READING OF THE DAY First reading from the Book of Jeremiah JER 20:7-9
You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped; you were too strong for me, and you triumphed. All the day I am an object of laughter; everyone mocks me.
Whenever I speak, I must cry out, violence and outrage is my message; the word of the LORD has brought me derision and reproach all the day.
I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more. But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.
Second reading from the letter of St. Paul to the Romans ROM 12:1-2
I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY From the Gospel according to Matthew MT 16:21-27
Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay all according to his conduct.”
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER We can’t think of the Christian life apart from this path. There is always this journey, a journey that He took first: the journey of humility, the journey, too, of humiliation, of denying oneself, and then rising. But this is the path. Without the Cross, the Christian style is not Christian, and if the Cross is a Cross without Jesus, it is not Christian. The Christian style takes the Cross with Jesus and goes forward — not without the Cross, not without Jesus.” (Santa Marta, 6 March 2014)
FAUSTI - It is the beginning of the instruction to the disciples no longer in parables, but through the Word of the Cross. Now that they have placed their hope and affection in Him, He can show Himself to them as He is. The Son of man has only one duty, the same as God's, which is entirely and only Love: He has to suffer much, love is passion, it makes suffer, it makes one feel the good and the bad of the beloved, it has to be with him in good times and bad. The elders, the high priests and the scribes are the rich, the powerful and the wise who stake their existence on the desire of having, of being powerful, of appearing. They are the three masks of evil on which the order of the world is structured. They represent the aspiration of each one of us who believe what is really selfishness and death. Jesus must enter into this evil in which we stand in so that He may save us and show us the true face of man who is the same as God. Jesus begins to reveal Himself openly, and Peter to rebel hard. To "rebuke" in Greek is the same word that Jesus does with demons, and it is what Peter does with Jesus. Whoever avoids this confrontation will never understand the thought of God. The confrontation can be avoided in good or bad faith, either by guile or cunning, by inadvertence and blindness. Peter takes Jesus aside to reproach Him, he loves Him and does not want to humiliate Him in front of others... He feels obliged, however, for His affection, to take Him back. What happens to Christ and the living God if He is a loser? It is to blaspheme (what Peter thinks it to be) the Glory! For him God is the supreme realization of man's aspirations: the supremely rich, omnipotent and glorious. If God were the projection of our desires, He would be the supreme evil, more than the supreme good! The false image that we have of Him corresponds to the false ideal that we have of man, His image. And precisely for this reason we do evil, with obstinate blindness. Jesus turns around and shows His face to Him. In Him there is affection for the friend, but hardness against the enemy that is hidden in him. Jesus does not reject him far away, He puts him back in his right position "behind Him". Salvation is not that He follows us - which He has already done, at the cost of His Life! - but that we follow Him, even to the gift of life. Peter presents in good faith the same temptations of Satan that Jesus already met in the desert, here it is more difficult to recognize them! For the sake of good, Peter becomes a stumbling block, who wants to make the Son of Man fall!
-> The Lord says: "My thoughts are not your thoughts, your ways are not my ways" (Is 55:8). He is Holy, different from us: He is Love. We, even when we recognize Him, always project our desires onto Him, for us they are more certain than any truth. Our knowledge according to the Spirit is mingled with so much flesh! It only frees us from it: the constant encounter with the Gospel, which has the honesty of clashing with Jesus. Peter is stone in that he not only recognizes Jesus, but also in that he measures himself dramatically with Him, recognizing himself as a stumbling stone. Faith is not a cheap package of certainties. It is a progressive acquisition in a laborious struggle to measure oneself against the Word of the Cross. Those certainties that we cannot put into question distance us from the truth. What Jesus proposes is an act of free will. The greatest freedom of man is to follow the same path as the Lord. To go after Him is the path of exodus, the full realization of man, the victory over selfishness and death. He is the cloud and the fire that guides us towards freedom. It is necessary to deny the false self, deformed by lies and fear, is to give birth to one's true self. The death of selfishness is the birth of love. One, if he wants to be himself, must stop thinking about himself. Only then does he have his face turned towards the other. The cross of each one is to struggle against the evil that is in himself. It is the struggle against one's own selfishness, which only he can do. In this struggle, however, he is not alone, he is in the company of his Lord who has preceded and accompanies him. Escaping the impending threat of death is the very intent of every thought and action. That is why we become selfish and, instead of saving ourselves, we lose ourselves. A life inspired by selfishness is already dead, lost forever. Life is to love to the point of giving life for the One who loved me and gave Himself for me". (Gal 2.20) Life is the Holy Spirit, Love between Father and Son, mutual gift of one to the other. He who loves has passed from death to life, he already has the life that does not die (1 Jn 3:14). Man would like to possess everything to ensure his life. But in this way he anticipates physical death with breathlessness and spiritual death with selfishness. Life cannot be bought with money, nor bartered for goods. It is a gift, and only in so far as it is given remains alive. To those who want to pay for it, all that remains is to return it, giving themselves death. The world is under the judgment of God: the Cross of the Son of Man who gives Life for men. Every action has value or not according whether it conforms to His judgment. Eternal salvation hangs on my present decision to live God's judgment. Not the one who says: "Lord, Lord," but the one who makes the Word enters the Kingdom, becomes a son and receives the Glory of the Father, builds his house that resists all weather.(7:23-27).
READING OF THE DAY
RispondiEliminaFirst reading from the Book of Jeremiah
JER 20:7-9
You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped;
you were too strong for me, and you triumphed.
All the day I am an object of laughter;
everyone mocks me.
Whenever I speak, I must cry out,
violence and outrage is my message;
the word of the LORD has brought me
derision and reproach all the day.
