mustard seed: looks very small but once it is sown it will grow into a big tree so that many birds make their nest in it;
o We are like a mustard seed: we are sown in the camp of the world, in the camp of the church, in the camp of the parish community; once we are sown we cannot remain without any effect; we have to grow and we have to grow into a great tree (good and exemplary life) so that many come under our shades for their struggles and find rest;
 We have to grow vertically; tree becomes big by growing vertically; we have to grow vertically, that is, in the love of God;
 We have to grow horizontally; tree becomes grand with the spreading of its branches horizontally; we have to grow horizontally, that is, in the love of neighbors;

- The parable of the Yeast: becoming contagious of love
o The nature of the yeast: though little it makes the flour leavened by its presence;
o We are called to be ‘Yeast’: we are mixed in the flour of the community/family and of the Church; we have the task of transforming all the flour into the Yeast; our fragrance of love should spread to all; all should become contagious of love;
o It is growing deep and profound and becoming one: while as the mustard seed we grow vertically and horizontally in the love of God and of neighbors, as the Yeast we grow deep and profound so that we, with our loving life, lead people into the life of love;

Conclusion: we are the wheat, mustard seed and the yeast

- To us have been revealed the mysteries of the kingdom specially in the mode of parables through which we become partakers of these mysteries;
- To understand and to accept more, by listening and by embracing, we have to always be little, small, meek and humble;
- We grow always as the good wheat though we find the situations of the ‘weed’ around us;
- We are called to be ‘mustard seed’ to grow and to give life and love to others.
- We are finally the yeast by which all the massive flour is leavened and thus we become contagious, not of enmity but of love;
- Finally, we shall remain firm and grow well as the good seeds in the camp of our Lord.

FIFTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

15TH SUNDAY – A: (Is 55, 10-11; Rom 8:18-23; Math 13:1-23)
Theme: We Reap Only What We Sow

Reflection:
- We are in the fifteenth Sunday of the year A and we are nourishing ourselves with the food of the Gospel of Mathew;
- We have entered into the discourse of Jesus on the kingdom of God and the thirteenth chapter is full of parables about the elements/qualities of the kingdom of God;
- The Church calls us today to meditate and assimilate the message of the ‘parable of the Sower’: the intention of the sower; the condition of the field; and the sprouting of the seed and the percentage of the fruit;
- And the end we can only say that we reap only what we sow


First Reading:
- This the splendid oracle of the Lord which comes as an ending part of the Second Isaiah (chapters 40-55); it celebrates the efficacy and the fertile force of the word of God; the prophet takes the image of the ‘agricultural sphere’ and thus enters into the mind of the listeners very easily because in his historical context most of them were workers of the land, who depend mostly on the mercy of the rains and snows; the prophet makes a figure of a ‘complete cycle of process’ of relations between the divine word proclaimed and the humanity which received it.
- The Nature and the Mission of the rain and the snow:
o They come from above
o They go deep down into the earth
o They make the soil creative and potent
o They return again in the form of a vapor
- The word that God speaks
o Com from above that is from the mouth of the Lord
o It enters into the ears/heart – life of each listener
o It produces its effect of growth and
o It makes its return journey to the original destiny
- The analogy is very clear: the potency and the purpose of the Word that God Speaks and Sends: the mystery and mission of Jesus, the Word of/with/in God.
- Isaiah, the prophet of hope, again speaks of the salvation that will be effected with the descending, entering into the world, and ascending of Messiah from God, for God and to God; He produces the life in his listeners and in his followers;
- The word that comes from the mouth of the Lord (v.11):
o We can also find the presence and the power of the Trinity: God, the Father who Speaks; God, the Son is the Word; God, the Spirit is the Potency;
o In the very act of creation and in the courses of the events in the redemptive design of God for man is process is seen: God spoke, the word came out and it power, the Spirit, worked/fulfilled the purpose for which it was sent: for example, the light: God said that there be light and there was light.
o It the same process that God has followed in all his marvelous action for the people of Israel: from the calling of Abraham (God called, the word has come out, and the power has made Abraham to accept and follow it) to the deliverance of the people of Israel from the slavery of the Egypt; it is the same process that He puts in the mouth of the prophet to speak out to the people.
o In the reciprocal art of ‘embracing’ the word, speaking and listening, the whole life of man is contained and it is for this reason Jesus also says that “Man lives not by bread alone but by the word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Mt 4:4);

The Second Reading:
- The only destiny of man is the ‘future glory’ of being the children of God;
o Being the sons of God is not a simply a pious and holy word or invitation, but it has a Nature and it has a Mission;
o The Nature of being sons of God is: accepting and embracing the will of God;
o The Mission of being sons of God is: living for it till the end;
o This nature and mission has to be completed/accomplished (like that of rain and snow) in spite of the sufferings that press us and suppress us, because we have the hope as Paul holds that these sufferings of the present moment are not to be compared to the future glory that will be revealed to/in us (v.18);
- Both the creation and the man are groaning for the revelation:
o Man has lost his dignity of being ‘with the Lord’ with his fall into sin and thus buying the death, because the wage of sin is the death, and finally lost the status of being the children of God;
o Creation was brought down to the ‘falling status’ and to the level of death by the disobedience of man;
o Now they both of groaning to be born again, like woman in labor, to become new creation and new man and that will be realized ‘in the embracing and accepting’ of the Word (Jesus Christ) that has come down from God and has accomplished the purpose of salvation;

