August 28th 2022.  Twenty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL   Luke 14:1,7-14

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

 

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

 

(Check us out on Facebook – Sunday Gospel Reflection)

GOSPEL   Luke 14:1,7-14

On a Sabbath Jesus went to dine
at the home of one of the leading Pharisees,
and the people there were observing him carefully.
He told a parable to those who had been invited,
noticing how they were choosing the places of honour at the table.
"When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet,
do not recline at table in the place of honour.
A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him,
and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say,
'Give your place to this man,'
and then you would proceed with embarrassment
to take the lowest place.
Rather, when you are invited,
go and take the lowest place
so that when the host comes to you he may say,
'My friend, move up to a higher position.'
Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table.
For every one who exalts himself will be humbled,
but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."
Then he said to the host who invited him,
"When you hold a lunch or a dinner,
do not invite your friends or your brothers
or your relatives or your wealthy neighbours,
in case they may invite you back and you have repayment.
Rather, when you hold a banquet,
invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;
blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.
For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

 

HOMILY TRANSLATION

1. We seek to quell our inner emptiness by grasping after possessions and acclaim. How beautiful it is when we humbly trust in the Lord’s providence and permit him to look after our wellbeing.

The Gospel passage from Luke is introduced by the first reading from the book of Ecclesiasticus which exalts the virtue of humility. “The power of the Lord is great, and by the humble he is glorified. In the lives of the humble, the Lord can manifest himself”. In the Gospel, Jesus observes how the Pharisees choose the best places at the table. The question is this: Who assigns our place in life? Is it us? Or is it the Lord? The humble can manifest the glory of the Lord because they place the outcome of their lives in the hands of God. They live, permitting the Lord to choose their recompense. Unfortunately, we tend to live trying to quell our inner anguish, our fear of emptiness, by seeking possessions, honours and acclaim in life. Let us allow the Lord to look after the recompense of our existence! How wonderful it is to live as children of a loving and providential Father, instead of seeking constantly to eke out our own fulfilment and meaning. How comforting it is to know that the Father in his justice will one day assign us to the place that is right for us!

 

2. Love is incompatible with competition. When we live in true loving communion with others we forget our own advancement, rejoicing in the success of others and lamenting those who are left behind  

How many lives are wasted by anxieties about one’s own role and position, in competition with others, in striving to promote oneself! How much energy is wasted trying to surpass others and in resenting those who are more successful than we are! This is not a beautiful life because it is not a life of love. Love and competition are not compatible. Love is about communion, reciprocal joy, sadness for those who are left behind. May this Gospel encourage us to trust in that which the Lord gives us, to be at peace with what we have, not to use others for the benefits with which we think they might provide us. It is terrible to discover that someone has used us in an instrumental way, that they do not love us but have used us. If the meaning of our lives was all about our own qualities, how desirable we are, how attractive we are, then what a hellish life that would be.

 

3. All of us are poor, blind and lame. Christ invites us to his banquet, making us children of the Father by virtue of our baptism. Our nobility, our greatness, has been won for us by Christ. We don’t need to calculate or scheme for our greatness. We just need to receive it with docility and trust.

The fact is that we are just as Jesus describes the “undesirables” in the Gospel - the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. All of us are blind about many things. The Lord invites us continually to the banquet of the Eucharist, and we come, poor, crippled, lame, and blind. We have nothing to offer him, but he invites us and the Father gives us the recompense of the resurrection. We are invited to this great meal and let us live according to the logic of his generosity. As the second reading says, we are invited to the assembly of the first-born, the privileged ones. In Christ, the only-begotten Son, we are all children of the Father, of noble stock, liberated from the poverty of our sins by the marvellous glory of God, won for us by Christ, hidden within us by virtue of our baptism, proclaimed by the sacraments. Let us enter into the banquet of God, an anticipation of the heavenly banquet. Let us live in communion with God, allowing him to assign our place to us. Let us stop calculating and scheming for our own exaltation. True life is not something that we grab with our own efforts. It is something to be received from God with docility and trust.

