Tuesday 21st July 2020, 16th Week in Ordinary Time

The feast of St Lawrence Brandisi (1559 – 1613). Priest and Doctor of the Church.

“Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is for me (…) mother”

Today, to start with, the Gospel surprises us: «Who is my mother? (Mt 12:48), wonders Jesus. It would seem the Lord is showing a contemptuous attitude towards Mary, his mother. Nothing of the sort! What Jesus wants to make quite clear is that, in his own eyes —God’s eyes— the crucial value of a person does not lie on flesh and blood facts, but on the spiritual disposition to accept God’s will: «Then He pointed to his disciples and said, ‘Look! Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is for me brother, sister, or mother’» (Mt 12:49-50). At that time, God’s will was for Jesus to evangelize those who were listening and for these ones to actually listen to him. This was a priority over any other value, no matter how dear. To abide by his Father’s will, Jesus Christ had left Mary and now He was preaching far away from home.

But, who was ever more willing to abide by God’s will than Mary? «‘I am the Lord’s servant’, Mary answered. ‘May it be to me as you have said’» (Lk 1:38). This is why, St. Augustine says that Mary, first accepted God’s word with a spirit of obedience and, only afterwards, she conceived it in her womb for the Incarnation.

In other words: God loves us as per our saintliness. The Virgin Mary is the most blessed, and, therefore, the most loved. However, God does not love us because we may be saints. It is rather the other way round: we are saints because He loves us. The first one to love is always our Lord (cf. 1Jn 4:10). Mary proves it when she says: «For He has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness» (Lk 1:48). In God’s eyes our own lowliness is evident; but He wants to magnify us, to sanctify us.

St Lawrence Brandisi (1559 – 1613). Priest and Doctor of the Church. Italian Capuchin. Lawrence is an extraordinary man who used excellently the lavish gifts God bestowed on him. The Church remembers him for his profound gift and love for Sacred Scripture, the Holy Spirit, Prayer and Mary.

Who are the Doctors of the Church?
These are today the 36 men and women all of them saints who have made great contribution to the development of theology and doctrine through extensive research and writing. St Lawrence Brandisi is one of these giants of our faith.

St. Lawrence, pray for us.

Monday 20th July 2020, 16th Week in Ordinary Time

“Teacher, we want to see a sign from you”

Today, Jesus is tested by ‘some teachers of the law and Pharisees’ (Mt 12:38; cf. Mc 10; 12), who feel threatened by his person, not because of reasons of faith, but of power. Fearing to lose their influence, they seek to discredit Jesus, by needling Him. These “some” can be quite often ourselves, when we are led by our selfishness and individual interests. Or, just as well, when we look at the Church as a merely human reality and not as a project of God’s love for each one of us.

Jesus’ answer is sharp: «but none will be given» (cf. Mt 12:39), not by fear, but to emphasize and remind them that the “signs” are the relationship of communication and love between God and humanity; it is not an association of interests and individual powers. Jesus evokes that there are many signs given by God; and it is not by challenging or blackmailing Him that He can be reached.

Jesus is the greatest signal. On this day the Word is an invitation for each one of us to humbly understand that only a converted heart turned towards God, can receive, interpret, and see this sign which is Jesus. Humility is the reality that not only brings us closer to God, but also to humanity. Through humility we acknowledge our limitations and virtues, but mostly we see our neighbors as brothers and God as our Father.

As Pope Francis reminded us, “The Lord is patient with us! He never tires of starting over again each time we fall “. That is why, despite our faults and incitements, the Lord welcomes us with open arms to start all over again. Let us, therefore, try to accomplish that in our life, and particularly today, this Word becomes a reality in us. The joy of the Christian is to be recognized by the love that is seen in his life, love that springs from Jesus.

Saturday 18th July 2020, 15th Week in Ordinary Time

“He cured all who were sick”

Today, the Gospel brings up a double message. On the one hand, Jesus calls us with a beautiful invitation to follow him: «Many people followed him and He cured all who were sick» (Mt 12:15). If we follow him we shall find the remedy for all the troubles of our journey, as we were reminded not long ago: «Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest» (Mt 11:28). On the other hand, we are showed the value of gentle love: «He will not argue or shout» (Mt 12:19).

