PARABLES ARE NEVER ENOUGH, WHY DON'T THEY PASS AND SPEAK TO THE ETERNAL

«There is something that you cannot find anywhere in the world, yet there is a place where you can find it»

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Like a painter who, once the work is finished, places his signature on the side of the painting, so Matthew, with a phrase, initials the page of the Gospel where he depicted, in narrative form, the parables of Jesus, an entire speech dedicated to the Kingdom of God:

«For this every scribe, become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven, is like a landlord who extracts new and old things from his treasure » [Mt 13, 52].

Matthew the tax collector [Mt 9,9] he has now become the wise scribe who saw the work of reinterpretation of the ancient deposit of faith accomplished in Jesus, bringing new and unexpected realities to light. Therefore he invites his readers and disciples to become those owners who do not keep for themselves the riches of the unsuspected newness of the Kingdom, but they also know how to offer it generously.

The abundance of parables on the lips of Jesus that describe the Kingdom of God is not surprising, as well as the multiplication of metaphors, symbols and images. Because they compose a reality that continually exceeds and surpasses every human measure, while respecting it. Since the Kingdom belongs to God, it cannot be circumscribed or enclosed in a single formula. The different parables on the mouth of Jesus express the complexity and polysemy of this new theological reality and who collected them, as it will be for the Gospels which are four and not just one[1], he felt that by placing them next to each other, all together, had something important to say about the Kingdom of God that Jesus inaugurates, explains and makes present.

But here is finally the evangelical page of this XVII Sunday of time for a year:

«At that time Jesus said to his disciples: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field; a man finds it and hides it; then it goes, full of joy, he sells all his possessions and buys that field. The kingdom of heaven is also similar to a merchant who goes in search of precious pearls; found a pearl of great value, will, he sells all his possessions and buys it. Yet, the kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea, which collects all kinds of fish. When it's full, the fishermen haul it ashore, they sit down, they collect the good fish in the baskets and throw away the bad ones. So it will be at the end of the world. The angels will come and separate the evil from the good and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. You have understood all these things?”. They answered: "Yes". And he said to them: “For this every scribe, become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven, it is similar to a householder who extracts new and old things from his treasure"".

The last parable is eschatological in tone and its location ultimately becomes important because it opens a window on how Jesus positioned himself in relation to the world. The fishing net elsewhere, for example in the last chapter of the fourth Gospel[2], it now symbolized the mission of the Church and the need for different traditions - in that case the synoptic and the Johannine one - to remain united because that was the intention of the Lord who had invited the disciples to fish[3]. In this circumstance the net that is pulled into the boat is a metaphor for the final judgment since it explicitly speaks of the "end of the world" or of history.

Allow me to make a small digression at this point which I hope does not exceed the limits of this commentary on the Sunday Gospel. It is now well established that Jesus' preaching was based on an eschatological vision. At least since Albert Schweitzer at the beginning of the 20th century in a famous book put an end to liberal exegesis and the first stage of research on the historical Jesus by stating that he could only be thought of except eschatologically[4].

In his preaching Jesus went beyond the thought of Jewish apocalypticism which predicted an imaginative future event. For him it is a reality that is already an object of experience, a current event in which the totality of history is recapitulated. the Kingdom of God as such, that is, the full unfolding of his redemptive sovereignty, it hasn't happened yet, but the time of the end has come and so, properly speaking, there is no longer historical development, but rather a recapitulation of the whole story called to trial. In Jesus and in his preaching it happens as a process of condensation whereby time becomes very short. “The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is near: convert, and believe in the gospel" [MC 1, 14-15]. What is announced here is the time (the kairos) of definitive fulfillment, the promised coming of the Kingdom, the great turning point of the world inaugurated by Jesus whose final act is about to take place with his parousia. And the disciple lives in the condensed time that goes from the resurrection to the parousia. For this now, unlike Jewish eschatology, “faith in the gospel” is needed, that is, in Jesus Christ, in the Messiah, who is present as the one who came and who is coming[5].