I say to myself, I will not mention him,
I will speak in his name no more.
But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart,
imprisoned in my bones;
I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.
Second reading from the letter of St. Paul to the Romans
ROM 12:1-2
I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God,
to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.
Do not conform yourselves to this age
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that you may discern what is the will of God,
what is good and pleasing and perfect.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY
From the Gospel according to Matthew
MT 16:21-27
Jesus began to show his disciples
that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly
from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.
Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him,
“God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.”
He turned and said to Peter,
“Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me.
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
Then Jesus said to his disciples,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?
Or what can one give in exchange for his life?
For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory,
and then he will repay all according to his conduct.”
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
We can’t think of the Christian life apart from this path. There is always this journey, a journey that He took first: the journey of humility, the journey, too, of humiliation, of denying oneself, and then rising. But this is the path. Without the Cross, the Christian style is not Christian, and if the Cross is a Cross without Jesus, it is not Christian. The Christian style takes the Cross with Jesus and goes forward — not without the Cross, not without Jesus.” (Santa Marta, 6 March 2014)
RispondiEliminaFAUSTI - It is the beginning of the instruction to the disciples no longer in parables, but through the Word of the Cross. Now that they have placed their hope and affection in Him, He can show Himself to them as He is. The Son of man has only one duty, the same as God's, which is entirely and only Love: He has to suffer much, love is passion, it makes suffer, it makes one feel the good and the bad of the beloved, it has to be with him in good times and bad.
The elders, the high priests and the scribes are the rich, the powerful and the wise who stake their existence on the desire of having, of being powerful, of appearing. They are the three masks of evil on which the order of the world is structured.
They represent the aspiration of each one of us who believe what is really selfishness and death.
Jesus must enter into this evil in which we stand in so that He may save us and show us the true face of man who is the same as God.
Jesus begins to reveal Himself openly, and Peter to rebel hard.
To "rebuke" in Greek is the same word that Jesus does with demons, and it is what Peter does with Jesus.
Whoever avoids this confrontation will never understand the thought of God. The confrontation can be avoided in good or bad faith, either by guile or cunning, by inadvertence and blindness.
Peter takes Jesus aside to reproach Him, he loves Him and does not want to humiliate Him in front of others... He feels obliged, however, for His affection, to take Him back.
What happens to Christ and the living God if He is a loser? It is to blaspheme (what Peter thinks it to be) the Glory!
For him God is the supreme realization of man's aspirations: the supremely rich, omnipotent and glorious. If God were the projection of our desires, He would be the supreme evil, more than the supreme good!
The false image that we have of Him corresponds to the false ideal that we have of man, His image. And precisely for this reason we do evil, with obstinate blindness.
Jesus turns around and shows His face to Him.
In Him there is affection for the friend, but hardness against the enemy that is hidden in him.
Jesus does not reject him far away, He puts him back in his right position "behind Him".
Salvation is not that He follows us - which He has already done, at the cost of His Life! - but that we follow Him, even to the gift of life.
Peter presents in good faith the same temptations of Satan that Jesus already met in the desert, here it is more difficult to recognize them!
For the sake of good, Peter becomes a stumbling block, who wants to make the Son of Man fall!
-> The Lord says: "My thoughts are not your thoughts, your ways are not my ways" (Is 55:8).
RispondiEliminaHe is Holy, different from us: He is Love.
We, even when we recognize Him, always project our desires onto Him, for us they are more certain than any truth. Our knowledge according to the Spirit is mingled with so much flesh!
It only frees us from it: the constant encounter with the Gospel, which has the honesty of clashing with Jesus.
Peter is stone in that he not only recognizes Jesus, but also in that he measures himself dramatically with Him, recognizing himself as a stumbling stone.
Faith is not a cheap package of certainties. It is a progressive acquisition in a laborious struggle to measure oneself against the Word of the Cross.
Those certainties that we cannot put into question distance us from the truth.
What Jesus proposes is an act of free will. The greatest freedom of man is to follow the same path as the Lord.
To go after Him is the path of exodus, the full realization of man, the victory over selfishness and death.
He is the cloud and the fire that guides us towards freedom.
It is necessary to deny the false self, deformed by lies and fear, is to give birth to one's true self.
The death of selfishness is the birth of love.
One, if he wants to be himself, must stop thinking about himself.
Only then does he have his face turned towards the other.
The cross of each one is to struggle against the evil that is in himself.
It is the struggle against one's own selfishness, which only he can do. In this struggle, however, he is not alone, he is in the company of his Lord who has preceded and accompanies him.
Escaping the impending threat of death is the very intent of every thought and action.
That is why we become selfish and, instead of saving ourselves, we lose ourselves.
A life inspired by selfishness is already dead, lost forever.
Life is to love to the point of giving life for the One who loved me and gave Himself for me". (Gal 2.20)
Life is the Holy Spirit, Love between Father and Son, mutual gift of one to the other.
He who loves has passed from death to life, he already has the life that does not die (1 Jn 3:14).
Man would like to possess everything to ensure his life. But in this way he anticipates physical death with breathlessness and spiritual death with selfishness.
Life cannot be bought with money, nor bartered for goods. It is a gift, and only in so far as it is given remains alive.
To those who want to pay for it, all that remains is to return it, giving themselves death.
The world is under the judgment of God: the Cross of the Son of Man who gives Life for men.
Every action has value or not according whether it conforms to His judgment.
Eternal salvation hangs on my present decision to live God's judgment.
Not the one who says: "Lord, Lord," but the one who makes the Word enters the Kingdom, becomes a son and receives the Glory of the Father, builds his house that resists all weather.(7:23-27).