24/01/2010 - 03 ORDINARY SEASON - C
Prayer for Christian Unity
1st Reading Neh 8,2-4.5-6.8-10 Psalm 18 2nd Reading 1Cor 12,12-31 Gospel Lk 1,1-4;
4,14-21
To know "you, the only true God" and "the one whom you sent, Jesus
Christ", this is the fullness of life. The knowledge of the Father and of the
Son is never fulfilled because of it's relation with living human beings. I am alive,
and so I'm continuously changing, because I continue to have new experiences, new
awareness, new impulses, new reactions. Every day my relationship with God, and
therefore my knowledge of his, is enriched thanks to my closeness to Jesus: it is
he who makes me know the Father. He himself said it: "Who has seen me, has
seen the Father". This should be our continuous desire and our continuous occupation,
whatever we do: to know, that is to come to meet God. All our commitment and every
word we say, are to serve in this direction. We are helped by the Holy Scriptures
and the examples of the saints. As we look around us, we see God's creatures, "work
of his hands": they speak to us of the Creator; the Psalms remind us:"all
you works of the Lord, O bless the Lord". The Book of Wisdom says it: "From
the greatness and the beauty of creatures, one can come to know the author".
The greatest help comes to us from the listening and the contemplation of Jesus.
Every step in the Gospel and every word said by the Lord, puts us in relationship
with him and enriches us of his Holy Spirit. Because of this to know God and his
Son, is eternal life, because it going deep in his life, trusting oneself in his
arms. Jesus is sent by the Father, and so his authority and power are received from
God. The love and the motherly tenderness reflect the Father's face. To love Jesus
and to be with him is equal to love and to stay with God. Jesus is very conscious
of being sent. This expression, the one who is sent by the Father, is the definition
of himself and the one he likes: in fact it is repeated some forty time in the Gospel
according to John. In this way he presents himself to us as the one who is obedient,
the one who has no other interest if not that of God. The fact that this is repeated
so often in the Gospel, should make us aware that: even we have received a mission.
We are sent by Jesus. Do we the responsibility of being sent or we consider ourselves
the main subject of all we do and live? We are in the world with a mission given
to us by the Lord, the mission to share his love, to carry his Spirit to renew the
face of the earth. We are not to defend or promote our own interests: our own interests
wont help the world to grow and be in peace. We are sent, and, therefore, we are
to be careful to the desires of the one who sent us!
The First Reading shares with us the joy of a people who has found the Books of
the Word of God and could listen to it after a long time since the deportation to
Babylon. This Word is very precious, because on it one can build the unity of the
people, on it is founded the unity with God, from it one receives trust for the
future and joy for the present. To find again the Word is a sign that God wants
still to speak to his people that has not abandoned, on the contrary, who want to
count on him to realize the salvation of humanity. That Word is to be listened with
the heart and explained, or better made present by one who has the authority and
the mission to do so, and that Word is to be celebrated by all, because all receive
from it life and meaning.
The Gospel echo the First Reading: st. Luke is committed to write down carefully
all that he could gather from the memory of the believers to make us know Jesus
and his mission. He, in the Synagogue, gets hold of the Book of the Law and the
Word of the Prophets, a Word fulfilled in him. He is in fact the manifestation of
God, his Word made life of man. He can open and close the Book, because as from
now on God expresses himself through his words and actions.
The explanation of the Word of God is every time he meets with men, with sinners,
with the sick, with the possessed. He builds up again the unity of men with God
and of men with one another, unity broken by sin: such he can give back to man his
dignity of being human, to parents their kids lost because of death, gives back
to society men and women set aside because of sickness, impurity and sin. Jesus
brings back all and everything in union with God, and gives to his disciples the
grace of being reconstructed in unity and to be ministers of unity among the believers
to all human beings. St. Paul is very aware of this gift and ministry that the believers
in Jesus have received: they have been formed to be one body and have received charisms
and ministries to form richness in unity. Every believer is poor and depends on
faith and charity, but is enriched by the other believers: together with them can
manifest and give to the world the perfection of the body of Christ! The annunciation
of the will of God for his children, who want that they be a solid unity, like the
parts of the body, by self sacrificing for others and grateful for others, give
today light to our prayer for the unity of all those who believe in Jesus.