TWENTY THIRD SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

23RD SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – A: (Ezekiel 33:1,7-9; Rom 13:8-10; Math 18:15-20)
Theme: We are called not to lose our brothers but earn them with love and fraternal correction

Reflection:

- After the great figure of Peter who has exposed both of his complexes of characters and attitudes – of profession of faith on the spiritual side and of blocking the mission of Jesus by rebuking him not to accept what is God’s will on the material side – we move on to completely separate aspect today;
- The church asks us to reflect today not only the spiritual side of our life which we have reflected last week – of the spiritual worship by offering our bodies as a living, holy and raised to God – but also to embrace the human life and human circle of community;
- In this way we are called to EARN for ourselves ‘not the whole world and all the treasures of the world’ (as we have seen in the Gospel of last Sunday) but to Earn our brothers and sisters;
- The only way we can construct or build up our community is by bringing back the lost members of the communion with the fraternity and with the mutual correction;

First Reading:

- Prophet is a guardian of the house of Israel:
o Through the mission and call of Ezekiel the Lord has made known the truth of the ‘identity of the prophet’ and that is to be a guardian: “I have made a sentinel for the house of Israel” (v.7);
o Being a sentinel is to be ‘custodian of the every member of the house of Israel’. It is the mission that the Lord has entrusted to the prophet for the reason that He never wanted even a single member of the community to be lost in their ways and in their mortality;
- Prophet has to speak the word of God for himself and also for the life of each individual:
o The responsibility of the prophet of ‘speaking of what come out of God’s mouth’ (v.7) has to be carried on even if the listener not in a position to accept it;
o The mission is to save the members who have gone away from the ways that are indicated and that are to be followed and to save ‘himself’ just because he is doing what he has received from the Lord as his command;
o This saving of the ‘self’ and ‘others’ has to take the prior lead in the life of every listener of God’s word, not only the prophet though it is his primary mission;
- Prophecy is for the construction and not for the destruction:
o Every prophecy is for the ‘building up’ of the house of Israel; in this ‘construction’ each word that is proclaimed and prophesied ‘serves as a brick’ and ‘accepting’ it as ‘cement’ which keeps the whole building as a ‘unity of all the members’.
o Every prophecy – keeping aside of its acceptance or rejected by the listeners – is directed towards giving the life; the word of God is life-giving; when God speaks man comes to life; this is the reason why the prophet has to admonish the unfaithful not to condemn them but to lead them into ‘conversion’ of the heart.
Second reading:

- Paul recalls the nature of love which stands as the fulfillment of all the laws and prescriptions;
- Therefore, love does not exclude all the possible rules and regulations and laws, instead it boosts the people to follow them with commitment for the betterment of the ‘individual person’ and also ‘the common good’ and all this is for the construction of the ‘loving community’ in which each one lives not only for himself but for others;
- Living for others is the highest value that is implied in the virtue of love: therefore, ultimately love realizes its finality by helping the people to follow the norms of life which will keep them and lead them to the better life and also by constructing the ‘community of fraternity’ to which we are called to be the members;

Gospel:

- Text should be read in the Context:
o The primary requirement for understanding of the text is to keep in mind where we are:
 We are in the Gospel of Mathew and we have to keep always what is the content and context of the Evangelist;
 Mathew writes to the Jewish community which has come to believe in the Good News of Jesus and he presents Jesus as the Promised Messiah of the Old Covenant who by his presence and mission completes and renovates the Old Law and immerses it in the New Law of God whom he calls Father;
 Since he is writing to the Jews he is particular in making discourses on the ‘unity of the Christ’s followers’ who stand upright even in the midst of the persecutions and insults created by the Jewish authorities;
o In the Jewish dominating background Mathew brings out the importance of ‘being together as the Christ’s disciples’: in this way he injects the four discourses of Jesus on the ‘aspect of the community’:
 First - The sermon on the mountain (Math chapters 5-6-7): Jesus speaks of the superiority of the New Law given by him on the Old Law which is not abolished but completed in the different manner and Mathew is keen to spell out the ‘community of Jesus’ is different from that of ‘Jews’ and the difference is seen in following Jesus with the New Law of love and mercy;
 Second – the discourse to the disciples and sending them in mission (Math 10: 1-42): Jesus explains the nature of the disciple and their mission to testify what they have seen and received to the people so that the ignorant are brought into the discipleship of Christ and thus form the ‘community of Jesus’.
 Third – the parables of the mystery of the Kingdom of God (Math chapter 13): Jesus’ main motive behind teaching to the people in the form of the parables itself is to ‘reveals the nature and effect of the kingdom of God’ which he has come to establish and to invite everyone into this kingdom; the believers and followers of Christ should ‘live and grow’ into the community which presents the kingdom of God to the world;
 Forth – the discourse on the communitarian life (Math chapter 18): Jesus brings forth a totally and radically different community which is placed as the paradox to the worldly and temporal community; the different is seen in the attitude of the brothers and sisters of the community, that is the church; this community that Jesus proposed and exposes underlines the incredible newness that it is the love of the ‘Father who is in heaven’ that has been infused into the relationships between the members of the community and in the particular way towards those who are ‘little in faith’ and towards those who are ‘away from the unity’ of the community;

