OMELIE / Omelie EN

14 lug 2024

14/07/2024 - 15th Sunday in O. T. - B

14/07/2024 - 15^th Sunday in O. T. - B

Reading 1 AM 7,12-15 Psalm 84 Reading 2 EPH 1,3-14 Gospel MK 6,7-13

It almost looks like Saint Paul is not able to find the words to express all his gratefulness to God the Father for the love He has shown us in Jesus Christ. He summarises, in the page we have read today, the depth of the mystery of God’s love, a mystery which makes us look at our history in a completely new light, compared to the knowledge men can have of themselves.

He has chosen us so we may be His children, and therefore so we too may bring in the world the beauty and the joy of the love. We become His children by welcoming Jesus in us, the beloved Son. It is thanks to this Son that we too are washed of the faults we have been smeared by while living in the world.

Not only we have been washed, but also covered in grace, so we find ourselves internally renewed with new wisdom and a new intelligence, which make us understand not only reality in the light of materiality, but also the unfathomable plans of God in the light of His love which needs to spread, to change the whole humanity from inside out.

Among these plans the main one is allowing Jesus Christ to be the beginning and the end of everything: from Him need to come all our thoughts and our decisions, and He needs to be the goal which all hearts long to reach. The Apostle describes the Father’s plan like so: “To sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth”.

This is the way, the only way, to change the history of men from a history of sin, division and sorrow, to a history of unity, peace, deep and shared joy. So that may be possible there is the gift we, believers in Jesus, have already received, the Holy Spirit!

Saint Paul has great clarity to see the beauty of the mystery of God’s love for us and he tries to tell us about it, so we too may not have to live anymore depending on and influenced by the small things and needs of our body, so sad, unsure and sleepy. He wants to tell us of the joy and certainty of his faith and the depth of his love.

It is this joyful love that allows Jesus’s disciples to joyfully obey the Master and go into the world. There where they go they will not always be welcomed: they will not always be expected, but they go anyway. Their journey is a constant act of faith, hope and love.

It is about faith because they obey Jesus without worrying about themselves: that is why they do not take anything with them which represent money safety or life comfort. They trust the Father’s tenderness which knows how to satisfy their needs, what is useful for them to announce the kingdom to come.

It is about hope, certainty in knowing how good are the news, safety in our path, certainty that the promised rewards are about to come in our life and in the life of all those who will listen to the Word.

It is love for all men, because they are looking for the most suffering and frail ones, the sick and those who are internally restless because of the spirits which make the man a slave of pride, envy, impurity, anger and superficial things, the fruit of which are only oppression and labour. To these men, whose life is weighed down by the weight of the sin spread in the world, they are suggesting conversion, so to welcome the Gospel, the good news that God sees them and loves them and gives them His Son, Jesus.

The apostles depart, trusting in God and not in the men, who can reject them: as precursors, to whom look for inspiration, there are all God’s prophets. They, like Amos, the shepherd and farmer prophet, do not mention human titles to be accepted, but only the certainty of God’s call and His Word in their mouth. Before them today we pause to carefully listen, to make sure we do not refuse the gift and the gifts of our Father’s love!