Judgment on this world will certainly come at the end, says the gospel, but the world itself, in Jesus' preaching he entered the eschatological phase. Otherwise we would not understand the radical demands of Jesus addressed to the disciples and his fight with the evil one. Which is not a fight against the world, but against the one who deludes the world that he can be self-sufficient, without God and therefore to be able to find meaning only in himself and in his achievements. Against this powerful illusion, Jesus announces the Kingdom of God and at the same time heals and restores and even resurrects the dead.

I find this statement enlightening on the Christian that someone like Frederick Nietzsche could probably countersign:

"Because of this, for this nihilistic conscience of his, the presence of the Christian is unbearable, and doubly unbearable; because it denies meaning to the radical desire to be there and, so, denies the will to power, but at the same time he suffers within himself the passion of the world. He does not shy away from the world's aspiration for happiness, because the Kingdom does not exist other from this world; and therefore he wants and works for happiness in the profane order which continually passes away, but he knows that happiness cannot remain, since it itself aspires to pass away. It's the point where the heart breaks: in extreme happiness as in extreme pain. The Gospels give a sublime representation of this."[6].

All this preamble which I hope wasn't long-winded helps me to say that Jesus' parables are not bedtime stories at all, but they must be taken tremendously seriously. E, getting back on our tracks, allows us to understand the first two parables of today's Gospel. In both two men find something new - since in the words and deeds of Jesus the Kingdom is the "novelty” — and they sell everything they have to make it their own[7]. While the merchant is already a discoverer of beautiful pearls (hello daisy – kaloùs margaritas) and in this sense he is someone who is looking for something extraordinary and probably unique that is missing from his collection. The first, an unidentified man, instead, accidentally finds a treasure. Perhaps this is why his joy is also underlined, because he didn't expect the discovery. In both, what is central is the find what is finally enough for their life and which precludes any further search. It is at this point that they put everything they own up for sale to purchase what they have finally found. They must have understood the unique and definitive value of the Kingdom, what is worth risking everything for. There is no more time to wait than this or further hesitations, for this is the time of fulfillment.

The two characters of the Gospel thus they implement wise behavior. This is probably why the curators of the Liturgy compared Matthew's page to the story of the young Solomon who in the first reading this Sunday tries to obtain from God "A docile heart" [1Re 3,9], but in return he receives from Him an even more precious pearl, that of «a wise and intelligent heart: there was no one like you before you nor will there arise after you" and even much more in riches and glory [1Re 2, 12-13].

About the pearl, St. Augustine, acutely notices that the merchant was looking for more pearls, the plural, and in the end he finds the single pearl par excellence which is Christ, the Word in which everything is summed up:

"That man, who was looking for precious pearls, he finds one that is truly of great value and, sold everything he owned, the purchase. This guy, so, in seeking good men with whom to live profitably, Above all, he encounters one who is without any sin: the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Perhaps he too was looking for precepts, observing which he could behave well with men, and encountered love for others, in which alone, as the Apostle says, all the others are contained. In fact, do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness and every other commandment are the individual pearls that are summarized in this maxim: Love your neighbor as yourself. O, perhaps, it is a man who is looking for intelligible concepts and finds the one in whom all are contained, that is, the Word, which was in the beginning, he was with God and he was God: the luminous Word for the splendor of truth, stable because immutable in its eternity and in every respect similar to itself due to the beauty of divinity: that Word that those who manage to go beyond the covering of the flesh identify with God"[8].

Allow me to close this commentary on the Gospel of today's Sunday reporting an apologue by M. Buber on dreaming of seeking and ultimately finding. Because parables are never enough.

