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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"THERE DO NOT BE AFRAID: YOU ARE WORTH MORE THAN MANY SPARROWS»

 

… there is fear that blocks, which makes one lose the courage of proclaiming and bearing witness, the fear you feel of losing face, a privilege or not to be on page. And we become lazy and little by little we lose strength and we end up no longer recognizing Jesus, the teacher.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Every morning, just woke up, I proceed to pour a generous glass of puffed rice grains into a container placed on a tree in the garden. As soon as I get home I enjoy the show. Dozens and dozens of sparrows first fluttering around, in trees or hedges, they begin to glide, fighting or chasing each other, on the bowl of rice and eat some of it, they throw more around, or they take it away, probably to feed the newborns that hatch from the eggs at this time of year.

In the Gospel of this XII Sunday of ordinary time, right in the center of Jesus' short speech he talks about sparrows. He reassures the disciples: “You are worth more than many sparrows”. Here is the Gospel passage:

"During that time, Jesus said to his apostles: “Do not be afraid of men, for there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. What I tell you in the darkness you say in the light, and what you hear in your ears you announce from the terraces. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but they have no power to kill the soul; rather be afraid of him who has the power to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Two sparrows are perhaps not sold for a penny? Yet not even one of them will fall to the ground without the will of your Father. Even the hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not be afraid: you are worth more than many sparrows! Therefore anyone will recognize me before men, I will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; who will deny me before men, I too will deny him before my Father who is in heaven." [Mt 10, 26-33].

We are inside the tenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, where it tells of the sending of the twelve apostles on a mission. But it is also a discourse that is addressed to disciples of every time and place, therefore also to us who hear a page proclaimed today which comes to us from afar and which was probably already affected by those difficulties which not only encountered the very first disciples of the Lord sent to the territories of Israel and only to those, but also the roughness of the path that subsequent generations of disciples found who were inspired by the tradition of Matthew's writing.

Jesus, right in last Sunday's Gospel, he had warned his disciples that the same fate as their master would befall them:

«A disciple is not greater than the master, nor is a servant greater than his lord; it is enough for the disciple to become like his master and for the servant like his lord. If they called the master of the house Beelzebul, much more those of his family!» (Mt 10,24-25).

That is to say, what Jesus experienced, it will also be experienced by his envoys, who will be called devils, in the service of the leader of the demons, Beelzebub, and they will be persecuted to the point of being killed by those who believe they are giving glory to God in this way (GV 16,2). For this reason in today's Gospel Jesus feels the need, not to sugarcoat the pill, but to cheer up the disciples and three times (vv. 26. 28.31) he invites them not to fear: "Do not be afraid!».

I would like to say the same thing to my sparrows that, if I make a sudden or involuntary movement, they run away scared. Fear is an early instinct thatimprinting has fixed in different species, in ours too. There is a good fear that allows us not to fall into danger and to be cautious. In the same speech Jesus had in fact said:

"There: I send you out like sheep among wolves; so be wise as serpents and harmless as doves ". (10, 16).

And then there is the fear that blocks, which makes one lose the courage of proclaiming and bearing witness, the fear you feel of losing face, a privilege or not to be on page. And we become lazy and little by little we lose strength and we end up no longer recognizing Jesus, the teacher.

Like Peter on the night of his passion: «Who will deny me before men, I too will deny him before my Father who is in heaven." (v. 33). But «Two sparrows are perhaps not sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father."¹.

I feel sorry for the translators of the Italian Episcopal Conference, but there is no "want" in Greek. And instead we need to give back, verbatim: «… without your Father». That is to say, not even a sparrow, falling to the ground, he is abandoned by the Father! Even more so the disciples and even Peter who is their head. In the same way, even the hair on our head (v. 30), that we lose every day without realizing it: they are all counted, all under the gaze of the Father. From such contemplation comes the confidence that dispels fear: God sees as a father sees us, who always looks at us with love and never abandons us, not even when we fall.

When we think we are alone as disciples, left at the mercy of the trials that life presents us or of adversaries who give no respite, Let's think back to the prophet Jeremiah from this Sunday's first reading: «I felt the slander of many. Terror all around... We will take our revenge" (Gives 20,10). Jeremiah lets go of a moment of anger for the situation that has arisen: "may I see your vengeance upon them" (v. 12). Who wouldn't understand it? But then the man of faith called from the mother's womb prevails: "Sing to the Lord, praise the Lord, because he freed the life of the poor" (v. 13). The psalmist of today's responsory echoes this:

«Let the poor see and rejoice; you who seek God, take courage, because the Lord listens to the miserable, he does not despise his own who are prisoners. May heaven and earth sing praise to him, the seas and everything that teems in them" (Shall 68).

