FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

“REJOICE AND BE GLAD, FOR YOUR REWARD WILL BE GREAT IN HEAVEN”

MT. 5, 1-12

Today we are celebrating the fourth Sunday of ordinary time, and in this Gospel Jesus gives us a reason for our existence: “The Beatitudes”. The Beatitudes consist of ten (10) simple capsules, that at first sight seem very insignificant, hard to understand and in a certain way, ridiculous because thru them Jesus expresses elements that make no sense to a person who has not encountered Him, because the beatitudes only make sense when there is an encounter with Jesus .

Like a new Moses, Jesus preaches from the top of the mountain the new law of His Kingdom. It is the “Sermon on the Mount” that begins with the Beatitudes, and it is interesting that they all build on the first one: “the poor in spirit”, those who leave everything behind to follow and imitate Christ.

In the Old Testament, voluntary poverty was a sign of humility, since

rity and docility; a fundamental characteristic of the people of Israel, a nation who was to have received in its bosom the Messiah.

The first reading of today’s Mass is from the prophet Zephaniah, who prophesied in the VII (seventh) century before Christ, at time when there were great differences between the rich and poor of Israel. Poverty had notably increased and the prophet denounces this situation and announces the protection of God over the poor and humble.

In today’s gospel we are presented with the Beatitudes. How many times have we heard lots of people, and maybe even ourselves, speak of the importance of “being healthy”? Or the famous saying, that many say as a joke but is very serious, “the most important thing to be happy is to be healthy, have money and love”. Nevertheless, there are many people who are

healthy, with lots of money but terribly unhappy, lonely, who reflect bitterness over the skin, they find no meaning to anything that exists. They are full of material things and look healthy on the outside, but in reality, they are like the typical apple, red and well polished on the outside, but bitter and tasteless inside. On the other hand, there are so many sick people, with incurable diseases, disabled, handicapped, terminally ill, that suffer in their bodies the torments of physical pain caused by their illnesses, people who hardly have anything to survive on, who are unable to get their medication, people who are overwhelmed by loneliness and yet are the most happy, optimistic people you have ever seen, people who have dreams, who are so full of joy that they make others feel healthy, feel sane. A blind person used to say, “ever since being blind, I see things much better now” and this is because many times, even though we can see, we are blind to so many things.

In today’s Gospel, we find God’s vision for mankind. Many times this vision does not match ours and Jesus seems to put everything in an opposite sense to what we are accustomed to seeing and hearing. He calls the ones who are crying, the ones who are being persecuted and insulted: happy, in our human logic this makes no sense, it does not coincide or agree; because humanly speaking, these people are unhappy, they need help. Jesus with these phrases wants to invite us to be confident and gentle in our interior when confronting the hurt and challenges that life gives us continually, to blindly confide in divine justice, justice that is always present in our lives.

Now I ask myself: Is it us, who are the blind ones and twist everything in a negative way, or is it Jesus, the one who does it? Today Jesus wants to open our eyes and show us the real path to happiness.

The “Sermon of the Mount”, is a type of elemental catechism of our Christian lives and starts just with an introduction, which are the Beatitudes. Just as Moses, after gathering the people of God, went up to the mountain, the traditional place for the manifestation of God, Jesus did it the same way. Seated in a teaching attitude, just like Moses, Jesus proclaimed solemnly the Law, in a new formulation that demands a “Justice, superior to the Old Alliance, in order to enter the Kingdom of God. The Will of God manifested in this famous Sermon, is valid for everybody. The Beatitudes are also promises and demands. Promises because it let us see that we are not alone, even in the darkest moments of our lives, that there is always a way out, a way out with justice and equity; and with demands because it requires that each and everyone do something, in order to change and transform ourselves to be better children of His.

Do you dare to be different, if you are, you will be called “blessed” and the ones who are called “blessed” are tried and tested as gold in the kiln?

Amen!

God bless you

Fr. Alex

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Mt. 4, 12-23

Today’s Gospel presents to us the beginning of Jesus’ public life. He could not have a more humble and simple beginning.
Nothing to do with the huge ceremonies that we like to do now-a-day to mark the beginning of great events. Let’s think about inaugural ceremonies, for example, the Olympic Games, where the country hosting the event risks its’ reputation, its’ prestige.
Or let’s remember the inaugural ceremony for the presidency of the United States, thousands of people invited, enduring the cold temperatures of winter in January, out in the open, just to be present at this magnificent event.
Also in the church, we like big events, the huge ceremonies and liturgies with thousands and thousands of people in the audience, an overflowing church

Jesus withdrew to Galilee and from there He goes from town to town, preaching the simplest message we can imagine, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand”. John has been arrested and Jesus goes to Galilee.
Galilee was the most distant part of the country and the most remote from Jerusalem. Galilee was treated with disdain and its’ inhabitants were considered as most rude and rough. Capernaum was a city of Galilee.
Under these contexts, Jesus begins to preach and to proclaim that what had been said through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled: “the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light” (Matthew 4: 14-16).
The life of every human being has numerous moments of darkness. Even the great mystics have gone thru dark nights, even though purified darkness, they always carry a heavy load of pain.
Whoever accepts Jesus is able to see the profound clarity in his life and thru all his existence, even if this acceptance of Jesus entails great effort and sacrifice.