«To the young people who came to him for the first time, Rabbi Bunam used to tell the story of Rabbi Eisik, son of Rabbi Jekel of Krakow. After years and years of harsh poverty, which however had not shaken his trust in God, he received orders in a dream to go to Prague to look for treasure under the bridge that leads to the royal palace. When the dream repeated itself for the third time, Eisik set out and reached Prague on foot. But the bridge was guarded day and night by sentries and he did not have the courage to dig in the indicated place. However, he returned to the bridge every morning, wandering around it until the evening. Finally the captain of the guard, who had noticed his comings and goings, he approached him and asked him in a friendly way if he had lost something or if he was waiting for someone. Eisik told him the dream that had brought him there from his distant country. The captain burst out laughing: “And you, poor fellow, to follow a dream you came all this way on foot? Ah, ah, ah! Stay cool to trust dreams! Then I too would have had to set out to obey a dream and go to Krakow, in the house of a Jew, a certain Eisik, son of Jekel, to look for treasure under the stove! Eisik, son of Jekel, are you kidding? I can see myself going in and ransacking all the houses in a city where half the Jews are called Eisik and the other half Jekel.!”. And he laughed again. Eisik greeted him, he returned to his home and dug up the treasure with which he built the named synagogue “Reb Eisik School, son of Reb Jekel”. “Remember this story well - Rabbi Bunam added at the time - and understand the message it addresses to you: there is something that you cannot find anywhere in the world, yet there is a place where you can find it”»[9].

Happy Sunday everyone!

from the Hermitage, 30 July 2023

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NOTE

[1] The quadriform Gospel [cf.. God's word 18; Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., III, 11, 8: PG 7, 885)

[2] GV 21, 3.6.11

[3] «Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who had bent over his chest at dinner... Peter therefore, as he saw it, he said to Jesus: “man, what will become of him?”. Jesus answered him: “If I want him to stay until I come, what does it matter to you? You follow me”» (GV 21, 20.22)

[4] Albert Schweitzer History of research into the life of Jesus, Paideia, Brescia 1986, pp. 744 ff.

[5] «Come Lord Jesus» (AP 22, 20)

[6] Gaeta G., The time of the end, Any, p. 96

[7] "We ', sell what you own, give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come and follow me" (Mt 19,21)

[8] Saint Aurelius Augustine, Seventeen questions on the Gospel according to Matthew, book one, PL 35

[9] Martin Buber, The path of man, Einaudi, 2023

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San Giovanni all'Orfento. Abruzzo, Mount Maiella, it was a hermitage inhabited by Pietro da Morrone, called in 1294 to the Chair of Peter on which he ascended with the name of Celestine V (29 August – 13 December 1294).

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THE DEFENSIVE PATHOLOGY OF «IT'S ONLY US» AND THE CURATIVE MEDICINE OF THE HOLY GOSPEL

The pathology of "it's just us" has not appeared now in our day, because already Jesus, narrates the Gospel of Luke, he was forced to rebuke two apostles, James and John, that, as the group had not been welcomed by the Samaritans, they wanted to invoke fire and flames from heaven.

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The pathology of "it's just us" it has not appeared now in our days, because already Jesus, narrates the Gospel of Luke, he was forced to rebuke two apostles, James and John, that, as the group had not been welcomed by the Samaritans, they wanted to invoke fire and flames from heaven.

«It's just us» Vasco Rossi repeated in one of his old ones hit [cf.. WHO] where he listed situations in which those of his could relate fans who shared the ills of a generation of some time ago. Even in the Church, shaken by the vicissitudes of the modern world, a certain malaise has spread that we could define as "It's just us". It appears all those times that people or opinion groups express discontent and complaints, with the consequence of feeling as if attacked or besieged and therefore entrenched in a defensive position or in that of belonging only to elite capable of lasting and understanding what is convulsively happening.

The Pathology of "It's Only Us" it has not appeared now in our days, because already Jesus, narrates the Gospel of Luke, he was forced to rebuke two apostles, James and John, that, as the group had not been welcomed by the Samaritans, they wanted to invoke fire and flames from heaven[1].

To heal from this condition This Sunday's Gospel offers us a drug that from its name seems like a medicine: la macrothymia (forbearing), that is, patience. It is a term that is not actually present in the Gospel passage proclaimed today, but it expresses its meaning. We find it, instead, in the second letter of Peter where the apostle states:

^«The Lord does not delay in fulfilling his promise, even if some talk about slowness. Instead he is patient - he is long-suffering makrothimei ― with you, because he doesn't want anyone to get lost, but that everyone has the opportunity to repent" [2PT 3, 9].

