August 30^th 2020. The Twenty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL: Matthew 16, 21-27

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

 

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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel

GOSPEL: Matthew 16, 21-27

Jesus began to make it clear to his disciples that he was destined to go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, to be put to death and to be raised up on the third day. Then, taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him. ‘Heaven preserve you, Lord’, he said ‘this must not happen to you’.

But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my path, because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’

Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it. What, then, will a man gain if he wins the whole world and ruins his life? Or what has a man to offer in exchange for his life?

‘For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and, when he does, he will reward each one according to his behaviour.’

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

 

Summary . . . In Sunday’s Gospel, Peter remonstrates with Christ because he does not agree that the cross is necessary. Jesus tells Peter that he is not thinking according to God’s way, but according to man’s way. If we think according to God’s way, then we trust in him, no longer grounding ourselves on purely human considerations. Trustful acceptance of pain, suffering, and absurdity is the way we follow Christ. This is not accepted by a religious sentimentality dominant today! Our culture has made Christian spirituality a search for individual wellbeing and often cannot cope with pain and inconvenience. The cross, in fact, is considered incompatible with the consolations frequently sought in today’s approach to religion and spirituality. But the day I abandon myself to trust in the Father in the midst of suffering, in the absurd, in the midst of pain – that is the day in which Jesus becomes my true Lord! Once we accept our crosses and have the experience of loving unconditionally, by being good parents, faithful spouses and friends, then we discover what real freedom is, what real life is like. Authentic life, which is a gift from God, is delivered to us only through the cross. The cross or suffering are not ends in themselves, but when the cross becomes the occasion of abandonment into God’s arms, it leads us to be reborn with a new life, a life free from the ego, a life filled with the power of God.

 

How many lives do we actually have? Is seems to be one only, but it is actually two: the life our parents bestow on us, and the life God wishes to give us.

“Whoever wants to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it". But how many lives do we actually have? We might think it is one only, but it is actually two: the one we receive from our parents, and the one God wants to give us. The life God gives us, in order to be received, must supplant the first. In fact, in this Sunday's Gospel passage, two ways of thinking appear: "You do not think according to God’s way, but according to men’s!" There is a way of thinking that is securely grounded on what is human, logical, convenient, opportune and advantageous. This way of thinking often actually considers itself to be God’s own way of thinking. We see this in the manner in which Peter disputes Christ’s prediction of suffering, He does not do it in the name of the human but of the divine: “God forbid, Lord; this will never happen to you”.

 

If we think according to God’s way, then we abandon ourselves in trust to him, no longer grounding ourselves on purely human considerations. Trustful acceptance of pain, suffering, and absurdity is the way we follow Christ. In short, the moment in which I trust in the Father, accepting the cross, is the moment in which he becomes truly my Lord.

But the Lord Jesus reveals that his way of thinking is completely different. We see this precisely from the perspective of the cross. Jesus thinks "according to God’s way", and in this logic, the “disaster” of the cross actually becomes the fruitful path of the Father's work. Thinking according to God implies accepting that everything is in His hands. It acknowledges that basing our existence on purely human considerations is to miss the target of greatness. The cross is the instrument by which we follow Christ.  This is not accepted by a religious sentimentality dominant today, which has made Christian spirituality a search for individual wellbeing and which often cannot cope with pain and inconvenience, because they are considered incompatible with the consolations frequently sought in religion. But the day I abandon myself to trust in the Father in the midst of suffering, in the absurd, in pain – that is the day in which Jesus becomes my true Lord. If the Lord is not present in pain, then he is not present anywhere in my life, not even in pleasure.