He knows we are burdened and weary because of the heaviness of our temperamental and physical weaknesses… and for this unexpected cross that has visited us with all its coarseness, with all our disagreements, disappointments, grief and sorrow. In fact, «the Pharisees went out and made plans to get rid of Jesus» (Mt 12:14) and… if we know the disciple is not above his teacher (cf. Mt 10:24), we should be conscious that we shall also have to suffer from incomprehension and persecution.

All in all, it is a heavy burden upon us, a bundle that strains us. And we feel as if Jesus would be saying: «Cast off your bundle at me feet, and I will take care of it; give me that heavy burden that crashes you, and I will carry it; unload your worries and turn them over to me…».

It is kind of funny: Jesus invites us to cast off our burden, while He is offering us another one: his yoke, with the promise, however, that it is a soft and light one. He wants to show us that we cannot go around the world without any burden upon us. We are to carry some kind of load, anyway. But, let it not be our bundle full of materialism; let it be, instead, his burden that does not encumber us.

Thursday 16th July 2020, 15th Week in Ordinary Time

“Come to me, all you who carry heavy burdens (…), and you will find rest”

Today, facing a world which decided to turn its back on God, in front of a world hostile to the Christianity and to Christians, to listen to Jesus (who is the One who is talking to us in the liturgy or in the private reading of the Word) brings consolation, joy and hope in the middle of the daily struggles: «Come to me, all you who carry heavy burdens (…), and you will find rest.» (Mt 11:28-29).

Consolation, as these words contain the promise of relieve which comes from God’s love. Joy, as they make the heart feel the security of faith in this promise. Hope, as walking in a world rebelled against God and ourselves, we who believe in God know that not everything comes to an end, although many “ends” have turned into “beginnings” of much better things, as His own Resurrection proves.

Our aim, a starting point to the love of God, is to be permanently with Christ, “yoke” of a law which is not based in the limited capacity of human motivations, but in the eternal saving willingness of God.

In this sense Benedict XVI tells us in one of his Catechesis:” God has a plan with and for us, and this one must be converted in what we want and are. The essence of heaven is based in fulfilling unconditionally the will of God or in other words where the word of God is achieved there is heaven. Jesus himself is heaven in the deepest and fullest sense of the word, in Him and through Him is entirely accomplished the will of God. Our will drives us away from God and makes us mere “earth”. But He accepts us, attracts us towards Him and in communion with Him we learn God’s will.” Amen!

Wednesday 15th July 2020, 15th Week in Ordinary Time
The feast of St Bonaventure (1221 – 1274).

Engulfed by pride and arrogance, the Assyrians boasted of victories wrought by their superior military power. But Isaiah explained why God did not prevent Assyria’s conquest of Judah; it was so that the Israelites may realise the folly of their ways and seek to be purged of their sin. Unfortunately, the pride of Assyria led her to further plunder and lay waste the chosen people. It was then that Isaiah (in today’s first reading) prophesied the downfall of this egotistical Assyrian empire. History bore witness to this in 721 BC.

In the same vein, Jesus, in today’s Gospel, testifies how God’s revelation proves elusive for the proud and conceited Jewish religious leaders and yet is clear to the humble and pure of heart! Revelation is not for the intellect to comprehend and analyse, but for the humble heart and open mind that recognize the insignificance of humankind before the overwhelming greatness of God.

Both readings show us how false pride can close our minds to the truth because we foolishly believe we already know it!

St Bonaventure (1218 – 1274)

Bonaventure was born at Bagnoregio in Etruria in about 1218. He became a Franciscan in 1243 and studied philosophy and theology at the University of Paris. He became a famous teacher and philosopher, part of the extraordinary intellectual flowering of the 13th century. He was a friend and colleague of St Thomas Aquinas.
At this time the friars were still a new and revolutionary force in the Church, and their radical embracing of poverty and rejection of institutional structures raised suspicion and opposition from many quarters. Bonaventure defended the Franciscan Order and, after he was elected general of the order in 1255, he ruled it with wisdom and prudence. He is regarded as the second founder of the Order.
He declined the archbishopric of York in 1265 but was made cardinal bishop of Albano in 1273, dying a year later in 1274 at the Council of Lyons, at which the Greek and Latin churches were (briefly) reconciled.
Bonaventure wrote extensively on philosophy and theology, making a permanent mark on intellectual history; but he always insisted that the simple and uneducated could have a clearer knowledge of God than the wise.
He was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1588 by Pope Sixtus V.