Now tell me if there is a protagonist of Scripture to whom the Lord God has not given the encouragement that Jesus says in triple form to the disciples: do not be afraid and do not fear. Not even one, from Abraham to Joseph of Nazareth. Do you think the Virgin Mary didn't hear that?? She too: "Do not fear, Maria, because you have found favor with God" (LC 1,30). Then we can discuss until tomorrow morning about the difference between Mary's fear and that of her relative Zechariah, between that of Jeremiah or Saint Peter while Jesus was being questioned in the Sanhedrin. The important thing that today's Gospel reveals to us is this invitation to let go of fear, not to allow this primary emotion to take over, because of God's special protection, the Father that Jesus reveals to us, who does not abandon us like garbage², which is what the adversary par excellence does instead.

Because Jesus after sending his, including us today, invites you not to be afraid of anything or anyone? Because this is the time of revelation (v. 26) or as someone said "the time of the end"³ inaugurated by Jesus. The time of mission is a time of apocalypse, not in the catastrophic sense usually attributed to this term, but in the etymological sense of re-velation, of lifting the veil. The announcement of the Gospel, indeed, requires that what Jesus said in private be proclaimed in broad daylight, let what has been said in the ear be shouted from the housetops.

«Nothing is hidden from you (verb cover, calypto) which will not be re-veiled (verb disclose, apocalypto) nor secret (cryptic, crypto) which will not be known (verb know, Ginosko)» (v. 26).

The things hidden since the foundation of the world (Mt 13,35; Shall 78,2) they are revealed by Jesus and then by the disciples in history. E, hidden in the heart of this inexhaustible message, lies the announcement of God as Father, which is that "much more" as the Apostle Paul calls it in the second reading this Sunday (RM 5, 12), that is, the abundance of his saving grace, redeem and love.

Happy Sunday everyone!

from the Hermitage, 25 June 2023

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NOTE

1 Mt 10, 29b “and one of them will not fall on the earth without your father”. CEI translation: «Yet not one of them will fall to the ground without the will of your Father».

2 Gehenna (Mt 10,28) it was the valley that collected the garbage of Jerusalem

3 G. Gaeta, The time of the end, proximity and distance of the figure of Jesus, Any 2020

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THE BODY OF THE LORD. THE MOST HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE PRESENCE AND COMMUNION

"In truth, verily I tell you: if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day"

 

 

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Dear Friends and Readers of The Island of Patmos,

in the great feast of The body of the Lord Jesus definitively offers himself to us in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist. The Liturgy of the Word tells us that in those days, while the inhabitants of Capernaum listen to his words, they are knocked out by a big announcement: «I am the living bread, came down from heaven" (GV 6, 51). Words that initially cause some confusion in them, to the point of raising protests. They almost seem to expect a God who is a bit’ more understandable, compared to those words in which Jesus expounds what is the great mystery of the Eucharist. With words that at first can only stun, outlining a great and tremendous mystery. Jesus, the incarnate son of God, choose to become that piece of bread and that sip of wine. In the Eucharistic species, Christ in body is present at every Holy Mass celebrated, blood, soul and divinity. Those Eucharistic species become for us the bread and wine for the path of eternity. They become the new hidden manna, the food that allows us to obtain the lifeblood of grace to walk in holiness and justice every day of our lives.

As we more or less know from the Catechism, the real presence of Jesus is possible because during the Holy Mass, at the time of consecration, through the words of the priest recited on the Eucharistic species the miracle of transubstantiation. The substances of bread and wine, while maintaining the same look, they are converted into the substance of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Before the announcement of this mystery the Capernaites are scandalized, because they don't understand it, partly because you lack the tools to understand, partly because they have a somewhat hard heart locked up in pharisaic formalisms and memorized formulas which, however, do not have a concrete development in charity. So here Jesus offers them two explanations:

"In truth, verily I tell you: if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day" (GV 6, 53).

Jesus explains that assimilate his body it means that the Father has sent him as a new and eternal manna from heaven that completes the manna that was given to the Jews in the desert. So Jesus is the one who in that manna, in that bread, he makes himself present because God the Father makes him present through a miracle, this is in synthesis the discourse that he presents to the listeners; and makes it present because through his bread Jesus arrives in full and strong intimacy with those who welcome him. The body of the one who receives the new and eternal manna becomes the temple, the new home for the Lord.