- Particular context of the fourth discourse of Jesus in the chapter 18 of Mathew:
o The fourth discourse on the community life is divided into two parts:
 First: “Great and Small” (18:1-14): The community that Jesus inaugurates is of those who are ‘little and small’ in their attitude; this answer of Jesus to his disciples to be ‘least ones of the world’ comes in the discourse on the question ‘who is great in the kingdom of heaven’ (18:1) and Jesus, not using many words and without giving many lectures, takes a child and places him between them and just pointing him to them, asks them to be just like ‘this child’; ‘to be’ or ‘to become’ like the little children means ‘to be obediently and with the dependence available for the action of God’. Jesus proposes this community of small ones and insignificant ones and places it as the opposed and contrary society for the world; there is no question of greatness and there is no fight for the big post in the community that Jesus indicates; all are equal and all have the same position and finally all share the same life of the ‘Father who is in heaven’ (18:14);
 Second: “Pardon and restoration” (18:15-35): The community of Jesus is built up on the ‘reciprocal pardon and the bringing back of those who have gone away’ from the fraternal unity; Jesus proposes this type of society as his preferred and willed community because each and every individual member has to be not for himself but for others; in this community the principle of unity and binding force between the members is to be ‘at the correction of others and the restoration of the community’. Jesus concludes this discourse with the parable on the ‘importance and significance of forgiveness’ (18:21-35) proposing the only way for receiving the forgiveness of God and this as an answer for Peter and all those who are content and satisfied with the minimum fulfillment of the law of Moses which asks them to forgive one’s brother for seven times; We see also how the ‘servant who is granted the pardon is again punished because of his failure to share the pardon with others’. Again Jesus concludes with the participation in the life of the ‘Father who is in heaven’ (v.35).
o The Source and the fountain of this community is the ‘Father in Heaven’: whether the community that Jesus proposes is of the ‘small and little ones’ or of that in which there is ‘fraternal correction and forgiveness’, at the end, there is only One Family of the Father as its basis and foundation; we see this clearly when Jesus ends both of these two-but-integrated parts have as their ending reference not to the God who is in heaven but to the ‘Father who is in heaven’ (v.14 and v.35);

