PERHAPS IT IS APPROPRIATE TO REMEMBER THAT IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS MONTH WE ARE NOT CELEBRATING "SAINT AUGUST" BUT THE SOLEMNITY OF THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN MARY INTO HEAVEN

In the first centuries, indeed, as the divinity of Jesus ceased to be questioned by heretics, the Church dealt with the opposite problem: affirm the truth of his Incarnation. It is in this context that the figure of Mary became crucial and important, because her availability tied her inextricably to her son, to the Son of God who became flesh, in her flesh.

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After Benedict XVI so refined in his manner and measured in his words, more than one was surprised by some of the sentences, especially those uttered in one go by the Supreme Pontiff Francis, his successor. Which as well, it must be said, they are best remembered by simple people who probably don't remember even one of their predecessors. Among these there is one that he has repeated several times and on which I imagine there is everyone's consensus, that is, that we are experiencing a "piecemeal third world war"[1]. One of these "pieces", the conflict in Ukraine, concerns us more closely since it has been causing destruction and deaths every day for some time and for the fact that from the point of view of the relationship between the Churches it has caused estrangements, divisions and discord which will require years and years of healing.

For this reason it is so significant that the Feast of the Assumption[2] as the Catholic Church calls it or of the Dormition as it is defined in the Eastern Churches is celebrated liturgically by all these communities on the same day of 15 of August. For the entire month the Eastern Church sings of joy in the liturgy:

«In your motherhood you remained a virgin, in your dormancy you have not abandoned the world, O Mother of God. You have been transferred to life, you who are the Mother of Life and redeem our souls from death with your intercession"[3].

The belief that Mary's body, the Virgin mother, has not suffered the corruption of the tomb dates back to the first Judeo-Christian communities. The oldest nucleus (2nd-3rd century) of the apocryphal saying Dormition of Mary in fact it already contains the narrative, imaginative in terms of the story but univocal in terms of content, of Mary's transportation to heaven. And Jerusalem, it is known, there was an unbroken tradition regarding the place of burial (or of temporary deposition) of the body of the Virgin in that tomb of Gethsemane on which, towards the end of the 4th century, Emperor Theodosius I had a church built. Precisely from the celebration that the 15 August was held in this ancient center of Marian worship, the date of the feast of the Dormition of Mary was resumed and extended to the entire Christian East in the 4th century[4].

Both Western texts, by Gregory of Tours (538 ca.- 594) to Pius XII who adopted the terminological precision required for a dogmatic pronouncement, than the ancient works of the Fathers of the Church, over all those of Giovanni Damasceno (676 ca.- 749) with his repeated "it was convenient"[5], they explain the faith content of this Marian celebration and refer to the theme of life. An incorruptible life of which the Theotòkos it is a privileged image and hence the symbolism of light that pervades both artistic representations in the West (from Titian to Tintoretto and Guido Reni), than Byzantine iconographic images; both the plot of the liturgical texts, that the prayers of invocation in the east, like this very old one that reads:

«Maria, please, Mary light and mother of light, Mary life and mother of the apostles, Mary golden lamp who carries the true lamp, Mary our queen, plead with your Son"[6] .

Naturally beyond tradition which dates back to the time of the United Churches is the Holy Scripture, and the Gospel stories in particular, the source from which to draw the reason for so much attention given to Mary, the Mother of the Lord. If today we celebrate Mary's transit to God it is because she herself recited God's passage into her existence, as expressed in today's Gospel passage [cf.. LC 1, 39-56]. In response to Elisabetta's greeting, Maria pronounces the words of Magnificat, which distract attention from her and make her turn totally to the Lord. She didn't do anything, but the Lord did everything: this is the basic meaning of the Magnificat. This hymn, indeed, celebrates the God who did everything in Mary because Mary's story has God as its subject. And God's action in Mary is defined by her as a look: «The Lord looked at the littleness of his servant» [LC 1,48]. This divine gaze rested on her from the preparatory moment, transforming it through grace[7], so that she would become the Mother of the incarnate Word and will accompany him throughout his life, right up to the cross where she will receive the new motherhood over the nascent Church and beyond.

