12/09/2010 - 24TH. SUNDAY IN ORDINARY SEASON - C
1Reading Es 32,7-11.13-14 Psalm 50 2Reading 1Tim 1,12-17 Gospel Lk 15,1-32
"Just Father, the world did not know you, but I have known you; these know
that you have sent me". This is a Word I treasure: it must be very important
since Jesus himself returned several times to it. At the beginning of the prayer
he said: "This is eternal life: to know you, the only true God, and the one
whom you sent, Jesus Christ". To know the Father and to know Jesus is life,
source of life. Who does not know Jesus and therefore does not know that God is
Father, does not live, has no future after death, and if he is not true, falls into
desperation or must silence his heart and his own desires for eternity. Who does
not know God and Jesus, his Son, tries only to save himself and forgets, therefore,
the beauty and the power of true love. In fact the apostle John writes: "Beloved,
let us love one another, because love is of God: whoever loves is generated by God
and knows God. Who does not love has not known God, because God is love" (1Jn
4,7-8). These are words from which we understand how the love we are to live depends
on one's experience of God. As we look around, we see that who does not know Jesus
and doesn't want to look at the place of his death, that is, his cross, cannot love.
Who is committed to experience God in the life and death of the Lord, wants to become
one with him and offer himself in doing little, or great, acts of love. No mercy
work would have ever started or been done if not as an expression of the experience
of God, Father and Son. The little acts of love that cost a lot of sacrifices in
our families, the commitment of several persons in dedicated organizations to help
the little ones, the poor, the sick, the persons with special needs, other initiatives
that commits one for an hour or two, or even the whole life, would not stand still
if it's not because one know "the mind" of God and because we know his
love. The knowledge of our God is a source of patient love, ready, freely given
and renewed, faithful and always new. Because of this Jesus enjoys the fact that
his disciples have started to understand his obedience to the Father!
The First Reading presents to us the sorrow of God! It sounds a blasphemy to say
so, as if God can do wrong and need to repent. "And God was sorry for the evil
he had sworn to do to his people": this is the sorrow of God. His people needed
a good lesson, but God turns to forgiveness, thanks to the prayer of Moses, his
friend. It's not bad to have a friend of God as your protector!
St. Paul reveals to us the secret of God" he sent his Son Jesus, the Christ,
of whom we can easily be friends, to the point of having in him the assurance of
salvation. He "came to the world to save sinners". The salvation we need
is that from sin: we need to be freed from the sin we have committed and from its'
effects, but it is necessary to be also freed from the persuasion of sin that surrounds
us. This is very dangerous: sin around us can easily convince us to behave like
all the rest, like all other sinners. Salvation from one or the another sin, come
from Jesus: the speaks of the love of the Father who spread it before us.
It is already a feast that someone speaks to us of the love of the Father: when
we know that we are loved, accepted by God, regardless our outfit, like the ones
of the prodigal son, is a help for us not to despair. God hides his hand as not
to punish us for our behavior. He exercise a patience that goes over and above the
limits imposed of that love of men. There are brothers and sisters who know nothing
of patience, know nothing of mercy, like that brother towards his younger brother
who returned home after an ugly experience of sin. Out of the two brothers the worst
is not the one who passed the sin experience, who gathered great sins, but the one
who didn't want to share in the joy of the Father. The Father's joy is to be shared
by his children. Who doesn't want to enjoy what God has, how can he be called his
son? In all the three parables there is one thing that returns, the joy of God:
Jesus uses them to speak to us of this. God enjoys and rejoices and shares his joy
like a shepherd that finds his sheep, like a woman who finds her money, like a father
who welcomes again his son and embraces him because he was humbled. The joy of God
cannot be stopped. It is stopped by the son who doesn't share in it. Certainly,
Jesus had in mind the Pharisees and the Scribes who couldn't accept the fact that
he could come closer to the sinners to save them. And today Jesus might want to
think of us, who think that we are better than others, and we judge them. St. Paul
kept present the fact that he was also a sinner: this helped him to look at Jesus
with trust and towards others with humility and mercy. When I remember my sins,
my gratefulness to the Lord grows for he had forgiven them, and I find myself praying
again his mercy so that he forgives the sins of my brothers and sisters.