Curiously we usually say, the morning is clear, we have our business in order, and our intentions are clear, but we probably have not stop to examine the profound clarity of our lives.
To have clarity is to distinguish what is happening to us and why it happens, be able to distinguish who we are; who we belong to, and know that we are not gods, that God is God.
The be in darkness, is to deceive oneself, not wanting to see the reality of ones’ life, the presence of God in it, that is why the shadows are “shadows of death”, because they do not allow me to be more human, it will not allow me to grow as a human, spiritually or emotionally.
One of the greatest tragedies of the human life is to be in darkness and not be able to find the path to Jesus that proclaims on the next line, the necessity we have to convert, to change ourselves so the light will come to our lives. For that, Jesus proposes our conversion to God.
To convert is to change our mentality, to obtain the criterion of God. But not everyone is willing to make that change. Most of the time because we are scared or because we feel comfortable as we are. People prefer to keep on hurting than to go after their hopes. They prefer their suffering rather than confront, face up to themselves.

The Lord does not confront us with the others, not even with our enemies. He does something which is more painful and difficult, He confront us to ourselves and our interior world.

When Jesus began His preaching, He also began to gather together disciples, so they will be listeners before they became preachers. While in the middle of this preaching, He finds the first apostles: Peter, James, John and Andrew who were fishermen.

They practice a very humble and insignificant task in a town of bad reputation, they are the ones He recognizes and invites to live the greatest adventure of their lives, to be Apostles.
Probably at that time they did not understand and did not agree with His call, but the truth is that when Jesus passes and enters our lives, we are no longer the same, we become different individuals, our mentality and habits change, because His look has the power to transform, to change the interior of the individual.

The disciples followed Him because they trusted His word, even before they witnessed His miracles.
The Christian life is not based on the witnessing of miracles, but in trusting completely in the One, that can make them happen.

The Gospel ends with the healing of illnesses and maladies of the town, it is amazing to see that the preaching of Jesus is always united, together to recovery, to getting well, to the healing of all illnesses of the people who are close to Him, the people who listen to His word, this is a very clear signal that the healing Jesus realizes on the people is not only physical but spiritual as well.
We are all call to an integral healing of ourselves, of our lives. We are all call to conversion, which is the greatest and richest healing a human being can receive.

AMEN

Homily for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

“This is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”

The gospel phrase today is one of the phrases we repeat in the Eucharist right before we receive Holy Communion.

The giving of self that Jesus does for all human beings, has it’s ending in every Mass where He gives Himself out as food, as nourishment to everyone who believes in him.

John gives testimony of who Jesus is. He said: “He is the lamb of God”. John the Baptist remembers the lambs that were offered daily, every morning and every evening in the temple of Jerusalem.

He also refers to the Passover lamb whose blood saved the Israelites’ first-born from death which was carried out by the Exterminator Angel.
I have a feeling that many Christians are still not aware of Jesus’ great sacrifice. I would like for each person to meditate, how it will feel to have someone give his life for you.

I think, that since we hear talk about the event of the cross in a very simple way, we have definitely forgotten what it is really all about, it is not simple to say, “Jesus died on the cross for me”, all that needs to be said is “AND ?” we don’t accept the depth and reality of this sacrifice.

Spain is the number one country in the world in organ donations for transplants. But the majority of the transplants are no longer news.

Transplants has gotten to be such a natural thing, that it is as any other surgical intervention. What joy, how grateful we are to the donor and the family that was able to allow a miracle to happen, saving lives by donating organs.

Jesus donated His life for the salvation of all human beings. How grateful we should be for His surrender and sacrifice.

What did Jesus do for us?

As Christians we understand very clearly who is the Lord. We know of His surrender and capacity to redeem someone who has fallen.
We have experienced His death and resurrection. But, how can someone understand the person of Jesus, when he has never experienced Him? It is possible that the terminology used by John is not too understandable for someone who today, is apart, who is not close. Today Jesus is our Passover, being aware of the Passover lamb (Ex 12,1-13), a substitute for our sins (IS 53,7) maybe has little meaning to the people who are just being initiated in our faith.
Whoever is just beginning, must start to experiment the whole process of the Salvation Story.
He has to go back to the beginning of the world, from Genesis to the resurrection, passing thru earthly paradise and the dessert, and everything else, in the company of people who have already gone thru this journey, (the Church).
The lamb is a symbol of innocence, someone who can do no harm to anyone, but only welcome.
Our world today, so full of innocent pain, should serve us to discover the multitude of people who is suffering and dying at the hands of the wicked and evil one.

Depressions, all kinds of mental illnesses, are destroying, devastating these contemporaneous societies.

Seeing this situation, many would ask themselves, was it worth the death of Jesus? Christians proclaim that yes, it was worth it. His death has redeemed us. His death has saved us. Saved us from what, you may ask?
First of all, His death saved us from ourselves, has saved us from our limitations and our sins. If spiritual limitations and moral limitations always accompany us, sin is the free acceptance of them.
Christ cleaned and erased with His blood my personal sins but also the personal sins of all humanity, thus, the look of the Christian to the world is always generated from mercy and hope.
A Christian does not give up easily because he knows he has been bought at a very high price. In the deep surrender of Jesus there is the immense love thru which God loves each one of us.
A Christian may be a crook, a thief, a liar and he will struggle to be better with the help of God, but one thing a Christian cannot do, is to be proud of his mediocrity and his sins.
The death of Jesus reminds us that our life has been called to change constantly to follow the path of God.

Jesus gave himself for you and me. To be with Him is to discover the deep love of God for all of us, for every human being, especially for the poor , the needy and the promise of eternal life forever.

Amen!