 

Peter’s way of thinking is really a system of life: avoid problems and pain, seek comfort and convenience. The problem with such an approach is that it lays the foundations of a humanity that is alienated from real life; a humanity unable for the sacrifice of love because it is too preoccupied with its own comfort. But once we have the experience of loving unconditionally, then we discover what real freedom is, what real life is like

Peter’s way of thinking is really a system of life.  The basic approach is to avoid problems, inconveniences, and pain. The problem with such a system is that it lays the foundations of a humanity of alienated people, unable to confront the hard edges of reality, who become fugitive fathers, anxious mothers, self-centred spouses, superficial people. Such people do not learn to love because all they seek is comfort. This way of thinking can put up with sacrifice only in view of a gain, of an acquisition. Thinking “according to man’s way” means to absolutize what is human and render it inconsistent. That is because we need something that is greater than this life that calls us to go beyond ourselves. We all need to deny ourselves, because all of our lives we have been looking for someone who truly loves us without calculation, without asking for anything in return, without conditions. And once we have the experience of loving others like this, to fall in love like this, to be fathers or mothers, or brothers or friends or colleagues like this, then we know what freedom is, what real life is like.

 

Authentic life, which is a gift from God, is delivered to us only through the cross. The cross is not an end in itself, but when it becomes the occasion of abandonment into God’s arms, it leads us to be reborn with a new life, a life free from the ego, a life filled with the power of God.

We need to rediscover that this sort of life, which is a gift from God, is delivered to us precisely through the cross. But if the cross is lived only for itself, if suffering or penance become ends in themselves, then they only lead to destruction and despair. On the other hand, when the cross is accepted as an opportunity for trust and abandonment into God’s arms, it becomes the birth of the new creature, the beginning of a second life, a life free from one's ego, a life imbued with the power of God.

August 23^rd 2020. The Twenty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL: Matthew 16, 13-20

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

 

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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel

GOSPEL: Matthew 16, 13-20

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and
he asked his disciples,
“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter said in reply,
"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus said to him in reply,
“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
And so I say to you, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Then he strictly ordered his disciples
to tell no one that he was the Christ.

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

 

Summary . . . The first reading from Sunday speaks of the act of investiture of the master of the House of  David. The act consists in placing the key of the house upon his shoulders. We are told that what this key opens, no-one will close, and what this key closes, no-one will open. The cross of Christ is borne upon his shoulders and it has the power to “bind” and “loose”. It frees us from our bonds to sin and delusion. It binds us in correct relationships with each other, and with the Mother of Jesus who is given to us as our mother from the cross. In the Gospel, Jesus “tests” his disciples by asking them who they think he is. In response, Peter makes his impressive profession. What is interesting is that fatherhood is a theme in this dialogue between Jesus and Peter. Peter, son of Simon, professes Jesus as Son of the living God. In return, his name is changed to “rock”. As a rock, he becomes the foundation of the faith of others and a place of passage, a bridge (the meaning of “pontiff”) to the Father. We are all priests by baptism and called to be a rock of faith for others! This, however, is not our doing, but the work of God in us. It is God who builds the Church. Peter knew who Christ was because the Father had revealed it to him (“Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven”). When we know the Lord, we know how to liberate people from darkness (“the gates of the underworld will not prevail against it”). It is the cross of Christ that is the instrument, the key, to liberation from darkness and entrance to heaven.

 

The place where Peter made his profession was a place of worship for the different gods of the Greek, Roman and Canaanite cultures

The location where Peter made his profession was the site of three sanctuaries from different eras for the worship of the Canaanite, Greek and Roman gods. In this open-air pantheon, Jesus asks the disciples to recognize his true identity, because faith is something that must be professed above all in the face of idolatries. The Christianity of the martyrs will thus manifest itself in every age, precisely in the most alien and hostile of places. The most noticeable feature of this location was a dark cave where a spring appeared and then sank again into a hole in the rock, to reappear further downstream. We won’t go into the macabre details of the Canaanite cult, but that mouth of rock which swallowed the water was an image of the underworld, of the kingdom of death, and that is why Jesus speaks of it in this Gospel passage.