This is to indicate that already in the very first Christian generation there was the desire to force the times and to put oneself in the place of the One for whom «[…] a single day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a single day" [2PT 3, 8]. But here is the evangelical page of this sixteenth Sunday for a year (Mt 13, 24-43):

During that time, Jesus told the crowd another parable, saying: «The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. Ma, while everyone slept, his enemy came, he sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. Then when the stem grew and bore fruit, the weeds also sprang up. Then the servants went to the master of the house and told him: "Man, you have not sown good seed in your field? Where does the weeds come from??”. And he answered them: “An enemy did this!”. And the servants said: “You want us to go pick it up?”. "Do Not, He answered, because when you, collecting the weeds, with it also uproot the wheat. Let them both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to burn; instead put the wheat in my barn"". He told them another parable, saying: «The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds but, once he grows up, it is larger than the other plants in the garden and becomes a tree, so much so that the birds of the sky come to make nests in its branches". He told them another parable: «The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and mixed in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened". All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables and did not speak to them except in parables, so that what had been spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled: «I will open my mouth with parables, I will proclaim things that have been hidden since the foundation of the world.". Then he dismissed the crowd and entered the house; his disciples approached him to tell him: «Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field». And he answered: «He who sows the good seed is the Son of man. The field is the world and the good seed are the children of the Kingdom. The weeds are the children of the Evil One and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the world and the reapers are the angels. How then do we gather the weeds and burn them in the fire, so it will be at the end of the world. The Son of man will send his angels, who will gather out of his kingdom all those who sin and all those who commit iniquity and will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father's kingdom. Who has ears, you listen!».

As I have already tried to explain [cf.. my previous homily]. Jesus loved speaking in parables, presenting immediately understandable realities taken from the peasant or household world as on this Sunday. Contextually, using metaphors, he staged paradoxical situations so that the same reality could be seen differently from how it is usually perceived. It is remodeled by Him not only for the purpose of presenting a new ethic, but above all to tell what the kingdom of God is, a reality that escapes any appropriation or cataloguing. It is the world of God that Jesus reveals and lives and which continually displaces.

The first parable of the good wheat and the weeds[2] it differs from that of the sower heard last Sunday because while there it was about sowing and receiving the land, here it is described together with sowing (v. 24), also the growth of the seed, its fruiting (v. 26) and the harvest (v. 30). However, unlike the master's servants, readers are immediately warned that someone, taking advantage of the darkness of the night, he sowed discord in the same field. The discovery of the weeds, operated by servants, leads the latter to express their amazement and bewilderment to the sower (v. 27). In their words one can perhaps also detect a hint of suspicion or doubt about sowing, and therefore on the master himself. But the sower's response shows that the presence of weeds among the wheat is not at all surprising, it shouldn't surprise or cause scandal. And so the reader's reaction is also oriented not so much towards questioning the origin of the discord, but on how to behave when noting their presence. The reader's confusion, like servants, it happens there. Do not uproot the weeds, which among other things is also similar to wheat, but let the two plants grow together: in fact, there would be a risk of tearing up even those made of wheat. The weeds will certainly be separated from the wheat, but in its own time. Not now. Now is the time for patience. Patience is strength towards oneself, it is the ability to refrain from intervening by dominating the instinct that would immediately lead to "cleaning up". But this is not God's action. God is patient and long-suffering.

How many times have men questioned themselves on the presence of evil in human history or in the individual life of each of us. Because if we sow goodness, sometimes evil is returned to us? Who is this night operator who, as a jealous enemy of the good fruits of life, causes many situations to arise in which we stumble as if over unwanted weeds??

Even in the Christian community this mix between good and bad can exist, between the just and the unjust as it was already in the small community of those who followed Jesus: someone betrayed him, another denied him and some fearful people ran away.

But the Son of Man, Jesus, He teaches his people to have patience behaving like sons of the Kingdom until the judgment comes that will liquefy every scandal and ugliness. The smoke of the adversary's works reduced to nothing has disappeared, finally only daylight will shine without sunset[3].