- The two pillars of the community of Jesus: fraternal correction and prayer
o Leaving aside the last part of the chapter eighteen, that is, the parable of the forgiveness, we go straight away analyzing today’s gospel reading which again has two significant parts:
 The fraternal correction
 The community prayer
 And both of them having the ‘ministry of forgiveness’ as the centre;
o Fraternal Correction: for the restoration of the community
 Jesus shows the three ways for the mutual correction of the ‘member’ who has done something wrong; the main purpose is the gain back/ earn back the lost and gone away;
 First is that of ‘personal contact’: it is the responsibility of the victim who has to go to the one who has hurt him and take the initiative of making him know what has been done and where went wrong and how to be corrected; this personal approach has a tremendous impact because the way that Jesus proposes is quite different: “if another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone” (v.15); it is not the normal way of ‘ignoring the situation’ and ‘developing the hatred’ for the enemy which is the norm of the world; in the community of Jesus it is always the victim who takes the first step to wake up from the ‘wrong done’ and has to go personally ‘to meet and to let the wrongdoer know’ the truth; there should be a friendly atmosphere and fraternal encouragement; more than advising the wrongdoer with words, “moving towards him in person taking the courageous step to be with him” itself is the biggest message of ‘fraternity’ that will make a positive impact on the person at wrong; this is not only a simple sermon from Jesus but he himself has done it from the cross to all those who have hurt him by crucifying him;
 Second is that of ‘eye witnesses or the friends circle’: the second way that Jesus proposes for the fraternal correction is to take him to the witnesses or the friends so that they also would mobilize him to ‘acknowledge his mistake’ and come back to their company: “But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses” (v. 16); in the personal contact or in the company of the friends it is not so much disguising for the reciprocal understanding and accepting the wrong that has been done and be corrected;
 Third and final resort is ‘to take the issue to the presence of the community’: “If the member refuses to listen to the, tell it to the church” (v.17). Finally the whole community has the responsibility to bring back the member who has committed a wrong; and therefore, the whole church has to work for the member to make him know the fault and acknowledge it to the community because the wrong that has done to the single individual, now has hurt the whole body of the community; therefore, there needs a fraternal correction on the level of the community;
 All this process of ‘three-step’ correction is to be always mutual; it is not for the exercise of the superiority on the part of the few; it is not humiliating the wrongdoer; nor it is for giving big lecturers by placing the wrongdoer on the accused zone; not even, finally, to leave him alone to his fate and wrongness; the correction is not possible and not authentic outside of the fraternity; the only purpose of this fraternal correction is: “TO GAIN BACK/ TO EARN BACK’ the member that has gone away and thus RESTORE THE COMMUNITY TO ITS FULLNESS AND PERFECTON;
o The community prayer: for the unity and sustaining of the Church
 Jesus dedicates the second part of the gospel passage today to the prayer and the prayer raised to the Father in Heaven;
 The prayer is not a task of the individual but in the Christ’s community it is the prayer that unites them; therefore, all the members should become ‘one voice’ and ‘one word’ and ‘one prayer’ and that’s what Jesus intends when he says: “Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven” (v.19); it is the unity of the words and unity of the hearts that matter in the community prayers and this is the reason why ‘the community prayer is given so much importance in the Church’ and that why there are common prayers and community liturgy; there are no and there should not be any difference and disunity in the words we use in the prayers because only then it become ‘One Word’ and ‘One Church’.
 If the fraternal correction is for the restoration of the community, the prayer is for its ‘unification and sustaining’.
o Pardon and forgiveness: the central point for correction and prayer:
 When we observe the gospel reading today, between the two parts (18:15-17 and 18:19-20) there is another verse, the central verse 18:18 which holds them together and pushes them forward in their journey to restore and sustain the community and that is: ‘the mission of pardon and forgiveness’, “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven”. Without this mission there is no fullness for the first part, that is, for the fraternal correction; and without this mission there is not meaning for the second part, that is, the community prayer;
 Jesus who has given this authority and obligation to forgive to Peter alone in the sixteenth chapter of Mathew which we have seen few weeks back, now extends this responsibility and mission (more than as an aspect of authority and obligation we have to look at this mission as a responsibility) to the whole community;


Conclusion:

- Our community should be after the model of ‘community of Mathew’
o We too have to be always ready to extend our willingness to forgive all those who do us wrong and we have to take the first step without waiting for them to realize their mistake and come back to us; the latter is done by the people of this world; we are the house of God and so we follow Christ who has forgiven his enemies even before they ask him pardon;
o We call God our Father and we are worthy of calling ‘OUR’ only when we are of ‘one heart and one spirit’ and with ‘one voice and word’; otherwise we only pretend to be the ‘community’ without knowing and living the authentic unity;

- We are called to earn/to restore our fraternity:
o With the mutual correction, placing ourselves too in the zone of acknowledgement, we have to call for the restoration of the member that has wronged;
o With the prayer, which is the ‘binding force’ of the community, we are called to raise up our voice to God with the one heart and one soul;