 

Fatherhood is a theme in the dialogue between Jesus and Peter. Peter professes Jesus as Son of the living God. In return, his name is changed to “rock”. As a rock he becomes the foundation of the faith of others and a place of passage, a bridge, to the Father

Jesus starts a conversation regarding his identity, and this becomes a test for his disciples, provoking the impressive response from Simon Peter. In this dialogue, Peter says something about Jesus identity in terms of his divine sonship. Then Jesus says something about Peter’s identity, again in terms of sonship. Simon, who is the son of Jonah, professes that Jesus is the Son of the living God. On account of this profession, Simon’s name is definitively changed and he becomes the foundation for the faith of many others. St. John Paul II said that becoming a rock means becoming a place of passage for others to come to Christ. Incidentally, the true meaning of “pontiff”, the title of the Bishop of Rome, is “bridge”.

 

We are all priests by baptism and called to be a rock of faith for others. This, however, is not our doing, but the work of God in us. It is God who builds the Church.

Every Christian shares in the priesthood of Christ by baptism; thus he is called to be a rock for the faith of others, a place of passage to the Father. But this knowledge of Christ, which can only come exclusively as a gift from the Father - "neither flesh nor blood have revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven" - is also and above all a work of God in us: "On this stone I will build my Church "; Christ will build it, the Church is a work of God.

 

Knowing the Lord means knowing the way to pull humanity out of darkness

The Church has a duty that is expressed in this Gospel passage with: "The gates of the underworld will not prevail against it". Some translations omit “gates” but this is the literal translation from the Greek. This original text emphasizes that the battle takes place at the gates of the underworld, where there is that horrible mouth of nothing (the rock that swallowed the spring of water) which seems to eat everything and compel fear and idolatry. Those gates will not resist the power of God at work in the Church: the Church will liberate men from death, pulling people out of their darkness. The Oriental churches represent the Resurrection with the image of Christ pulling Adam and Eve out of the black mouth of the underworld. Peter knows Christ because the Father reveals him to him, and knowing the Lord means knowing the way to pull humanity out of the darkness.

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 16 2020, Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

August 16^th 2020. The Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL: Matthew 15, 21-28

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

 

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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel

GOSPEL: Matthew 15, 21-28

Jesus left Gennesaret and withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. Then out came a Canaanite woman from that district and started shouting, ‘Sir, Son of David, take pity on me. My daughter is tormented by a devil.’ But he answered her not a word. And his disciples went and pleaded with him. ‘Give her what she wants,’ they said ‘because she is shouting after us.’ He said in reply, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel’. But the woman had come up and was kneeling at his feet. ‘Lord,’ she said ‘help me.’ He replied, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house-dogs’. She retorted, ‘Ah yes, sir; but even house-dogs can eat the scraps that fall from their master’s table’. Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, you have great faith. Let your wish be granted.’ And from that moment her daughter was well again.

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

 

Summary . . . Sunday’s reading has the most startling reply from Jesus recorded in the Gospels: “It is not right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs”. To understand this reply to the Canaanite woman, it is essential that we recognize that no-one of us can become an authentic Christian until we recognize our misery, our infidelity, our estrangement from God. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the key moment was when the son finally recognized that he was living like an animal and was unworthy to be called a son of his father. The greatness of the Canaanite woman consists in the fact that she acknowledged that she was estranged from God and undeserving of his grace, yet she showed by her perseverance that she submitted to his help anyway. All of us have fallen far short of the beautiful nature that God has destined for us. Each one of us needs to periodically acknowledge our poverty and misery before the Lord. We need to admit that we are, effectively, “dogs” in this sense. God cannot pour his gifts into hearts that are full of themselves, but into hearts that are poor and humble. It is from this reduction to nothing that greatness begins. We must give God the right to say “no” to us. It is when we metabolize these “rejections” that we are given the opportunities to grow. God is not an automatic distributor of graces who says “yes” to everything we request. He nurtures us, corrects us, prompts us to grow. A proper relationship with him demands that our hearts be filled with the truth of that relationship, and this involves acknowledging our misery and the fact that we deserve nothing. This Sunday we have a splendid opportunity for recalling that, undeserving as we are, we have been welcomed by the Lord and made children by his grace.