But until then we are in the time of the growth of the Kingdom of God which can encounter a thousand obstacles and difficulties. This is why it is important to learn the patience of God beautifully depicted in the book of Wisdom in the first reading of this Liturgy of the Word:

«[…] The fact that you are master of all, It makes you lenient with everyone. You show your strength when there is no belief in the fullness of your power, and reject the insolence of those who know it. Master of the Force, you judge with meekness and govern us with great indulgence, Why, Whenever you want, you wield power. With this way of acting you taught your people that the just must love men, and you have given your children good hope that, after the sins, you grant repentance" [Sap 12, 19-20].

The community of believers, the church, it is the place where one experiences this divine indulgence and it, around you, testifies it to the world. As is expressed in these beautiful words of the Council:

«The Church therefore, provided with the gifts of its founder and faithfully observing his precepts of charity, humility and self-sacrifice, receives the mission of announcing and establishing the kingdom of Christ and of God among all people, and of this kingdom it constitutes the germ and the beginning on earth. In the meantime, as it slowly grows, yearns for the perfect kingdom and with all his might hopes and longs to unite with his king in glory".[4]

In the words of the Council it is explicitly said that the Church is not the Kingdom of God, but it yearns for you as it walks through time. For it itself is made up of saints and sinners in need of divine patience and mercy. While a plant emerges to remain itself, either good wheat or weeds, people can change, come back, fall and even repent. A myriad of saints are there to bear witness to this and the apostle Paul himself recalls it several times in his letters. In the second reading of this Liturgy he goes so far as to state that not even "we know how to pray properly" if the Spirit of God did not intervene to intercede for the saints. This protects us from feeling like we have already arrived, but also better than others, the only pure and holy ones eager to eradicate from now on those who in our opinion are symbolically weeds.

In the other two parables that follow that of the wheat and the weeds Jesus speaks of the Kingdom as if it were a seed that from very small and humble origins unexpectedly becomes a tree capable of welcoming new life, symbolized by the nests that are built among its branches. An experience that the Church that harked back to the tradition of the Gospel of Matthew was already experiencing, because it is made up of people coming from both Judaism and paganism. Or he talks about it as the yeast that makes a large amount of flour grow. Three measures are forty kilograms! The Church rejoices in seeing this divine work and is amazed by it. In the same way as Sarah to whom Abraham asked to knead the same quantity of flour to welcome the Lord at the oak of Mamre[5]. For this reason the Church, like Abraham and Sarah in their time, is called to faith in the works of God. A little further on, indeed, in the Gospel of Matthew Jesus will say:

«If you have faith equal to a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain: “Move from here to there” and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you" [Mt 17, 20].

At this point we can understand that the Kingdom is Jesus he loved to express it in parables, it is a divine reality that always transcends us. A reserve of grace, to use the words of a more mature theology, who teaches us to have patience towards sinners, mercy and faith in God until the end of time when the eschatological judgment will take place.

The two collection prayers also go in this direction that can be used in this Liturgy. The oldest first reads:

«Be kind to us, your faithful, o Lord, and give us abundantly the treasures of your grace".

The second newest one makes us pray like this:

«They always support us, or Father, the strength and patience of your love, because your word, seed and leaven of the kingdom, bear fruit in us and revive the hope of seeing the new humanity grow".

Happy Sunday everyone.

from the Hermitage, 23 July 2023

 

NOTE

[1] «…They entered a village of Samaritans to prepare their entrance. But they did not want to receive it, because he was clearly on his way to Jerusalem. When they saw this, the disciples James and John said: “man, you want us to say that fire will come down from heaven and consume them?”. He turned around and scolded them". (LC 9, 51-55)

[2] Gramineaeous plant (A drunken lollipop), that infests the cereal fields.

[3] «There will be no more night, and they will no longer need lamplight or sunlight, because the Lord God will enlighten them. And they will reign forever and ever.". (AP 22, 5)

[4] The light, 5.

[5] «Then Abraham hurriedly went into the tent, from Sarah, and said: “Presto, three seas of fine flour, knead it and make focaccia" (Gen 18,6).