Monday 13th July 2020, 15th Week in Ordinary

“Whoever does not take up his cross and come after me is not worthy of me”

Today, Jesus offers us an explosive mixture of recommendations; it is like one those fashionable banquets where the dishes are just tiny little tasty “snacks”. This is a hard to swallow sound and profound advice addressed to his disciples in their mid missionary preparation and formation process (Mt 11:1). We have to fragment the text in separate blocks to better taste them.

Jesus starts by explaining them the effect of his teachings. Beyond the positive and evident consequences of our Lord’s behavior, the Gospel evokes the hindrances and secondary effects of their preaching: «Each one will have as enemies those of one’s own family» (Mt 10:36). This is the paradoxical result of living the Faith: the eventual likelihood of having to confront even our closest relatives, when we do not understand who the Lord Jesus is and we do not perceive him as the Master of Communion.

Secondly, Jesus requests us to place him at the highest level of our esteem: «Whoever loves father or mother more than me…» (Mt 10:37), «And whoever loves son or daughter more than me…» (Mt 10:37). In this way, He proposes us to let him join us as the presence of God, for «whoever welcomes me welcomes him who sent me» (Mt 10:40). Living with the Lord, when we welcome Him at home, is to enjoy the reward of the prophets and the just men, for we have welcome a prophet and a just man.

The Master’s recommendation ends when He values our small gestures of help and support to those living with the Lord, his disciples, which are all the Christians. «And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones, because he is a disciple of mine…» (Mt 10:42). From this advice a responsibility is born: when we deal with our fellow men, we should be conscientious that he who lives with the Lord, whoever he may be, must be treated as we should treat him. St. John Crysostom says: «If love would be spread all over, an infinite goodness would be born out of it»

Sunday 12th July 2020, 15th Week in Ordinary Time.

The seeds that fell on rich soil.

“Some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. Whoever has ears ought to hear.” (Matthew 13: 8 – 9).
Today the Church presents us a key parable in the Parable Discourse of the teachings of Jesus.
A sower goes out to sow and encounters four types of soil:

1 Pathway.

2 Rocky ground.

3 Thorny Shrub.

4 Rich soil.

The Responsorial Psalm 65 reveals how God carefully prepares the ground for sowing:

“You [God] have visited the land and watered it; greatly have you enriched it. God’s watercourses are filled; you have prepared the grain. Drenching its furrows, breaking up its clods, softening it with showers,
blessing its yield.”

God cannot be blamed for the hardness of heart found in soils that failed. It is a mystery that out of the four types of soil, only one produced a harvest. The harvest of a hundred, sixty, thirtyfold depend on the understanding of the message of the Gospel and the commitment to it.

Why did Jesus say à propos the Parable of the Sower? “Whoever has ears ought to hear.” Faith comes from hearing the word of God. In the first Reading from Isaiah 55, God promises “My word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”
God has promised to be merciful to everyone who seeks Him. That promise will not return to God void.

O that today you will listen to His voice, harden not your hearts.

Friday 10th July 2020, 14th Week in Ordinary Time.

“Everyone will hate you because of me”

Today, the Gospel emphasizes the troubles and contradictions we Christians have to suffer because of Christ and his Gospel, and how we must stand firm and persevere to the end. Jesus promised us: «I am with you always, until the end of the age» (Mt 28:20); but He did not promise his disciples an easy journey; on the contrary, He told them: «Everyone will hate you because of me» (Mt 10:22).

The Church and the world are two difficult to coexist realities. Church is bound to convert the world to Jesus Christ, but our world is not a neutral reality, as if of virgin wax waiting for the mould to shape it. This is what it would have been like, had there not been a history of sin between the creation of man and his redemption. But, as an isolated from God structure, the world obeys another lord, that St. John’s Gospel names as “the lord of this world”, the soul’s foe, whom —when baptized— the Christian has promised to disobey to, to stand up to him, so as to only belong to Jesus Christ and to the Mother Church, which begot him in Jesus Christ.

However, though christened, we still live in this world and not somewhere else; we do not give up our earthly citizenship nor do we deny our honest contribution to sustain and improve our world; our civic duties are also Christian duties; to pay taxes is a duty of fairness for Christians. Jesus said that his followers are in the world, but do not belong to the world (cf. Jn 17:14-15). We do not unconditionally belong to the world, we only belong to Jesus Christ and to the Church, our true spiritual fatherland, that is down here in our earth and goes through space and time barriers to finally disembark us in our definite destination, Heaven.