 August 21st 2022.  Twenty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL   Luke 13,22-30

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

 

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

 

(Check us out on Facebook – Sunday Gospel Reflection)

GOSPEL   Luke 13:22-30

Jesus passed through towns and villages,
teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem.
Someone asked him,
"Lord, will only a few people be saved?"
He answered them,
"Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter
but will not be strong enough.
After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door,
then will you stand outside knocking and saying,
'Lord, open the door for us.'
He will say to you in reply,
'I do not know where you are from.
And you will say,
'We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.'
Then he will say to you,
'I do not know where you are from.
Depart from me, all you evildoers!'
And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth
when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
and all the prophets in the kingdom of God
and you yourselves cast out.
And people will come from the east and the west
and from the north and the south
and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.
For behold, some are last who will be first,
and some are first who will be last."

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

 

SUMMARY OF HOMILY

1. Jesus speaks of a narrow gate. The narrowness is temporal. The Lord is giving us opportunities of grace right now and the only time to receive this grace is now.

The first reading speaks of something inconceivable to the Jewish mind: the idea that pagans might become priests of the Temple of the Lord, that those far distant from the heritage of Israel should one day be inheritors of the promises. Then, in the Gospel, Jesus tells a parable of someone who has eaten and drunk in the company of the Master, someone who has been very close to the Lord, but still the Lord refuses to recognize them. This risk is very real. Nazareth was the place where the Blessed Virgin manifested the greatest expression faith, but it was also the place where those closest to the Lord refused to believe. We should never presume that we are saved. In the Gospel, someone asks if only a few will be saved. Jesus does not answer one way or the other, but tells us to enter into combat in order to enter the narrow gate. The narrowness of the gate is not spatial but temporal. We must seek the Lord while he can be found. The Lord presents us with a series of occasions to manifest our obedience. This Sunday’s liturgy is the beginning of a week of such opportunities. The events of our lives are always doors the Lord is giving us that open onto grace, occasions to conform to what the Lord is asking of us.

 

2. In the limits and difficulties of our situation are precious moments of correction and opportunities to adhere to Jesus so that he becomes truly our Lord.

For example, as the second reading points out, we must be ready to accept the corrections the Lord makes of us. Life is a great process of education and formation in the hands of our loving Father. Such corrections are doorways to grace. We should ask, “What door is the Lord opening to me in this time so that I might entrust myself more radically to him? What opportunities do I have to live as a child of God, rather than as someone who depends on himself? What occasions of prayer, mercy and service are being opened to me?” Our Christian lives are not to be constructed by ourselves but by the Lord through these providential moments that he places before us. If we do not permit ourselves to be corrected by these moments that the Lord sends us, we will never grow. A nation is delineated by its borders. The limits of our lives are actually spaces of grace within which we must remain if we are to grow. God works through our limits, our weakness, our solitude. Through these limits, God’s grace flows and they become for us the narrow doors to the Kingdom of Heaven. In and through these providential occasions, we give the Lord our hearts so that he can give us His. We entrust ourselves to him with adhesion so that he governs our lives and becomes truly our Lord.

August 14th 2022.  Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL   Luke 12,49-53

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

 

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

 

(Check us out on Facebook – Sunday Gospel Reflection)

GOSPEL   Luke 12, 49-53

Jesus said to his disciples:
"I have come to set the earth on fire,
and how I wish it were already blazing!
There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,
and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!
Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?
No, I tell you, but rather division.
From now on a household of five will be divided,
three against two and two against three;
a father will be divided against his son
and a son against his father,
a mother against her daughter
and a daughter against her mother,
a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

 

SUMMARY OF HOMILY

1. God’s word is not something that is supposed to make us feel comfortable. It  is something that should detach us from our own interests and consume  us interiorly like a fire.

In today’s readings we find a common thread: the importance of detaching ourselves from our truths to embrace His truth. In the First Reading, Jeremiah is put to death because the King does not want to hear God’s truth.  The King is seeking a truth that pleases him and the people. When God speaks to us, he is not trying to please us. Rather, he wants his Word to become our reality, our truth. In the second reading, we are encouraged to persevere in our faith, not to be discouraged. As we see in the Gospel, Jesus wants our faith to burn vividly. There is a tendency to think of Christianity as a relaxing way of being, to think it as a religion that promotes calmness and quietens our passions. But in reality Jesus was not a calm person… he was passionate and full of fire. We are called to follow him in his passionate conviction, as we can see from the first two readings.

 

2. We are called to live lives that are driven by fire and conviction, to battle to seek out and appreciate the beautiful mystery of every day

If a man marries a woman in order to have an easy life, the marriage will not be a happy one. He should everyday be striving to conquer the wife over and over again through passion, initiatives, creativity, etc.. We cannot go through life just surviving day after day. We have to find the beauty in everything we do, we need to search for the mystery of everything. We need to be on the battleground and fight every single day. Take the saints for example. They were not quiet people that hid in a corner. No, they are people full of initiative and creativity. They were so passionate that often they were considered annoying by the people of their time. They were an embarrassment  because they kept challenging others through their disconcerting acts of charity.