 

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San Giovanni all'Orfento. Abruzzo, Mount Maiella, it was a hermitage inhabited by Pietro da Morrone, called in 1294 to the Chair of Peter on which he ascended with the name of Celestine V (29 August – 13 December 1294).

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THE HUNDRED, THE SIXTY, The thirty in the sacred seed of God

Faith in fact "is a personal act: It is the free response of man to the initiative of God who reveals himself ". Therefore it is an answer that we give to God and that some days can be more certain and others more insecure.

 

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Dear readers of The island of Patmos,

Summer time is time when many of us often go on vacation, especially in sea destinations. We are unconsciously making an evangelical choice. Indeed, The sea is described in the evangelical passage of This XV Sunday of ordinary time what place where Jesus exposes and explains the parable of the sower. A parable that is a small map for all of us: A small key to reading the life of faith. The sea, so, It is the place where Jesus offers clarity for our path of believers. We could say with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke:

“When my thoughts are anxious, restless and bad, I go by the sea, and the sea drowns them and sends them away with its great wide sounds, purifies them with its noise, And it imposes a rhythm on everything that is disoriented and confused in me ".

The song of the Gospel of today it is mostly composed of a parable, One of the few that Jesus decides to explain directly to the disciples while instead he remains in the form of a narrative for all the others who listen to him by the sea. Jesus uses parables. The disciples ask him why, He replies:

«Because you are given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, But they are not given to them. […] For this I speak to them with parables: because looking at they don't see, By hearing they do not listen and do not understand ".

It looks like a sibylline response. Instead the Lord wants to make it clear the importance of the parable.

I would like to dwell a moment on why. Effectively, The purpose of the parables consists in lighting about the nature of the kingdom and to open up to the understanding of new things, for example on how God acts. The parable is a story based on the rapprochement and comparison of two realities, a real and a fictitious that refer but do not coincide. It contains metaphors that refer to a situation “different "compared to that narrated. In this way the parables push the listeners to an exercise that requires intelligence, fantasy, mental elasticity and reflective ability. In short: It requires everyone to ideally move to the fictitious story to return to reality with a new acquisition. Therefore the parables select daily realities as an element of comparison, and at the same time manifesting their limit to bring out the “ledge” O “surplus” of the reality to which they refer. In this way they operate a passage towards what exceeds the human mind and allow the auditors to expose themselves personally to "the unpublished" and "to the unudied" of God. Thus they become "atmosphere" revelations loving and tender of God and make it in some way more accessible, knowable and attractive for anyone who listens to them[1]

That's why in the parable of the sower We find our life of faith by light. Jesus explains well in detail and offers a phenomenology of the different believers. The seed sown along the road, We could say that it is the non -practicing believer. The seed sown on the stony ground is the believer who is easily prey to easy enthusiasm, inconstant in the time that often goes into crisis, without a definitive choice in faith. The seed sown among the brambles is the distracted believer between the thousand voices of the world and the current culture, moved by good feelings and a good practice of faith, but that then does not easily recognize the sins and vices of the time and thus indulged them. In the end, The seed sown on the good ground that produces one hundred, Sixty and thirty is the believer who believes with strong conviction and strives to be consistent in the practice of faith, but given his fragility he does not always manage to give his best. However, Jesus also accepts those small gestures of faith and charity implemented with tenderness and love.

We can all be one of these believers, from the least fervent to the most fervent. I would also say that each of us can have phases in which he passes from being infonctive seed on the seed road planted on the good ground. These four seeds described by Jesus can also represent a moment of our life of faith, in which we are more arid or more convinced.

Faith in fact "is a personal act: It is the free response of man to the initiative of God who reveals himself " [cf.. CCC 166] Therefore it is an answer that we give to God and that some days can be more certain and others more insecure. To us to always be ready to receive grace for an increasingly firm act of faith.

We ask the Lord to grow in faith, To become a seed of eternal life, A sacred ferment for the whole world, so that we can donate our thirty, sixty, One hundred in the world increasingly orphan than God.

Amen!

Santa Maria Novella in Florence, 16 July 2023

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NOTE

[1] Cfr R. Manes Gospel according to Matteo, Yet, 2019, 197 – 198.

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