Gospel Reading:
- The meaning of parables:
o Parable which signifies ‘comparison’ in Greek, is a method of using the imaginations and fables to indicate the ‘hidden reality’ and which in turn demands very often the explanations;
o It is not a simple means to make the people understand the difficult things but more than that, it is a presentation of a religious mystery which goes beyond the human knowledge and the presentation under the form of enigmas.
o It provokes in the listeners, their curiosity, their research, their task and thus it makes the discernment between the believers and those who refuse the faith.
- The necessity of parables:
o The appeal of Jesus to the people to see, to understand, to observe and to listen which is not so easy many times; there is a need for a sincere search;
o When needed and asked Jesus explains them the meaning and to those who ask him with the good will to understand and in turn they enter into the familiarity and intimacy with the kingdom of God and others close themselves outside and in the darkness of ignorance.
- The destiny/task of the parables:
o There is the clear contrast between ‘them’ and ‘you’: reading the parable cannot keep us neutral. There is a need to make an option to invest not only one’s intelligence but one’s whole life.
o That’s why even Mathew keeps this chapter in the centre of his Gospel (13th chapter); it was preceded by ‘the true family of Jesus’ (12:46-50) and followed by ‘the people of Nazareth refusing Jesus’ (13:54-58); thus it is a chapter which makes the clear-cut difference between the ‘poor in spirit’ who accept to enter into the mystery of the salvation of God and the ‘hard-hearted’ who reject it. It open the drama of the division in the people of Israel in the matters of Jesus;
- The parable of the Sower:
o ‘going out’: Jesus goes out to meet the people to sow in them the seeds of the kingdom of God; the farmer has to go out into the fields to sow; if he sits at home nothing happens and nothing moves ahead and so ‘going out’ of one’s own house is the first step to sow:
 That’s why Jesus tells again that if we want to be worthy of God’s kingdom we have to leave what is ours – our home, our parents, our relatives and also our own possessions;
 That’s what Jesus himself has done: He has ‘come out’ of his Glorious House, the Father’s Bosom, the heavens in order to fulfill God’s will and to lead people to the path of salvation;
 Like a sower, he has come out of his own residence of glory and he is spreading the seeds of joy and peace amidst the people, the field that he has chosen for the irrigation of redemption.
o ‘the house’: in the gospel of Mathew there is many reference to the ‘house’ but it is very difficult to point out what exactly Jesus means about the house:
 is it of Jesus, is it of Peter or is it of someone else; for Jesus the house is a ‘place of reunion and place of teaching’ to the disciples;
 surely, ‘the son of man has no place to lay his head’ (Mt 8:20); but it does not mean that Jesus was wandering and living only in the open place or on the streets; Jesus had his own moments of rest under the fixed houses.
o The sower: Mathew talks about ‘the’ sower, not the ‘one’ sower; he intends to indicate one precise and specific person; the sower does not throw voluntarily the seeds on the path, on the rocky ground or among the thorns; he fulfills his task of sowing as a good worker/good farmer; it all depends on the readiness/preparedness of the receiver;
o Listen who has ears: this is the mode of bringing an attention in relation to the preceding parable and the listeners of Jesus should embrace his word as a good soil which embraces the seed when it is sowed;
- ‘You – They’: the opposition underlines the mysterious aspect of the gift of God; to all is given the same project but some – YOU – listen to it and accept it, and others – THEY – neglect it and reject it. Some, the twelve and the receivers, receive abundantly and profoundly the gift of God; others, the only-listeners, receive only the form and its image and not the true meaning and therefore, what they also will be removed from them.
- Understand: the seed is the word of the kingdom; the soil is the heart of man with all his grades of embracing/accepting it. It is the word which may become a fruit or barren but the man who receives it who is influenced by the Satan and all the situations that he is surrounded by.
- The four types of soil:
o On the roadside: it indicates the lack of profundity because of the superficial and lazy responses; the beauty and attractions of the world along side of the road are very much provoking that the mind is blocked to think what is good and right and the heart is far way from understanding what is truth; man falls into the slavery of the beauty of the world forgetting the beauty of soul and salvation;
o On the rocky ground: it indicates the trials and the attacks that come on the way which hardens the heart to believe in the truth; the various distractions and preoccupations in life makes the listener of the word to neglect it or forget it immediately after its reception;
o Among the thorns: it indicates the passions, the possessions, the illusions of the world which suppress the goodness of man and block all the channels of divine inspirations; finally the sin kills the life (Rom 7:5); the problems and the sufferings take the great importance in life. We give more time and more energy for the unimportant and unnecessary passions. This kills and hinders our opportunities to understand and assimilate the word that is listened.
o Good Soil: it is known by the good fruits that it bears (7, 16-20), but not immediately but in the time of reaping only (21,34). There are different percentages, not because of the merits of the listeners, but because of the deeds he fulfills and because of the faith that he manifests and because of the energy he puts in to make it grow (like that of the parable of the talents).

Conclusion:
- Christ is the ‘GREAT WORD’ of God who has been sown into every part of the world and who listens to him and who receives him will bear the fruit: fruit of salvation;
- We are called to be ‘the word of God’ in our daily lives: as Christians we are sent out/we are sown into the community/society and into the world; we have to sow the seeds into all types of grounds (religions/cultures/languages); we have to sow the seed and whether it is received or rejected will depend on it final product of the fruits;
- Powerful Weapon: A word can create peace/goodness/kindness and therefore, a community of fraternity and solidarity; a word can also pave the way to the misunderstanding, fight and war; a word is a such a powerful weapon; it all depend on how we makes use of the word and what word ‘come out’ from our mouth.
- Attention in Talking: the tongue has no bone; it simply moves however it wants; it simply puts out whatever it desires; we, as Christians, have to be attentive when making the ‘word come out’ of our mouth; it can makes us friends of many or it can also make us enemies of many; we have take great care in letting the word (our speaking) out; Good seed is always fruitful; Good word is always powerful;
- Let us be good word of God for all those who are around us because the truth is: ‘we reap only what we sow’.