alerts:
will be held today catechesis on Tuesday, which will resume next week, exceptionally on Thursday (11).
the same goes for Mass, celebrate on Thursday the 11th (St. Martin instead of Wednesday 10).
Ambrosian Rite
Reading of the Gospel according to Matthew 25: 31-46
at that time. The Lord Jesus said: "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, sit on the throne of his glory. Before him will be gathered all nations. He will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and will put the sheep on his right and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those who will be his right hand, Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world, because I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and I you have given to drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. " Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and give you something to eat, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and you have received, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit thee? ". And the king will answer them: "Verily I say unto you, all you did for one of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Then he will say to those who will be on the left, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, because I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, sick and in prison and you visited me. " Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and we did not use? ". Then he will answer them, "Verily I say unto you, everything you did for one of these little ones, ye did it unto me." And they will go: to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. "
The substance and appearance, with half in the proceedings.
The Feast of Christ the King has become synonymous with charitable service, because the way of Jesus to reign is that of one who washes the feet of us, his brothers and who gives his life on the Cross.
For this reason the gospel once again the scene of the trial, where there is what matters: the substance of love, of closeness, of the gift made to the smallest of the brothers of Jesus
But then the criterion proposed by the Gospel, simple and easy to understand, that no one may be mistaken, there seems to be too demanding. And so we left it aside.
And what happened? Leaving the substance, we have become the victim of appearance. Much of the world is empty, like a balloon, but does not care, because it counts only the appearance: of course young people, preferably rich and bright.
rating on the other is a sport, about oneself is repudiated. Nobody wants to be judged. But apart from the fact that we are still judged, perhaps in the newspaper gossip, we must consider that it comes before God, the truth will do just that in us.
The Judgement of God leads to our truth, our essence, helps us to get out of the moral Paled in which we are tempted to put on.
Is there a way to become and remain men of truth, even before the Final Judgement: This is the peaceful practice of 'self-examination. It is one of five things needed to make a good confession (for those who have forgotten the catechism, the others are: repentance or sorrow for sins, resolve to not do evil, confession of sin, repentance that remedying the harm done).
not junk of the past, but a resource for this to true maturity.
I suggest a walk in five stages for its recovery.
1. The sinner who confesses he needs to prepare.
The statement is not obvious, is not to make a list, but something much more serious.
Precisely because we are sinners, the correct view of truth is blocked.
The liberation from sin through confession is possible only if the Lord tells us something of his correct view on sin.
is understood so that the training will consist measured in terms of the distance of the Lord, the gap between us and his will.
At the same time you come back to the state where you were after the acquittal last, looking at the sins and the circumstances under which they were committed.
In this way we come to know our situation as well as God knows, in a vision in which the truth is combined with mercy, God does forgive, but we know exactly the sin, because you have to leave it.
So we must be relentless with ourselves, not so much to move God, but that the recognition of guilt prepare us for processing of the heart.
2. Recognize sin as ours.
E 'need to confess our sins as we must do so explicitly and be permeated by the belief that they are inexcusable, because God has given us faith and love enough to avoid them.
We must recognize the evil of our sin and our intention to commit it.
When we try to excuse ourselves, prevent us lack the grace and the best reconciliation.
3. We can not prepare well for confession without a living relationship with Sacred Scripture.
You can start from any teaching of the Lord to get to see its error state. Any episode in the life of the Lord reveals his innocence, before which we feel awkward because of our sin.
In the light of Christ living in privacy with the father, we see immediately what a state is our life, our prayers, our service: Let's see what you're missing, what it is neglected, there are signs everywhere of death instead of life, cooling, indifference and apathy. We find it hard, in the three views of love, prayer service, understand our relationship with God, discover our sin.
Also from Jesus' behavior toward men, we can consider our relationship with others.
The Lord gives everything he has.
before him discover what our love was weak, the selfish, the greedy, well find out what we despised, scorned, damaged, perhaps hated, our neighbor.
Finally we consider the style of Jesus in relation to its mission: the Lord does everything for us to obey the Father and to serve men. All it does is going in this direction, but the rest, including refreshments, all need to be able to work again, the new gift. In this light we can measure the style in which we live our personal mission.
4. Two dangers to avoid.
This examination should be carried out without fear, because is a grace that God requires this of us.
Anxiety has no place in Christian confession.
We have to look long and hard to bring out clearly the contours of sin, but must stop if further research does not promise a better result.
should not be lost in reverie, looking to the circumstances of the circumstances, otherwise there is danger of falling into complacency because of its skill in sorrow for their sins.