- We are accountable for the community:
o We are responsible not only the individual life but also for the community life; we have to take care and have interest for the common good and for the buildup of the fraternity;
o We have to give an account for every individual to whom we become a scandal or stumbling block by doing them wrong and thus putting them in trouble; we gesture of ours will be judges according to the justice;
o Finally, our Christian aim is to ‘create – sustain and restore’ the community in which we live and to which we belong;
- The only thing we have to do is:
o We should not loose anyone and anything of the community life;
o We have to EARN OUR BROTHER AND SISTER with the fraternal correction;

TWENTY SECOND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

22ND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – A: ( Jer 20:7-9; Rom 12:1-2; Math 16:21-27)
Theme: We shall leave to God to think for us

Reflection:

- The readings that the Church propose for us today which is the continuation of the gospel of the last week, teach us that ‘we need worry about what to think… but we leave aside everything to become aware of what God thinks for u’.
- God is the one who takes initiative for our life and even our thoughts should be thrown into his; He thinks for us; He decides for us; He wills for us; Our task is just ‘to know and follow’ what he prepares for us;
- The preparatory part is God’s; let us not worry about what to prepare and how to prepare our life and its day today situations; God prepares and we follow; that should be the attitude we have to ‘learn’ today with the reflections of the readings;
- That is the ‘central message’ of the gospel today: “You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (Math 16:23). The closer translation could be: “you are a scandal to me; because you are not thinking as God thinks but as men”. Therefore, in the matters of God and the life he offers, it is better to leave God to think for us; if we try to think as we want ‘we’, or our thoughts, words and finally our life, would become a ‘stumbling block’ or a scandal;
- In a word: We have to leave everything of what we are to the ‘Will of God’. As Jesus somewhere says that ‘doing the will of his Father is his food’, so also we have to earn our food of life by ‘throwing ourselves into the net of the will of God’.

First Reading:

- Anxiety and the depression of the prophet Jeremiah:
o Jeremiah pleads for the help of God (or assurance of God’s help) over and over again in his prophecy; he knows that ‘proclaiming the word of God’ is not that easy and not that approachable; it has lot of consequences;
o Very soon he has come to realize that the people are stubborn and do not heed to him though he speaks, not his, but God’s word;
o The word of God is ridiculed; is belittled; is neglected; and is thrown away; the prophet no longer finds any use of speaking because the people are not only not ready but not in the grade of listening it either;
o We see this anxiety and pouring out of the sorrowfulness on the part of the prophet many a time even before this chapter; in the previous chapters we see how the prophet appeals or complaints to God the behavior and attitude of the people to whom he is sent;
- Not only the word proclaimed but the preacher himself becomes a scandal:
o The situation is changed, it has become worsened; it has moved still further in its brutal consequence ‘from not hearing the word to the rebuking and persecuting the preacher’;
o This made the prophet still more frightened and fearful; he wanted to escape the situation of proclaiming the word by fleeing away from the ‘will of God’.
o He himself denounces his persecutors with the anguish of fear and resentment: “For whenever I speak, I must cry out, I must shout, ‘violence and destruction’ and the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long” (v.8).
o The presence of the prophet himself has become the ‘stumbling stone’ or ‘a scandal’ for the life of the people and for their attitude to exercise what they want; the prophet Jeremiah laments over this kind of situation in which he is found and pleads to God that he cannot anymore hold this task of preaching the word because ‘both the word and the preach have become a scandal’ for the impious people.

- But the Word is Proclaimed in anyway:
o In spite of its being hated and reproached, either the word or the prophet, the word continues to be proclaimed;
o The persecutions and the frightening moments in its preaching ‘cannot and should not block’ the task of being proclaimed; the word is in anyway proclaimed;
o The prophet, in spite, the rejections and condemnations he faces, has the ‘responsibility’ and ‘must situation’ to proclaim the word;
o The efficacy of the word is always present; if it is accepted it has its fruits of life and happiness; if rejected it has its consequences of condemnation; but God’s word is always effective and powerful in its movement towards its destiny;
o And the prophet is always ‘the voice and the word’ of God though there could be many stumbling stones and scandals that arise because of his preaching; because the nature of the word is to be proclaimed and the nature of the preacher is to proclaim; one cannot exist without the other and one cannot remain without effect in the presence of the other;