This shows on the one hand the real presence, as we said at the beginning, in which the believer is purified and transformed by God to be in imitation of Christ. In a sense, as the Greek Fathers say, the assumption of the Body of Christ makes him similar to us: because the Eucharist is the Sacrament that offers all of us the grace of the presence and imitation of Jesus in our concrete daily life.

Like this, imitating Jesus, all of us can fellowship with others and climb a path of holiness. To be holy means to operate the charity and love of God, therefore to let our neighbor enter a path of eternity. Jesus himself tells us so: the love of Christ in the Eucharist leads us to eternal life and the resurrection of the body.

As well as then, as I read these eternal words I wonder: the great mystery of love truly present in the Eucharist, scandalizes perhaps even today? Perhaps our sanctification also passes through this. Be Eucharistic witnesses, because first of all we are the first to be eucharistized, that is, we are poured out by the grace of the real presence, and its effects of joy and satisfaction can be authentic witnesses of the beauty of its presence. Show the joy of being in communion with Him, thus it leads us to make communion with the whole Church and witnesses with all humanity.

We can draw from this joy every time we approach the embrace of Eucharistic adoration. We lay our hearts, our existential wounds on the Eucharistic heart of Jesus and we will be poured out by a great love.

Amen!

Santa Maria Novella in Florence, 11 June 2023

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THE MAN OF THE LIQUID SOCIETY AT THE WELL OF LIVING WATER WITH THE SAMARITAN WOMAN

“Water is condescending, mobile, transparent, tasteless. One easily gets the impression that, compared to the rest of reality, it is somehow otherworldly".

 

 

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Dear Readers of The Island of Patmos,

who plays sports such as football, the basket or the run, especially in summer, knows how refreshing a glass of water is at the end of a sporting activity. It almost has a profound meaning that goes beyond the somatic aspect. As the scientist Philip Ball writes:

“Water is condescending, mobile, transparent, tasteless. One easily gets the impression that, compared to the rest of reality, it is somehow otherworldly".

 

 

The long song the today's gospel it's an invitation. It is a return to the sources, to the water of our origins: therefore to rediscover our baptismal vocation, because from that moment we started walking in the path of holiness and accepting our vocation. Therefore, returning to remember baptism is returning to the sources of our faith and quenching our thirst with the water of grace and the Holy Spirit.

At the beginning of the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, it is the Lord who asks a precise question: “Give me a drink.” Jesus is thirsty because he is in a barren desert area. It's very hot and it's near a well. So try to make friends with the Samaritan woman, asking for practical help. In fact, offer some water, for the culture of the time, it was really a gesture of closeness and also that allowed to generate a certain companionship.

This gesture surpasses the Samaritan woman: Jesus is also close to us. The Lord asks all of us to offer him water, Also today, especially every time we pray and enter into communion with him in the Eucharist. He thirsts for our presence, our friendship and our faith. He says to us give me a drink, to indicate that he wants to relate and have an intimacy with us.

Returning to the letter of the text, we see that the exchange between the two begins. A few sentences later it is He who offers the water to the woman:

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again; but who will drink of the water that I will give them, he will never be thirsty again. On the contrary, the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life".

The Samaritan woman must not have understood this sentence well. They are strong words and very intense. After all, Jesus is telling her not to draw only on water drawn from the well that quenches the thirst of the body and the dry throat, but to drink from a source that also quenches the soul and spirit. This is the water of faith and grace.

We too have been quenched by this water. Effectively, if we think about it, our life of faith began with a little’ of water, a white robe and a candle of light. On the day of our baptism, the material element used to administer the Sacrament of the beginning of the life of faith is precisely water. This water accompanies the words of the priest «I baptize you in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit". Baptismal water is also a sign of a great event: received the divine grace received which has entered into us by uniting itself to our life and to our person. And together with God, from that moment to follow, we can do great works of charity and love.

Jesus offers us faith and grace in baptism because we can discover that we are all a great gift to God himself and to the world. For our personal and unique love to become a concrete action of tenderness and compassion towards those who suffer.

We ask the Lord to still feel that baptismal newness in our lives, to rediscover ourselves as children in soul and spirit, to quench our time with the presence of God and to irrigate the desert of a contemporary world afflicted by an increasingly liquid culture with wells of hope.

Amen.

Santa Maria Novella in Florence, 12 March 2023

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