A beyond that Maria already glimpses in the passage of Magnificat when he lists the works of God that unfold from generation to generation in favor of the humble and the hungry, while the powerful, the rich and proud already satisfied will be adjusted unlike the little ones who will be raised while the powerful, the rich and proud already satisfied will be devalued. A drama that, as Jesus will teach when announcing the Kingdom of God does not happen in heaven, but here: it's history, it is life in the world, lived in the flesh that is born and that one day will die. In this story, Mary becomes a protagonist from the moment of the call, she will be the friend and model of those who want to follow an authentic journey of faith.

Maybe that's why only the Virgin Mary and no other characters, in the west, it has had so many artistic representations that depict it close to the daily experience of men and women. When it was painted with the clothes of a particular historical period, on backgrounds that reproduced the life of that time, under architectures of a specific era, in the most disparate contexts. From Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks, to the sumptuous Madonna by Piero della Francesca, from the common Maria, even one prostitute drowned in the Tiber who inspired Michelangelo Merisi known as Caravaggio, to follow with the Virgin with her arms wide open of the many Neapolitan mysteries, under a ruined Roman temple. Mary was able to take on the role of the woman of every period because she, more than anyone, was the protagonist of the great mystery of the incarnation in which

«the mystery of man finds true light. Adamo, indeed, the first man, he was a figure of the future [cf.. RM 5, 14], that is, of Christ the Lord. Christ, who is the new Adam, precisely revealing the mystery of the Father and his Love, it also fully reveals man to man and makes known to him his very high vocation... Since in him human nature was assumed, without being destroyed thereby, for this very reason it has also been raised to a sublime dignity for our benefit. With his incarnation, indeed, the very Son of God he united in a certain way with every man. He worked with human hands, he thought with the mind of a man, he acted with the will of man, he loved with the heart of a man. Born of the Virgin Mary, He truly made himself one of us, similar to us in everything except sin"[8] [The joy and hope].

In the first centuries, indeed, as the divinity of Jesus ceased to be questioned by heretics, the Church dealt with the opposite problem: affirm the truth of his Incarnation. It is in this context that the figure of Mary became crucial and important, because her availability tied her inextricably to her son, to the Son of God who became flesh, in her flesh. "And the Word became flesh" says the Gospel according to John [GV 1, 14] and Paul echoes him in the letter to the Galatians: «But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons" [Gal 4, 4-5].

That's why in churches almost immediately it began to be said that the flesh of Mary, after having given life to the Son of God, could not suffer the affront of corruption. And if he couldn't, its natural location was with the Son where from there it could become a "lively fountain of hope"[9].

"No, you are not just like Elijah 'ascending towards heaven', you were not like Paolo, transported to the 'third heaven', but you have reached the royal throne of your Son, in direct vision, in joy, and stand next to Him with great and unspeakable security... Blessing for the world, sanctification for the whole universe; relief in punishment, consolation in tears, healing in illness, port in the storm. For sinners forgiveness, benevolent encouragement for the afflicted, for all those who call upon you for always ready help"[10] (Saint John Damascene).

This is Mary's path which anticipates that of every child adopted in the Son as Paul said in the words quoted above.

There are two icons of the Byzantine tradition which tell us a lot about today's celebration. The first is that of the meeting between Maria and her cousin Elisabetta, which is the episode that preludes the Magnificat reported in the Gospel of this solemnity. In some of these icons the two women, the barren and the virgin, they hug each other tightly and their faces touch almost as if the eye of one borders on that of the other. This is a true fraternal meeting that we need so much in this time of conflict and division. That embrace and that fusion of looks between the two women reveals the exchange of the gift that each has received, it is a new Pentecost in which each recognizes the other in their peculiarity, in his calling without rivalry or jealousy.

The other icon is that of the Dormition of Mary that radiates great hope and peace. I always thought it would be cool, for instance, place it in the church during the celebration of Christian funerals. Because in these times of hospitalized and privatized death, watching a scene where we see that at the moment of passing away we are not alone is of great consolation. The Virgin was painted lying down with her cloak reminiscent of the nativity. Pietro is at the head of the bed and Paolo at the foot, while John places his head on the pillow as he had placed it on Jesus' chest. All the apostles are bent over her as well as some bishops of the primitive Church and the Christian people: no one is missing. In ancient times the dead descended to the lower regions or were ferried to them. However, they entered a dark condition, shady. If we look at the icon we can see that the whole thing is a boat, a hull that does not go to dark regions, but towards the light.