Second Reading:

- Spiritual worship:
o St. Paul helps us understand what is real worship and how can it be known as authentic and true;
o We have to offer our bodies and all that it contain - thus included the mind, heart and even soul, because all these realities are embodied in the human person – as the living sacrifice;
o A sacrifice is worthy of its name when it is ‘living’, ‘holy’ and ‘raised to God’. And all this is called, in the words of Paul, the spiritual worship;
o On one hand speaking of offering of the bodies, Paul speaks it of the ‘spiritual worship’ on the other hand; this signifies that in the offering of the body there is also the worship in the spirit just because the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit as he says somewhere else (1Cor 3:16-17).
o Already the prophetic theology proposes an inseparable connection between the prayer and the life, between the liturgy and the justice (Hos 6:6; Is 1:10-20; Ger 7:21-25; Micah 6:6-8); and only with the donation of the entire existence our body can become “the temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 6:19) in which the perfect ‘spiritual worship’ can be celebrated.
- From ‘Worship’ to the ‘Will of God’:
o This the journey that each individual Christian should make; he cannot remain in the level of worship and adoration; he has to move towards ‘living’ and ‘following’ what we have worshipped and adored;
o This journey is possible, as St. Paul indicates again, only in the transformation of our mode of thinking; we should not no longer be we who should think but it should be God thinking for us; this is the meaning of the renewing of our thinking;
o All this renewal and transformation is to discern the ‘will of God’ (v.2); ultimate end and destiny of all the forms of worship and renovation is to know the will of God and to follow it; and thus we move on to the concrete will of God from our temptation of mere prayer and simple worship;

Gospel:

- ‘Blessed Peter’ becomes ‘Satan’:
o Just few hours before Jesus called Peter ‘blessed’ (16:17) which we have reflected in the readings of last Sunday; Jesus appreciated and accepted the ‘revealed answer’ that has come from the mouth of Peter, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (16:16) and for this answer, though a revelation from His Father, Jesus gives him the title, “blessed”: “Bless are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven” (16:17);
o This blessed peter and his ‘blessed words’ have disappeared in the matter of few minutes; Jesus continuing his discourse of mission which has to be completed in the death and resurrection that await him, foretells what is going to happen in Jerusalem (v.21). In fact, they are heading towards Jerusalem and Jesus explains the reason why they have to enter into it;
o The same Peter, who is usually in little hurry to answer and to give voice to all in the first place, speaks once again; of course, this time not with the help of revelation but with his own knowledge and interest for Jesus and we can also see the particular gesture proper to him: “(Peter) took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” (v.22). He takes Jesus aside as though he has something to tell him in secret or to tell him what has to be done;
o He has forgotten the meaning of the profession of faith he just has made: ‘You are the Messiah’; or he has not understood properly the exact meaning of the words he has used; Messiah is the one who saves; and Peter must have thought of the salvation in the manner of the world which is quite and completely different and distant from what Jesus has come to do;
o Therefore, Jesus calls him Satan to make the clear difference between “the revelation of the Father” and “the revelation of the flesh and blood”; thus between the ‘will of the Father’ and the ‘will of the world’; thus, finally, between ‘blessed of God’ and ‘the cursed of Satan’; and tells him: “Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (v.23);
o Jesus does not just call him Satan without any reason; he immediately makes Peter know why he has called him in this way;
 Satan and his actions are always contrary to God’s and to the good actions; Satan is always at work to stop all the means that God provides for the salvation of man and proposes and stirs up the desires opposing to them; in one word, as Jesus says, Satan becomes the stumbling stone by blocking the ‘action of God’;
 Peter too, in the same way, was trying to block the designs of God for the mankind through the mission of Jesus, the Messiah; in this way Peter becomes the stumbling block for Jesus and the finally, with this kind of thinking and attitude, which Jesus tells him that he is not thinking as God thinks, Peter blocks the ‘will of God’;
o Will of God must take priority in everything that happens; when one tries to discern what could be the will of God (second reading) it is the real and true sacrifice that is made in the perfect spiritual worship.