 

3. Jesus brings division to families in the sense of demanding that we mature and live our faith as he wishes us to live it, not according to the often worldly demands of our families.

This is what we are called to be… we need to be on fire. In the Gospel, Jesus says that he is bringing division and that even families will be divided. Yes, because, just as the early Christians and so many saints had to decide to detach themselves from their parents’ ways of being, so we need to grow up and mature as well. We need to become adults in our faith. We can’t always try to please our parents and siblings, and live according to their ways. We need to grow up and realize we have only one Father who is in heaven and we need to do whatever it takes to put our lives on the same track as that of Jesus. Our life is something beautiful, so we must try every day to receive all the grace that God has in store for us.

 AUGUST 7th 2022. NINETEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

GOSPEL: Luke 12:32-48

__________________________________________________

(Translation of a homily by Don Fabio Rosini broadcast on Vatican Radio)

 

(Check us out on Facebook – Sunday Gospel Reflection)

 

Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel.

 

GOSPEL                                    Luke 12:32-48

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not be afraid any longer, little flock,
for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom. 
Sell your belongings and give alms. 
Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out,
an inexhaustible treasure in heaven
that no thief can reach nor moth destroy. 
For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

“Gird your loins and light your lamps
and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding,
ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks. 
Blessed are those servants
whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. 
Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself,
have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them. 
And should he come in the second or third watch
and find them prepared in this way,
blessed are those servants. 
Be sure of this:
if the master of the house had known the hour
when the thief was coming,
he would not have let his house be broken into. 
You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect,
the Son of Man will come.”

Then Peter said,
“Lord, is this parable meant for us or for everyone?” 
And the Lord replied,
“Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward
whom the master will put in charge of his servants
to distribute the food allowance at the proper time? 
Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing so. 
Truly, I say to you, the master will put the servant
in charge of all his property. 
But if that servant says to himself,
‘My master is delayed in coming,’
and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants,
to eat and drink and get drunk,
then that servant’s master will come
on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour
and will punish the servant severely
and assign him a place with the unfaithful. 
That servant who knew his master’s will
but did not make preparations nor act in accord with his will
shall be beaten severely;
and the servant who was ignorant of his master’s will
but acted in a way deserving of a severe beating
shall be beaten only lightly. 
Much will be required of the person entrusted with much,
and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.”

THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ
 

SUMMARY OF HOMILY

1. We are called to live by faith, waiting for the Lord, not takings matters into our own hands as if we were the masters of our destiny.

The first reading from the book of Wisdom speaks of the nocturnal liturgy marking the liberation from slavery of the Exodus. The second reading tells of the faith which is the guarantee of things hoped for, a faith like that of Abraham which entrusts itself to the providence of God. The Gospel asks us to have the same attitude of trustful waiting as that displayed by the people before the Exodus, to keep our eyes on the Lord, not living according to a horizontal dimension of life, but according to the manner in which the Lord nurtures us and saves us. The parable that Jesus tells emphasizes that the Lord erupts in our lives at the time that is right for him, not according to our schemes or designs.

 

2. All Christians are given certain goods that they must administer for the benefit of others. Each one of us is called to act with discernment and to nurture the lives of others.

Peter asks if the parable is for everyone or just for the disciples. Jesus replies with a distinction that is rare in the Gospels and very precious. He tells us that certain people are given responsibility for the flock and it is their duty to give the correct amount of food at the right time. We Christians are called to have the capacity to cultivate, nurture, increase life. The bad administrators, by contrast, do not believe in the eruption of the Lord into our existence. They behave as if they were masters, not servants, and make absolutes of themselves. This is an important key to understanding the parable. We are called to reason, not as someone who is the master of his existence, but as one who has received life as a grace and who must one day account for how he has used it.

 

3. When we behave as if we were the masters, great suffering results. Instead, we are asked to live as servants of the Lord, administering wisely the goods that he has given us.