All the gazes of those present converge downwards towards Mary's body stretched out horizontally to signify human nature. Now we would expect, as the dogma says, that Mary ascended to heaven. Instead here it is the sky that descends and on the horizontal line of the Virgin the figure of Christ who occupies the scene appears in a vertical and central line, on whose face we read the strength and determination of the Risen One, of the one who has conquered death and holds a little girl in his hand. While the horizontal figure represents human nature lying on a mantle, the little girl would be the soul of Mary. A meeting, so, between visible and invisible. The horizontal space of sleep/death is intercepted by a vertical of light to form a cross.

The point where the planks of the cross meet it is the life and light brought by the figure of Christ. Even the rays surrounding him indicate the rising movement of the Son who came to take his Mother. With an atypical twist of the body to the right, towards his mother's head, the Risen One takes her soul in his arms and supports it since it is he who makes the transition from this life to the next.

But the beautiful thing is that Jesus holds his mother's soul in his arms with the same tenderness with which she held him as a child. The gestures that the Mother made to her Son, the Son now remembers them and rescues them from death. We saw the Mother holding her Son in her arms, now the situation is reversed and it is the Son who carries Mary in his arms. Only love makes things eternal. The risen Christ bears the marks of the nails to indicate that it is truly him, assumed by the love of the Father he could not remain at the mercy of the tomb. Thus Mary's body which, due to motherhood, was entirely at the service of love, cannot be left at the mercy of putrefaction.. This Feast of the Assumption is a Feast of Love and only lovers can understand it because they know that every gesture of love will be remembered forever..

Happy Assumption Day to everyone.

from the Hermitage, 15 August 2023

 

NOTE

[1] World war to pieces, see in The Osservatore Romano.

[2] The Dogma in the West was promulgated by Pius XII with the constitution the generous the 1 November 1950.

[3] Troparion t.1 of the great Vespers of the feast of the Dormition.

[4] Bagatti B., At the origins of the Church, LEV, Rome, 1981, p.75.

[5] Saint John Damascene, In Dormition, I, PG 96:«It was fitting that she who had preserved her virginity intact during childbirth should preserve her body intact from corruption after death. It was fitting that she who had carried the Creator made child in her womb should dwell in the divine abode. It was fitting that the Bride of God should enter the heavenly home. It was fitting that she who had seen her own son on the Cross, receiving into her body the pain that she had been spared in childbirth, contemplated him sitting at the right hand of the Father. It was fitting that the Mother of God should possess what was due to her because of her son and that she should be honored by all creatures as the Mother and slave of God.".

[6] Bagatti B., The apocryphal early church, Rome, 1981, pg 75

[7] from La Potterie I., Keharitomeni en Lc 1,28 Exegetical and theological study, Biblical, Vol. 68, No. 4 (1987), p. 377.382

[8] The joy and hope n. 22; S. John Paul II, The Redeemer of Man, no 8.

[9] Dante, Paradiso, Canto 33, 12

[10] on. cit PL 96, 717 AB.

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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 CHURCH AS A BOAT ON THE STORM IS A CURRENT ACTUALITY AND REALITY ALREADY REPRESENTED BY CHRIST HIMSELF WHO PROVIDED US WITH THE SOLUTION OF FAITH

Jesus had already tried to take a boat to go to a place and isolate himself there, after learning of the violent end of the Baptist, but the attempt was frustrated by the rush of people for whom he felt compassion

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They have existed since ancient times many artistic representations of the boat as an image of the Church, which is told in this Sunday's Gospel page. But they don't exist, at least they don't matter to me, depictions of Jesus retreating alone to pray. Except for the case of Gethsemane, prelude to his passion. Perhaps because it is more difficult to make an internal experience artistically visible, spiritual and private. Yet in the Gospel the two moments are together, whoever composed this page wanted one not to exist without the other. here she is:

«After the crowd had eaten, Jesus immediately forced the disciples to get into the boat and precede him to the other shore, until he dismissed the crowd. The crowd is dismissed, he went up the mountain, on the sidelines, to pray. Evening came, he was standing up there, alone. Meanwhile, the boat was already many miles from land and was being tossed by the waves: in fact the wind was against it. At the end of the night he went towards them walking on the sea. Seeing him walking on the sea, the disciples were shocked and said: “He's a ghost!” and they screamed in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying: "Courage, it's me, do not be afraid!”. Peter then answered him: "Man, if it's you, command me to come to you on the waters". And he said: "Alone!”. Peter got out of the boat, he started walking on the water and went towards Jesus. Ma, seeing that the wind was strong, he got scared and, starting to sink, he shouted: "Man, save me!”. And immediately Jesus held out his hand, he grabbed him and told him: “Man of little faith, because you doubted?”». As soon as we got on the boat, the wind stopped. Those who were in the boat bowed down before him, saying: “Truly you are the Son of God!”» [Mt 14, 22-33].

Jesus had already tried to get a boat to go to a place and isolate yourself there, after learning of the violent end of the Baptist [Mt 14,12], but the attempt was frustrated by the rush of people for whom he felt compassion. Not only, in the face of the hunger of the people and the impotence of the disciples[1] he performed the gesture of multiplication of the loaves. An act that was misunderstood, also given the Johannine tradition that says:

"Jesus, knowing that they were coming to take him to make him king, he retreated back to the mountain, him alone […] "In truth, verily I tell you: you are looking for me not because you have seen signs, but because you ate those loaves and were satisfied"" [GV 6, 15-26].

This preamble probably explains the opening line: «And immediately he forced the disciples to get into a boat». We do not know Jesus' hidden intentions and can only speculate. Perhaps the hasty action combined with the forcing of the disciples to get on the boat had the aim of saving him and the group that followed him from distorting the theological meaning of the gesture he had made on the loaves and, as John attests, to the misunderstanding of the type of messianism that Jesus intended and in which the disciples could bask. Or perhaps because he actually felt the urge to be alone, on a high place to pray. For the evangelist Matthew the mountain is a significant place. Thanks to him the discourse on the Beatitudes takes the name of the Sermon on the Mount. On a mountain Jesus was transfigured and on a hill, now resurrected, he gave the missionary mandate to his disciples [cf.. Mt 28, 16-20]. In this case it is the place of solitude and prayer. Jesus, in chapter six of Matthew, he had warned against the hypocritical prayer of those who want to be seen, preferring the hidden one, in the secrecy of the room [cf.. Mt 6, 5-6] and that above all it was addressed to God calling him in the intimate and personal form of "Father". A little later he taught the community prayer of Our father that we all know. What we can say is that Jesus was looking for this personal relationship, alone to alone, with Dio, not just any one, but with his Father. In prayer we know that Jesus, also thanks to other evangelical traditions, felt his filial conscience very alive.

But there's more. Matthew says that Jesus remained detached from the disciples, invisible from his family while in the meantime the evening and darkness fell. The boat with the disciples on board had already gained miles from land and the contrary wind was tossing it, making the situation precarious and dangerous. It is evidently a description of the situation of the Church in the post-Easter period. The episode that is now taking place - Jesus' journey on the water [Mt 14,24-33] – in fact it has a symbolic dimension: the text is a metaphor for the Church's journey through history, in the time between Easter and the parousia. Jesus is above, on the mountain, to pray [cf.. Mt 14,23]: or, he is the Risen One who is at the right hand of God in the heavens and intercedes for his people in the world. Precisely this important theological and symbolic covering has made even moderate scholars say[2] that the episode had little or no historical value. Which does not take away the meaning of an experience that transcends time and reaches us. That is, that of a Church that moves on an unstable element, with the darkness that prevents us from seeing the outlines, the wind that designates the adversities inherent in every era, the waves that cause disturbance and nausea. Finally, Peter, who in other circumstances expressed a strong and mature faith, here he displays a hesitant and weak confidence. And above all, in everyone, the inability to see the Lord which causes internal upheaval and fear.