This double citizenship necessarily stumbles upon the forces of sin and its influence that powers the worldly mechanisms. When reviewing the history of Church, Newman said that «Church’s brand is persecution and, perhaps, a longer-lasting one».

July 9, 2020
Thursday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

“Go and proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near”

Hosea now shifts the comparison of God’s love for Israel to a father’s love for his ungrateful son! His words are an attempt to help Israel understand the tenderness and sensitivity with which God seeks to nurture them, if only they would let Him. God’s desire is to lead Israel to live in a kingdom (not so much a physical place as much as a state of existence) where justice, peace and love prevail.

Today, the Gospel invites us to evangelize, it says: “Preach” (Mt 10:7). The announcement is Jesus’ good news, trying to tell us about the kingdom of God, that He is our savior, sent by the Father to the world and for this reason, the only one who can renew us from within and change the society in which we live.

Jesus proclaimed that “the Kingdom of Heaven is near” (Mt 10:7). He was the herald of the Kingdom of God that was present among men and women to the extent that good would advance and evil would retreat.

Jesus wants the whole man’s salvation, in body and in spirit; more so, by the enigma that concerns humanity, which is death, Jesus proposes the resurrection. When someone lives dead for a sin, and recovers the grace, he will experience a new life. This is a great mystery that we begin to experience from our baptism; Christians are called to the resurrection!

A sample of how Pope Francis seeks the good of man: “This “culture of discarding” also has made us insensitive to squandering and food waste. At one time our grandparents took great care not to throw any leftovers. The food that is discarded is like stealing from the poor’s table, from which he’s hungry!”

Jesus tells us to always be bearers of peace. When the priests brings the Communion to a sick person he says, ‘Lord’s Peace to this house! “. And the peace of Christ remains there, if there are people worthy of it. To receive the gifts of God’s kingdom one needs a good inner will. On the other hand, we also see many people making excuses for not receiving the Gospel.

We have a great task among men, and we cannot fail to preach the Gospel after having believed, because we live it and we want others to live it also.

Wednesday 8th July 2020,
14th Week in Ordinary Time.

Some absurdly believe that the more elaborate their rituals or the more expensive their offering or the more fancy their place of worship or the more the number of holy structures they erect, the more pleased will God be with them! Oddly enough, the Israelites believed this, for as they began to prosper, they began erecting more altars, fashioning graven images and creating elaborate rituals. Soon, from the one Temple in Jerusalem that had united the people in the worship of a monotheistic God, there was now a multiplicity of temples and gods. In time, this caused divisions on the basis of beliefs and it wasn’t long before the twelve tribes of Israel were invaded and scattered.

Go and proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near’»

Today, the Gospel shows us Jesus sending his Apostles on a mission: «Jesus sent these twelve on mission with these instructions…» (Mt 10:5). The twelve make up the “Apostolic College”, that is “missionary”. The Church, in its earthly pilgrimage, is a Missionary Community, as its origin lies in the fulfillment of the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit, following God Father’s divine intentions. In the same way as Peter and the other Apostles, by institution of our Lord, constituted a single Apostolic College, the Roman Pontiff, Peter’s successor, and the Bishops, successors of the Apostles, form a body which has the duty to announce the Gospel everywhere.

Among the disciples sent on mission we find those with an outstanding position, given by Christ, and a greater responsibility, such as Peter; and others, as Thaddaeus, whom we practically know nothing about; however, the Gospels, which communicate Good News, were not intended to satisfy our curiosity. On our side, we are supposed to pray for all the bishops, for the famous and for the not so famous ones, while living in communion with them: «See that you all follow the bishop as Jesus Christ follows the Father and the presbytery as you would the apostles…» (St. Ignatious of Antioch). Jesus was not looking for cultivated people, but simply for people who were available, willing and able to follow him to the end. This means that, as a Christian, I must also feel responsible of a part of Jesus’ plan of salvation. Do I keep away from evil? Do I help my fellow-men?

As their mission was just beginning, Jesus hurries to give them instructions with some limitations: «Do not visit pagan territory and do not enter a Samaritan town. Go instead to the lost sheep of the people of Israel. Go and proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near’» (Mt 10:5-6). Today we must do what we can, with the certainty that God is calling all pagans and Samaritans in another phase of the missionary work.