OMELIE / Omelie EN

08 dic 2020

08/12/2020 – Immaculate Conception

08/12/2020 – Immaculate Conception

First Reading  Genesis 3:9-15; 20    Psalm     97  Second Reading   Ephesians 1:3-6; 11-12    Gospel   Luke 1:26-38

The mysteries of our faith amaze us in their wealth of the knowledge, the foresight and the generosity of our God!  We understand them a bit at a time, and only when humility increases, and when our love for God and for our brothers grows.  If we expect to understand them quickly and to include them in our reasoning, they will flee, and we’ll find ourselves looking at a different side of God and judging His Church, to which He entrusted these same mysteries.

Today we celebrate one of these Mysteries, which require true humility in order to be accepted in our mind and in our heart.  It is one of those Mysteries which bring to light, in large part, the freedom with which the Father gives His love and fidelity.

The liturgy is the key to reading about the mystery which we celebrate and believe.  We are descendants of Adam, and carry with us, individually and as a people, the consequences of the life of our ancestors.  They, loved by God, resisted the temptation to forget this His love:  a well-known temptation, because it is also present in our own heart.

Can you forget being loved by God?  Can you forget His Word, or consider it not enough for you; or worse, believe it to be dangerous to your life and to the lives of those who live with you?  This is what happened to Adam and Eve.  They chose to live their lives in this world on their own, following their own reasoning, obviously guided by bodily instincts and feelings from within.  The consequences were certainly many.  First of all, fear; the fear of being seen others and that they’ll know the innermost you.  So, you need to hide even from those whom you believe are capable of loving.  You will hide within yourself, because you are not humble enough to admit that you need help.  You will, then, hide from God, because you know that He gave you the Word so that you might learn to live in this world among other people. 

This is the life we inherited from Adam and Eve: a life filled with confusion and fear; a fear which makes us victims and damages us physically and psychologically; rather than saving us from death. 

God has not forgotten us.  He wanted to re-direct us to communion with Him and to peace with ourselves.  He began to prepare our redemption:  we call this the story of salvation.  Abraham, Moses, David mark the principle stages.  God wants to intervene in the story of those who disobeyed, as well as those who obeyed!  Finally, the most important moment arrived:  the Messiah is coming, the Son of God, the Saviour.  But how will He come?  She, who offers Him to mankind with the heart of a mother, will offer His blood and, along with it, a new rapport with mankind and with God, as well:  she must be free of Adam’s heredity.

In preparing the Mother, God loves us all freely.  The Mother of Jesus does not inherit disobedience:  she will not be burdened because she lives in a corrupt world which follows its own reasoning, and its own beliefs and instincts; she offers herself to fulfill the will of the Father.  In so doing, she becomes the mother of all the living, the new Eve; because it is her new life, free and holy, which enters in us when the baptismal water unites us with the Death and Resurrection of the Son of God.     

Today, we thank the Father for this love, and we benefit from having a Mother who is free from evil.  So, now we have faith and strength in our struggles with temptation and snares of the wicked.  We have faith because we are attracted to her beauty and her example.  With her, we are prepared to say to God each day:  Here I am, your servant, may Your Word be fulfilled in me.  May Your love, hidden in your words, which remain mysterious until I become immersed in humanity and benefit in being small and simple, be fulfilled in me, as well!

Let us thank God and thank the Mother of His Son!  The most beautiful and true thanks is not this beautiful word; but the offering of the sacrifice of Jesus, as well as ours, by uniting ourselves to Him, so that we may become a sign of the love of the Father in the world!