Matthew describes the scene placing it on the broader backdrop of the story of the Exodus and the crossing of the Red Sea, to mean that what the disciples are doing is a gateway to salvation. As already in the exodus from Egypt, even now the protagonists are in serious difficulty and prey to fear. The presence of Jesus walking on the water is a clear reminder of the God who saved his people and who dominated the waters of the sea:

«Your way is on the sea [hate], your paths upon the great waters, but your footsteps were not recognized" [Shall 77,20]; «Thus says the Lord who opened a path in the sea and a path in the midst of mighty waters» [Is 43,16].

In particular, our text contains references to the fourteenth chapter of the Exodus in which the passage of the sea is narrated. Se Gesù avanza verso i discepoli alla "quarta veglia della notte" - but he is a prison of the night [Mt 14,25], the moment of salvation for the children of Israel, when God routs the Egyptian pursuers, strikes «at the morning watch» [Is 14,24]. For the children of Israel, the transition is not only geographical, but it is also a liberating passage from fear [Is 14,10-13] to the fear of the Lord [Is 14,31]; it is a transition from "seeing" the approach of the pursuers [Is 14,10] upon seeing the powerful hand with which the Lord had saved them [Is 14,31]. The presence of strong winds still unites the two stories [Is 14,21; Mt 14,24]. Jesus introduces himself to the disciples saying "It is I" [Mt 14,27], with an expression that corresponds to the Name of God revealed in Exodus: "I am". In short, we are facing the path of the Church, Easter journey, path of salvation, but of a salvation that is not so easily discernible because it is mixed with situations of contradiction and suffering.

At this point the temptation would be strong to apply this narrative to the current events of the Church. But those who know a little about history know very well that there has never been a quiet and peaceful period for it and that today it is no more difficult than in other moments. Nor that Peter is more or less faithful today than in other historical eras, rather. The Council developed a vision of the Church that defines it thus:

«(That) And, in Christ, the sacrament in some way, that is, the sign and instrument of intimate union with God and of the unity of the entire human race"[3].

Therefore a human reality which retains all its fragilities to which the grace of the call and mission has been granted. So what, if the Church will always encounter difficulties, if waves and winds will toss the boat for three night watches, what is the true drama in which it may stumble and from which it will be difficult to escape except through a particular key? It is the drama of retaining Jesus, the Sir, a ghost! «And shocked they said: “It's a ghost!” and they cried out in fear".

This is why I wrote at the beginning that the two scenes that make up today's Gospel passage designate a single picture and are inseparable. As Origen rightly noted[4] Jesus almost forces his disciples to cross the sea of ​​history, with all the difficulties and vicissitudes that this entails, almost separating himself from them, returning to the Father. We can imagine the difficulties they had after Jesus' death, upon hearing that he was Risen, in recognizing him as alive and victor over death. Matteo points this out in the last chapter before leaving: «When they saw him, you are spoiled. But they doubted." [Mt 28, 17]. However, it is to these disciples of little faith that he will ensure a constant presence, of a different nature than the previous one, but equally effective: "And here, I am with you always;, until the end of the world " [Mt 28, 20].

They, so, he did not separate from us, as those disciples in the trembling boat and Peter himself feared who said: "if it's you"; but the necessary return to the Father, symbolized by his going up the mountain alone to pray to him, it happened so that God could be "all in all" and His love and His salvation, could be recognized in the Church which from now on becomes the sacrament of union with the Lord and of the unity of human beings as the Council said.

Thus we reach the last act, to that key or, given the context, that sail that allows you to travel the ferry without fear, that is, faith. The episode of Peter who wanted to walk on the water like Jesus teaches us this, but lacking full faith. A dangerous temptation that can seize every season of the life of the Church, perhaps even the current one. That of emptying Christ, to make it a ghost or an ectoplasm - Phanstasma estin, A ghost is ― mentre la Chiesa è intenta in altre cose, busy with who knows what precious work or with some arrangement of its structures. The Gospel, as Origen rightly notes, it does not say that Peter did not have faith, but he had little of it[5]. Elijah too, narrates the first book of Kings in the first reading this Sunday, shares a life-threatening situation with Pietro. God passes by him, but it will not be present in noisy and sensational realities, as in the massacre of the prophets of Baal, but in a “thin silent voice” (Qol demamah daqqah דקָּֽה דְּמָמָ֥ה ק֖וֹל)[6].