 

In Sunday’s Gospel, we hear the most startling reply from Jesus recorded in the Gospels

The Gospel for Sunday is quite startling. When a Canaanite woman asks Jesus to heal his daughter, Jesus refuses to answer her. Even the disciples seem to have more compassion than Jesus, and they implore Jesus to grant her request. But his reply is even more shocking: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs”. The expression Jesus uses – “dogs” – is particularly disparaging. By the end of this passage, of course, Jesus will have responded well to the woman and even praised her in the highest terms. But for the moment we must seek to understand his apparently negative approach.

 

It is not possible to become an authentic Christian without recognizing, our misery, our poverty, our distance from God and our need of his help

In order to be healed of a dependency or addiction, it is always necessary that we admit our poverty, our misery and need for help. The early Church was surrounded by the Hellenistic, Roman and Canaanite cultures. It was not possible to become Christian without recognizing the elements of these cultures that were alien to the Christian way of life. In general, before any of us can become an authentic Christian, we have to acknowledge that, at present, we are very distant to God. In the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke’s Gospel, the critical moment is when the son realizes that he has been reduced to an animal like state, unworthy to be called a son of his father. In the early Church, those converts that came from Hellenistic and Canaanite backgrounds would have had to recognize how far their culture was from the Lord. Even today, the expression “pagan dogs” is used in Islam and some other cultures. And it is necessary for us to recognize ourselves as “dogs” in the sense of being far from God, far from the complete form of humanity according to the will of God.

 

The greatness of this woman consists in her awareness of her poverty, her humility and her acknowledgement that she does not deserve anything.

This Canaanite woman acknowledges that she is asking for a “crumb” that she does not deserve. When she demonstrates this awareness of her own poverty and her dependence on the Lord, Jesus replies by saying, “Great is your faith. May your wish be granted”. It is important for all of us at times during life to reach this level of acknowledging our poverty, our estrangement from God, our identity as “dogs” in comparison to the beautiful human nature that God had destined for us. Faith is not something that God can pour into a heart that is full of itself and its own abilities, but into a heart that is poor. As the psalm says, “A humble and contrite heart, O Lord, you will not despise” (Psalm 51,17). The heart of this woman is great because it takes littleness as its starting point. She is humble enough to ask for help, having no pretensions of her own. Certainly, she asks with perseverance, but not presuming to have a right in herself of a response.

 

God is not an automatic distributor of graces who responds to all of our requests. Instead he is a Father who wishes to help us grow. When we relate to him as children, it is essential we have truth in our hearts regarding our own poverty, our own littleness, the fact that we deserve nothing. The Lord will welcome us as we are and make us his children by grace, but we for our part must recognize our need for him and our estrangement from him,

This Gospel is a reminder to all of us that we should not forget the day in which we were “dogs”. For St Peter, it would always have been important not to forget the day in which he betrayed the Lord, and for Paul to recall the violence he showed against the Church. It is from this annihilation, this reduction to nothing, that greatness begins. The Canaanite woman accepts this “rejection” by God and in return she receives the greatest praise from the Lord. We must give God the right to say “no” to us, and we must welcome and metabolize his “rejections”. God is not an automatic distributor of graces who responds to all of our requests. Instead he is a Father who seeks to make us grow. He nurtures us, educates us, corrects us and demands that we relate to him according to the truth. When we invoke God and ask for his help, it is important that we have the truth in our hearts regarding our own poverty. This Gospel is a splendid occasion for recognizing that we are the poor and miserable ones who have been welcomed to the table by God. Similarly, it is a motive for us to welcome others as the Lord has welcomed us. The beginning of every Mass, in fact has the words, “In order to celebrate the sacred mysteries, let us call to mind our unworthiness, our infidelities, our sins”. We are all estranged from God, but we have been welcomed by him and made children by grace.

