20/06/2010 - 12TH. SUNDAY IN ORDINARY SEASON - YEAR C
1Reading Zach 12,10-11 Psalm 62 2Reading Gal 3,26-29 Gospel Lk 9,18-24
"Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is the truth". Jesus continues
to ask from the Father great things for his disciples. What does it mean: "consecrate
them in the truth"? To consecrate means to reserve something for God, belonging
to God, something he can use. To consecrate a person means that the consecrated
person becomes a continuous reference for the divine. To consecrate "in the
truth" was something added on by Jesus: he was seeing that there were consecrated
persons who, because of their consecration thought they authorized to dominate others
or even be violent towards others. This was the case of some Pharisees and priests
of the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus didn't want his disciples to be consecrated to
God only externally and superficially, and neither that their consecration turns
to be an occasion of ambition or to be admired by the others. They were to reveal
God's love, of that God ho is a Father to all. Being consecrated to him means to
manifest his light and his mercy. In them there is not to be the God men imagine,
a powerful and despotic God, but a God who loves them, to bends low to them to guard
them and lead them taking them by their hand. This is how Jesus shows himself to
be, such are to be all those who are consecrated to him. The truth in fact is that
the manifestation of God hidden in all, is the possibility to see his love present
everywhere, even in those events in which we, as human beings, are not able to see
him if not with the help of his Spirit. Jesus is the truth, because he lives the
perfect love, the divine love: who sees him, in him sees the Father. If the disciples
are consecrated in the truth, they will be the revelations of the love of the Father.
Jesus adds: "Your word is truth". The Word of the Father is all what the
love of the Father communicates to men, all that manifest his mercy and his will
to save them and make them holy. Jesus is the very same Word of the Father, who
is given to us as the love of the Father who wants to change us into his temple,
the place where he is present and worshipped. The prayer of Jesus wants to obtain
from the Father, therefore, the fullness of communion of the disciple with himself.
The prophecy of Zacharias puts us in the center of the revelation of the mystery
of God. The day of mourning and suffering is the day of being born again: the one
who was pierced by men becomes source of forgiveness and purification. It is a prophecy
that helps us commit ourselves in what Jesus says to his disciples regarding himself
and regarding their lives. He tells them beforehand of his suffering and violent
death. They had just thought about how highly he was kept by the people and about
the word of faith of which Peter was the mouth. If he is "the Christ",
and if the people regard him as a great prophet rising from among the dead, how
is it possible that some one would refuse him and kill him? They were not able to
take it in what their Master was saying. In fact soon they were to forget all about
this. Because of this they didn't succeed to take seriously not even the word that
spoke of them: Jesus needed to repeat it several time and explain it in different
ways. They were to be ready to loose their lives for his love, and to renounce themselves,
not to be self centered, but make themselves servants, and to be the last amongst
all! They shall be like him, a gift of love, of that selfless love that we see when
we look up to the Father in heaven and to Jesus himself, who is preparing himself
to give life. What others think or say about us is of no importance, because it
is not true. What people think of the men of God is ruined by the selfishness of
their thoughts. We cannot busy ourselves with what people say about us, because
our interest is what God wants us to do. He wants us to give ourselves, like Jesus
who gave himself, even so, that we give up ourselves together with Jesus as members
of his body. In such a way, we would really belong to him not only in words. St.
Paul wants to urge us towards this relationship with Jesus, because it's only through
this relationship that we can be accepted by God: he says it with a particular phrase
that is pleasing to the Jews: "If you belong to Christ, therefore you are descendants
of Abraham, heirs according to the promise". This is the aim of those who start
a journey of faith, to arrive to the promise land which is a full communion with
God. We need to know what it means to belong to Christ and not only how we would
have liked it to be. He is the one who let the others kill him to live the fullness
of love, and to shine on earth the divine love. To belong to him is not something
for a particular people or for a particular human condition: "There is no Jew
nor Greek; there is no slave or free man; there is no man or woman" says the
apostle. The differences and the considerations we put, disappear: all are invited
to share in the cross of Jesus to belong to him!