Jesus' rebuke to Peter, his stretching out his hand and grasping it are all sacramental actions that will become exemplary for the Church. Jesus, indeed, he does not scold Peter so that he remains half drowned in inadequacy, but why, through this moment of truth, he becomes aware of the situation he finds himself in and the hand of Jesus that grasps him is a gesture of salvation, healing and change, parable of what the Church does with the sacraments that multiply the love and grace of the Lord over time.

The presence of Jesus, grasped through faith, thin silent voice, it is fundamental for the boat that is the Church to find its tranquility and the disciples to finally recognize the fullness of the divine form of the Lord, no longer seen as a ghost: «As soon as we got on the boat, the wind stopped. Those who were in the boat bowed down before him, saying: “Truly you are the Son of God!”».

I close with a phrase from a famous book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

«The yes and the amen are the sure ground on which we rest. We continually lose sight in this troubled time of the reason why we deserve to live. We are allowed to live continuously close to God and in his presence and then there is no longer anything impossible for us as there is nothing impossible for God. No earthly power can touch us without the will of God, and misery and danger bring us closer to God."[7].

Happy Sunday everyone!

from the Hermitage, 13 August 2023

 

NOTE

[1] «But Jesus said to them: “They don't need to go; you yourselves feed them”. They answered: “Here we have nothing but five loaves and two fish!”. And he said: “Bring them here to me”» (Mt 14, 16-18).

[2] John Paul Meier, A marginal Jew. Rethinking the historical Jesus, Volume 2, Mentor, message and miracles, 2002

[3] The light 1.

[4] «So it could be, returning to the text, that the disciples feeling uncomfortably far from Jesus, they cannot separate from him even by chance, because they want to stay with him; by me, judging that they must have proof of the waves and the contrary wind, which would not have been there if they had been with Jesus, imposes on them the obligation to detach themselves from him and get on the boat" (Origene, (C)oment to the Gospel of Matthew, New Town, 1998, pg. 215.

[5] Op. cit. Pg 218.

[6] 1Re 19, 12. La Bibbia Cei translate: «the whisper of a light breeze». The Masoretic text has: «A thin silent voice».

[7] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Resistance and surrender, St. Paul, 2015.

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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).

.

Visit the pages of our book shop WHO and support our editions by purchasing and distributing our books.

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Dear Readers,
this magazine requires management costs that we have always faced only with your free offers. Those who wish to support our apostolic work can send us their contribution through the convenient and safe way PayPal by clicking below:

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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 GOSPEL NARRATES THAT THE SOWER WENT OUT TO SOW, HOWEVER HE DOES NOT TELL US THAT HE RETURNED

An Italian missionary killed in 1985 in Brazil he used to say: «The sower went out to sow, but he does not say that he then returned". And it went on: "The fate of the seed will be no different from the fate of the sower".

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An Italian missionary[1] killed in 1985 in Brazil he used to say: «The sower went out to sow, but he does not say that he then returned". And it went on: "The fate of the seed will be no different from the fate of the sower".

This very concise sentence condenses the heart of the evangelical message of this XV Sunday of Ordinary Time. The Gospel (Mt 13, 1-23) which will be proclaimed in the Liturgy of the Word opens, indeed, with one of the begins best known of all the Gospels: «The sower went out to sow». At this link you can find it the text in the longer version[2].

The passage begins the discourse in parables[3] third of the five great speeches that Matthew puts in the mouth of Jesus and is structured in four parts. A brief introduction (vv. 1-3a), the parable of the sower (vv. 3b-9) and his explanation (vv. 18-23). In the middle (vv. 10-17) there is a short pericope that addresses the methodological question: because Jesus speaks to the crowds in parables?