August 9^th 2020. The Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL: Matthew 14, 22-33

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

 

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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel

GOSPEL: Matthew 14, 22-33

After he had fed the people, Jesus made the disciples get into a boat
and precede him to the other side,
while he dismissed the crowds. 
After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. 
When it was evening he was there alone. 
Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore,
was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. 
During the fourth watch of the night,
he came toward them walking on the sea. 
When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. 
“It is a ghost,” they said, and they cried out in fear. 
At once Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” 
Peter said to him in reply,
“Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 
He said, “Come.” 
Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. 
But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened;
and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” 
Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught Peter,
and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” 
After they got into the boat, the wind died down. 
Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying,
“Truly, you are the Son of God.”

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

 

Kieran’s summary . . . In the Gospel for Sunday, Jesus constrains his disciples to cross the notoriously stormy Sea of Galilee by night. Why did Jesus force them to do such a counter-intuitive thing, to confront their deepest fear – that of being lost at sea? Then, during the storm, Jesus comes to them over the water. Christ wants us to cling to him in the midst of our greatest fears. The crossing of the sea is the great biblical symbol of Passover, the fearful crossing of the deepest abyss of human existence. We are not truly free until our fears are enlightened with the presence of Christ. The storms of life reveal the power of God, but they also reveal who we are: we are people called to true freedom, and this only happens when we abandon ourselves to God. When storms come, we might wish that the Lord would take them away from us. But what is important is not the calming of the storm, but that we keep faith in God in the midst of the storm.

The Sea of Galilee is dangerous at night. Why did Jesus force his disciples to make such a risky crossing? Why did he make them confront their deepest fear – that of being lost at sea? Crossing the sea, of course, is, in Scripture, symbolic of Easter, the crossing of the deepest chasm known to man

"Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other shore". One thing may escape our attention in this phrase: the fact that Jesus constrained the disciples to enter the boat. The Greek term means “to induce to act in a particular way, to force, to impose”. Why does Jesus force this crossing? The story follows the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, and we know that it is evening time. In fact, the disciples had asked for the dismissal of the crowd for this very reason. Jesus must constrain his disciples to get into the boat. One may rightly think that perhaps they do not want to go without him, but the account that follows also indicates something else. We must remember that the core group of his disciples is made up of fishermen - the first four are fishermen by profession - while the others are from the same part of the region. They are all familiar with that stretch of water that they call the “sea”. They don't want to cross it in the evening because they know one thing: evening and night storms on the Sea of ​​Galilee are very frequent. This also happens today due to the fact that air currents from diverse climatic regions converge over the lake. Often this gives rise to very localised storms right in the middle of the water basin. If, on a trip to the Holy Land, you wonder why there are no crossings for tourists after a certain hour in the afternoon, the local boatmen can explain all of this. It is very risky to leave in the evening. Why does Jesus force them to take this risk? They are fishermen and they are made to confront their basic professional fear: to die at sea, or at least to fail in making the crossing. The Lord pushes them to confront their fears. The sea, in fact, in Scripture represents the historical obstacle, that of Passover. It evokes all human fears, and the night never seems to end.

 

Jesus wants them to confront their fears by experiencing his Lordship in the midst of their fears. We are not free until the day that we learn to cling to him, despite the object of our fears still being present. These storms reveal that Jesus is Lord, but they also reveal that we are people called to freedom, called to trust in him in the midst of tribulation. This is our life. This is our freedom. We do not call on the Lord to take away the storm, but that we might adhere to him despite the storm.

But in the midst of their fear, Jesus returns and appears as someone walking on that sea. Like a ghost. Right in the heart of their terror, the Lord wants them to have this experience: to know the Son of God. In fact, we are not truly free until the day in which God enlightens our deepest fears with his Lordship. Indeed, like Peter, we too are called to walk on that sea. The Lord not only manifests who He is, and that is already a great thing, but he reveals who we are: people called to freedom. If life sometimes forces us to enter the storm, it is so that we may come to know the God of Jesus Christ. To know him does not imply that we are given the power to escape that which we fear, but becoming free from what we fear, without having to distance ourselves from it. Our problem is not the storm, but to keep faith during the storm. And our faith always has room to grow.