- Pain of the Cross and the Gain of Life:
o Taking this situation and context into account, Jesus makes the discourse on the mission of the cross and self-denial the fruit/result of which would be the life and glory of God;
o This discourse on the donation of the self has three phases:
 ‘leaving the self and taking the cross’ (v.24): one has to leave aside what he thinks and what he will and has to be available for the ‘action of God’ and that is to take up the cross; cross is not just something painful and burdensome but it is ‘whole thought of God’ for us; it is not so easy to accept and carry what God thinks for us; thus, taking up the cross, in the higher manner, signifies accepting the ‘will of God’ for us;
 ‘save-lose’ – ‘lose-find’ life (v.25): complexity of words and confusion of the verbs and words; but the theology is very simple; Life is God’s donation; if we re-donate it for God it will be ours completely and for eternity; if we misuse it and offer to Satan and its action, we lose it permanently in this life and in the life to come; renunciation of the self and the donation of the self is not for ourselves, but, it has to be oriented (giving to other) towards the finding (v.25) the ‘treasure’ in the kingdom of God (Math 13:44);
 Economic terminology (v.26): the words that Jesus uses - such as ‘profit’, ‘gaining’, ‘losing’ and ‘change’ – seem to have character of economy which always deals with the ‘price’ and ‘profit’; by taking this aspect into consideration and using this terminology Jesus wants to declare that ‘no reality, even of highest splendor, can be equaled (compared) to the great gift of the ‘proper person’ who is inserted into the kingdom of God; in this context we can remember the words of Jesus himself who talks about the value and meaning of the person: “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Math 6:26); for God human person is of more value and of highest honor just because He himself created him in his own ‘image and likeness’.

Conclusion:

- Complex reality has to turn into the clear way of life:
o Like Peter we too are, many a time, a complex reality; we often do good and exhibit our Christian and good conscience by being ‘faithful’ and ‘prayerful’ and thus we take the title of ‘blessed’ from Jesus; and on the other part, we more often we exhibit our too much preoccupation for the worldly thoughts and needs, which indeed are necessary and with the worry we have of them we tend to lose or give up our time for the things not necessary and finally find ourselves ‘lost in the pit of destruction’ and thus become also the ‘heirs of the evil’ and receive from Jesus the unwanted comment ‘Satan, you are a blocking stone for my actions’.
o We need not worry too much about this ‘doubled nature’; sometimes the situations and circumstance that surround us make us to be like this and we immediately blame them for our conditions; as long as we are in this world and live in the midst of ‘developed and developing attractions’ and ‘false ideologies’ we are dragged into them;
o We should not worry just because we are Christians and we do not belong to this world and to its traps; we are called and place above this world; the remedy for our condition is very simple:
 We have to see the reality and accept that we are and we are to be in this passing world;
 We have to, each moment of our life, keep on reminding ourselves ‘the life of grace we are called to’ and thus telling ourselves that we are ‘Christians’ and ‘the true followers of Christ’.
 We have to transform, finally, with the help and the strength of the ‘word’ and the ‘sacraments’, our thoughts into God’s and our will into God’s.
 In a word, we have to leave to God what he thinks for us;
o In this way we have to journey from the ‘status of complex reality of the self’ to the ‘clear way of the cross’ for the life of glory;

- Cross is our life and life is God’s gift and we have re-donate it to him:
o Cross is no more a stumbling block for those take it up and go behind the one who carries it for us, and thus ‘following Jesus’;
o The true happiness and true joy is present in the ‘donation of life’ for others; this is the true love which has no measures and which has no boundaries and Jesus tells “no one has greater love than giving his life for others” and finally we have to know the truth that ‘life is not ours’ but it is God’s. For this reason we are not able to balance our life as we want because every particle of the force has to come from the goodness of the Lord; Once we know this truth we offer this life back again to God from whom ‘all life comes’.
o The question of Jesus has to be posed each moment in our lives: “What can we give in exchange to the falling soul?” and this keeps us alive and active to heed to the will of God;
- Let us therefore, leave all our thoughts aside and ‘allow God think for us’ and this would be his will for us and ‘discerning the will of God for us and fulfilling it in our life offering our whole life’ would be the ‘highest and perfect spiritual worship’ (second reading), the worship which is ‘living, holy and raised to God’. Amen.

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.