The Gospel this Sunday confronts us with two different approaches: to act as wise administrators of the grace that God has given us, never forgetting that we are servants of the Lord; or, behaving as if we were the lord and masters of our existence, exploiting the things the Lord has given us for our own ends. It is not that we are to feel guilty for our abuse of what the Lord has given us. Rather, we are called to rejoice in the beauty that we have been given and to be collaborators with the Lord in his work. It all springs from the quality of our relationship with the Lord. When we appreciate his goodness and mercy, when we consider ourselves to be his children, we feel the desire to be faithful to our master and to nurture his life in others around us. However, if we believe that the Lord is distant, that his return is going to be delayed, then we soon begin to act as if everything revolved around us and we become tyrants, distracted by material things and living in a superficial way. Consider the suffering that resulted from the ideologies of the twentieth century, in which societies began to follow purely materialist conceptions of humanity. Think also of the way we have polluted and mistreated the creation of God. When we make the things of the earth our treasure, we minister creation very badly, leading to climate change and great human suffering. Instead, we are called to administer God’s gifts well by making ourselves accountable before the Lord. From him comes wisdom and the capacity to nurture, to do good and to lead others to good, according to the particular role that the Lord has given us.  

 

ALTERNATIVE HOMILY

The Gospel challenges us to be focussed on that which is to come

The first reading from the Book of Wisdom speaks of the Exodus, an event that had been preannounced to the people of God so that they might have courage when the happenings began to unfold. The Gospel reading, too, speaks of the relationship between the present and the future. Jesus tells us that we can be serene and courageous in the face of our present problems because our Father in heaven has been pleased to grant us the Kingdom. This is the same sort of logic that we find in the Beatitudes – “Blessed are those who are afflicted now for they shall be consoled. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”. The entire Gospel challenges us to be ready for that which is to come: to be ready for the master who will one day return; to be prepared for the prize that awaits in the future, the spouse who is expected to arrive, the reward that is due to us. The beginning of the passage tells us to sell our belongings and give alms, to make purses for ourselves that will not wear out.  There are purses that grow old and those that do not; treasures that fade away and those that remain; possessions that criminals can take from us and those that cannot be stolen.

 

All my acts can only be understood in the light of their consequences

Every human act has a consequence; in fact an act can only be understood fully in the light of its consequences. How often we tend to be superficially caught up in the present moment and the immediate aspect of our behaviour! We need to be aware that every act leads somewhere. Every act I do is bound up with the reality of what God intends to do with me. If each and every act I do is not directed towards a definite end, then it is a stupid and blind act. Our existence is either a succession of disordered events or it is something that has sense and meaning. If I believe that the events in my life are the result of chance, then life becomes ugly and shallow. Our lives develop depth when they begin to be directed towards a goal, when we begin to expect liberation from God, when we begin to await something wonderful with expectation and hope. Pope Francis often exhorts us not to lose hope. If hope becomes obscured, if I lose sight of the goal of my existence, then everything becomes dry and tasteless. St Francis of Assisi said, “The good that awaits me is so great that every pain has become a delight”. We become cheerful in difficulty when we realize that those difficulties announce something wonderful to come. In the spiritual life, once of the fundamental things is to clarify my ultimate goals. Any act that takes me away from this ultimate goal is useless in itself. In fact it is dehumanising and takes the soul out of what I am doing.

 

Before doing anything, I should ask myself, “Does this act lead me towards paradise or towards the void?” If it does not lead towards paradise then it is something dehumanising

The Gospel exhorts us to be ready to depart, to be ready for the return of the master, to be attentive to the will of the master. All of this points to a mode of existence that is directed towards a wonderful goal. We are challenged to ask ourselves where we are going. If I continue behaving and living as I am now, where will I end up? What will be the outcome of my behaviour? Am I heading towards heaven or towards the void? Every act I commit is either leading me towards heaven or it is not. It is either directed towards paradise and greatness or it is not. Once there was a lot of emphasis in Christian preaching on death, judgement and salvation. These themes are less common nowadays because they are considered negative, but they are important and can be illuminated in fruitful ways. Everything I am doing must be seen in the light of the fact that the master will one day return and he will ask me what I have been doing, if I have been preparing for his coming. Have I been behaving as one who wishes to enter into his house? Or as someone who belongs outside? Did I act with eternity as my goal? Or with the void as my goal? In this season of summer we can often lose ourselves and follow after things that are empty and vain. But there is another way. If we have extra leisure time on our hands, we can use it to pull ourselves together and redirect our lives. Instead of going around blindly in circles, we can accept the challenge of this Sunday’s Gospel and fix our eyes firmly on our goal, leaving aside everything that is secondary.