The parable is the genre that Jesus preferred when he wanted to present, in the form of a story, a hidden truth starting from situations, examples and realities that his listeners could immediately understand. It has thus become a pedagogical model which, transcending time, retains its value even today, when we live in an era of disenchantment.. An era, our, in which the symbolic has a strong impact and this is precisely what Jesus' speaking in parables tends to do: grasp the new and unexpected meaning of reality, presented symbolically. Putting farmers and winemakers on stage, kings and servants, fishermen or shepherds, a housewife or a woman who has lost a coin, all realities familiar to listeners, Jesus spoke in this way about the Kingdom of God, without even mentioning God.

But the immediacy and simplicity of the parable they must not deceive, since it also has a paradoxical value. Everyone knows the paradoxes of the Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea[4] – the famous one of Achilles and the tortoise – which had the aim of refuting multiplicity and movement. Jesus instead, with parables, it creates paradoxical realities to invite listeners and readers to grasp a further meaning, other, compared to what is normally seen, believes and lives. The unexpected inhabits daily life with Jesus.

In fact, no one throws precious seed everywhere if not in the prepared furrows, no one, after having sown wheat, no longer cares about the soil and only waits for the harvest. Who would leave an entire flock to go and find just one lost sheep? How does a very small grain become very large? Who gives the same pay to everyone without looking at the hours of work per day? Only God and it can be seen in the actions of Jesus as he announces his Kingdom. Ultimately, parables have this as their purpose: surprise and displace to help reshape reality, looking at it otherwise, according to a new logic, the paradoxical one of the Gospel, that Jesus embodies. He is in fact the living parable of God o, as Maximus the Confessor said: «He is a symbol of himself»[5].

In this Sunday's parable the seed is a symbol, according to the explanation that Jesus gives, of the Word of God, theological reality that must be listened to and understood. The paradoxical story is that it ends up on various terrains generating a whole series of reactions. The divine Word, indeed, as the prophet Isaiah says in today's first reading «it will not return to me without effect" in the same way as rain or snow that comes from the sky. Now God “makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and makes it rain on the just and the unjust" Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount (cf.. Mt 5, 45). The Word of God, so, it is not a mysterious reality aimed at initiates, but it compromises itself with human situations, also accepting failure, in the parable, it's big, since on four plots three will not produce fruit. In the explanation that Jesus gives, taking up the serious words of the book of Isaiah[6], people who will not listen to the Word will only become rigid in their situation, that is, they will not be able to change their reality or open up to the newness of the Kingdom. They are the ones who have a lack of interiority, the superficial ones who let the seed of the Word be taken away by the first thing that arrives, as if it were a fluttering sparrow. They are those who lack perseverance because for them life is like a stone that perhaps defends them from external assaults, but neither does it allow good and beautiful things to take root. The Gospel calls the men of the moment (temporary, proskairos v. 21) that catch fire at the moment. They certainly listen to the Word, but if it has to last everything becomes tiring. Having no roots, faced with the first difficulty they abandon. Then there are those who, despite having listened, then prefer the sirens of life behind riches and worldliness and therefore worries and anxieties envelop them like brambles and thorns that do not let the light filter through which would allow the Word to emerge and allow them to look and live life differently.

Finally there are those who, to use the image of the parable, they are the minority of the good soil that bears fruit according to its possibilities. They are those who not only know how to listen, but they also know how to understand the Word. That is, they know how to put it together (companions, synieis v. 23) composing them Word and life constantly. They have a profound understanding of the Word, spiritual and vital. But it is not easy, because the ground could become hard and refractory for them too, stony or filled with infesting thorns and brambles. Here then is the need for constant vigilance and spiritual work because as simple "hearers of the Word"[7] it becomes a reality that grows with them. As in the very happy expression of Gregory the Great: «The text grows with the reader»[8] (The text grows with the one who reads it).

At this point we can ask ourselves two questions, who gives the strength so that the Word grows and where do I find this strength? The first question can be answered by remembering another parable of the seed that we find this time in the fourth Gospel: «If the grain of wheat, fell to the ground, it doesn't die, it remains only; but if it dies, it produces much fruit ». (GV 12, 24). Jesus is talking about his death on the cross. The editor of the Gospel, indeed, reacting to Jesus' statement: «And me when I am raised from the ground, I will attract everyone to me" he comments: «He said this to indicate the death he was going to die» (GV 12, 32-33).

