- homiletics -

“HOSPITALITY” AS A SECRET SPACE TO OPEN TO GOD BECAUSE BECOME A PLACE OF DONATION

Jesus speaks of the welcome of a prophet and a just man. Who knows how to welcome them means that he is the first and just prophet. He says this because Jesus is the welcoming person par excellence and in turn wants to be welcomed into our lives. This causes us to receive Jesus who is the gift par excellence. So we are able to give ourselves and love, like He did, carrying our crosses, in the most difficult and complex moments of our life.

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Dear brothers and sisters,

a few years ago I read the story of the Secret Garden of the writer Frances Hodgson Burnett. It's Annie's story, a little girl who, on an English estate, casually discovers a garden, whose existence nobody knows, because it was made secret due to a tragic story. That garden, once opened to Annie's eyes it becomes a welcoming place, of growth and maturation.

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Similarly, in today's readings [see Liturgy of the Word, WHO], the Lord speaks to us first of all about welcoming a secret space to be opened to God, so that it becomes a fruitful place of donation. In the Book of Kings we read:

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«I know that he is a man of God, a saint, the one who always passes by us. We make a small upper room, masonry, let's put a bed, a table, a chair and a candlestick » [2Re 4, 9-10].

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In this first reading, unnamed wife and husband open their home in Elisha, therefore as if they opened a space between him and God. Elisha prays and then prophesies; so comes a son for them, unexpected, and in a sense almost desperate. Husband and wife open up to God then experience God's intervention. So they are the first to be open and somehow fruitful.

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This is beauty of when we also open a space for God and for those who send us. This also happens today, for all of us, if we know how to open our heart and our intimacy to God's plan, it will really fill us with unexpected gifts, of an unexpected hundredfold, of friendships and joys we never expected. Therefore, from the acceptance of God's plan for us, a fruitful being comes. Saint Paul writes:

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«By means of baptism therefore we were buried with him in death so that, like Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too can walk in a new life " [RM 6, 4].

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Fertilization is expressed by Paul just in the new life we ​​live, starting with Baptism. In fact, from Baptism onwards, the Lord has taken up residence, has filled the space of our soul, allowing us to walk on a path of new life, to glory, therefore until we are with Him in Paradise. Baptism is fruitful new life, because it allows all of us to be freed from original sin and filled with baptismal character, by the grace and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Thus also our spiritual life becomes fruitful, because by virtue of baptism we live the liturgy and a personal prayer with which we ask for intercession for the other baptized. Therefore, fertility comes from acceptance, and from fertility comes the gift of self. In the gospel we read:

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«Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet because he is a prophet, will have the reward of the prophet, and whoever welcomes a just because he is a just, will have the reward of the just " [Mt 10, 40-41].

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Jesus speaks of the welcome of a prophet and a just man. Who knows how to welcome them means that he is the first and just prophet. He says this because Jesus is the welcoming person par excellence and in turn wants to be welcomed into our lives. This causes us to receive Jesus who is the gift par excellence. So we are able to give ourselves and love, like He did, carrying our crosses, in the most difficult and complex moments of our life.

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The reward of the righteous it is then the imitation of Jesus in a greater love, till death, an imitation that after death will lead him to rise again with Christ himself.

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Voltaire wrote "Originality is nothing more than judicious imitation".

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Lord, give us the courage to imitate you in the decisive choices, the strength to open a space at the bottom of the heart, the tenderness of giving ourselves like you in the Trinity to love until the end.

Amen.

Rome, 28 June 2020

Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul

Year I of my sacred priestly ministry

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