Jesus therefore compares himself to a seed sent by the Father in the heart of the earth - "For God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son" (GV 3, 16a) — and all this love that Jesus revealed during his existence will condense and bear its maximum fruit precisely at the moment of his death, on the cross. According to John, the first fruit of Jesus' death is the Spirit[9] who like water flows from his dead body towards believers: the mother and the beloved disciple.

This Spirit not only resurrected Jesus from the dead[10] but it is the hermeneutic who reveals the meaning of the Word of truth which is Jesus. Her words, indeed, I am spirit and life (GV 6, 63). It is therefore now the Spirit of Christ who helps believers to be that fertile ground that knows how to welcome the Word and makes it understood so that it bears good fruit..

In this sense, according to the words of the missionary reported at the beginning of this text, Jesus, who became a seed of love until the cross, through his Spirit he does not stop sowing the Word and will never return. This constant action is expressed by the words of the responsorial psalm of the Liturgy which it announces:

«You visit the earth and quench its thirst,
fill it with riches.
The river of God is full of waters;
you prepare wheat for men.
This is how you prepare the land:
you irrigate the furrows, wipe out the clods,
bathe it with rain and bless its buds" (Shall 64).

In the time of difficult gestation that the entire created work suffers, as Paul recalls in today's second reading. E, at last, to answer the second question, It is in the Eucharistic liturgy that the Church experiences this action of Jesus and the Spirit to the highest degree. When He states in this Sunday's Gospel passage: «But blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear» (v. 16) it is not privileging some while excluding others. It's true, the direct and concrete experience that the disciples had of encountering the humanity of Jesus was unique and unrepeatable, so much so that John stated in his first letter: «What we heard, what we saw with our own eyes, what we contemplated and what our hands touched of the Word of life" (1GV 1,1).

But this humanity, now glorified of the Word we can still "touch" it today when during the sacramental action, thanks to the same Spirit[11] which acts on the word and on the Eucharistic offerings, let us listen to that Word again and nourish ourselves with Christ. This grace descends abundantly, today, here and now, on the ground which is our vital situation, whatever condition it is in at the moment, in the hope that all this gift, which is the love of the Father in Jesus through the Spirit should not be lost, but bear fruit in turn.

Happy Sunday everyone!

from the Hermitage, 15 July 2023

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NOTE

[1] Father Ezekiel Ramin, Comboni missionary in Brazil, was killed 24 July 1985 while he defended small farmers and Indians in Mato Grosso. Saint John Paul II defined him as "a witness to the charity of Christ" during a Angelus.

[2] The liturgy also provides a shorter form.

[3] Mt 13, 1-52.

[4] Zeno of Elea (489 a.C. – 431 a.C.) was a pre-Socratic Ancient Greek philosopher of Magna Graecia and a member of the Eleatic School founded by Parmenides. Aristotle defines him as the inventor of dialectics.

[5] "The Sir […] he became his own precursor; he has become a type and symbol of himself. Symbolically he makes himself known through himself. That is, he leads all creation, starting from itself as it manifests itself, but to lead her to himself as it is unfathomably hidden" (Cantarella R., Mystagogy and other writings, 1931).

[6] Is 6,9-10.

[7] Rahner K., Hearers of the Word, Tassel, 1967.

[8] Bori P. C., The infinite interpretation, Ancient Christian hermeneutics and its transformations, 1988.

[9] «E, bowed his head, handed over the spirit" (GV 19, 30).

[10] «And if the Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you " (Rom 8, 15).

[11] The eastern bishop Mons. Neofito Edelby, the 5 October 1964, during the work of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council he left an important mark by pronouncing these words: «The Holy Scripture is not just a written norm, rather, almost a consecration of the History of salvation under the guise of the human word, however, it is inseparable from the Eucharistic consecration in which the whole Body of Christ is summarized […] The mission of the Holy Spirit cannot be separated from the mission of the Incarnate Word. This is the first theological principle of any interpretation of Holy Scripture. And you can't forget that, as well as auxiliary sciences of all kinds, the ultimate goal of Christian exegesis is the spiritual understanding of Sacred Scripture in the light of the resurrected Christ".

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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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