If we were chasing our sins too long in their roots and chains, these chains will soon be more important for us of sin itself and cloud our consciousness of sin, thereby closing the action of grace.
We must remain simple even in the face of our sin and be content with the essentials.
This simple truth will help us for a sincere repentance and a good way, and endless introspection distract us from the main road that the Lord track.
The other danger, much more common, is to look only superficially.
Also we are freed from this danger if we meditate on the life of the Lord.
The superficiality is to be judged according to their own principles, which are normally of large sleeve for two reasons: first, because sin itself tends to destroy the conscience and making insensitive and secondly, because the world around us encourages us in the hallway (all do so).
To avoid the superficiality we have to look hard to abandon ourselves to the Lord and his truth.
In the case of sins "new" one must feel the burden for having done so, the presumption that we had before we commit it, that maybe we did not stay alert enough.
In the case of sins "usual" we must also take into account the circumstances, the temptations and occasions of sin that should be avoided.
The severity of the examination should proceed in two directions:
- not to exaggerate petty things, so as not to lose sight of what matters.
We must be able to do synthesis and not to put it all on the same plane.
The confession is to get back together before God, not to get lost in the confusion. Who puts in front of futility in which only goes to shatter the power of absolution, he can not receive the great shock of absolution healing. The psychological analysis goes in a direction contrary to that of the Christian confession.
The confession can sometimes be more brief examination of conscience, but the important thing is that there is essential, look to God, the grace of God that makes us see all our ingratitude.
- the relentlessness of research, there should be no gray areas, aspects of life that we do not want to put before God and all existence is put under the gaze of the Lord.
5. Whole preparation must take place in the Holy Spirit.
First, we invoke the Holy Spirit to enlighten and operate, making us sharers in his way of thinking.
We ask the Spirit to come into our hearts because it is in aid of our prayers and our effort, our faith, our reason.
There are denominations where you find that are not based on sound preparation, you say a few things, so, roughly speaking, without thinking.
Such chatter shows that this person does not confess love.
Whoever confesses formalistically no longer part of the love of the Son to the Father and for men.
sins become things in themselves without close connection with life. This is the self-righteous attitude.
Humility is the decisive point to heal these defects.
Without humility sins tend to be something alien to the person, and just confess to remove the weight.
With humility we understand that our sins are things that are attached to our person, that we who have sinned against God
Us us that we need forgiveness and that only God can forgive us and our pride.
The transformation of one's life can begin and continue only where there is the grace of God and his forgiveness, otherwise there is only our arrogance and our inability to love.
In the preparation necessary to invoke the heart and mind before the acquittal, which has rebuilt our friendship with God, so that it increases the desire to return to purity, the closeness of God, in the realm of love.
Roman Rite
XXXII Sunday
Gospel: Luke 20.27-38
[At that time, approached some Sadducees, who deny that there is no resurrection], and put this question to Jesus "Teacher, Moses has commanded us: If someone dies a brother who has a wife but no children, his brother takes a wife and raise up seed unto his brother.
there were seven brothers: the first, after taking his wife, died childless. Then he took the second and the third, and so all seven, and died leaving no children.
Finally the woman died. This woman then, in the resurrection, whose wife will she be? For all seven had her as wife. "
[Jesus said: "The children of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy of the world and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor be married, and neither can they die any more, because they are like angels and, being children of the resurrection, are children of God that the dead are raised, even Moses showed him about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. God is not God of the dead but of the living: for all live to him "].
COMMENT Ileana Mortari
The song is part of the section of Luke's cap.20, where we find a series of disputes between Jesus and members of the religious authorities in Israel: the doctors of the law (or scribes), the Pharisees and Sadducees, in this case here is the third group.
Born probably in circles around the 200 a.Cr. philhellenism Jews, the Sadducees were members of the wealthy aristocracy of Jerusalem, members of influential families with priestly functions of relief: they were the chief priests and elders, and leaders of the organization ' administration of the Temple. Their name is in fact dated back to Sadok, the high priest at the time of Solomon. Featuring
by rigid conservatism, adhered strictly to the Law of Moses, that the Pentateuch (or Torah) and rejected the oral tradition (accepted by the Pharisees instead) and the beliefs of Judaism most recent. So they denied the resurrection from the dead, considered a popular superstition alien to the Scriptures, why not mentioned in the Pentateuch, and considered non-canonical way of Daniel speaks. Also rejected the messianic in its highest form and spiritual presence in the history of angels and demons.
Conservatives in religion, but politically they were open, ready to consolidate their authority by resorting to overt or covert agreements with the Roman power with which they had conflicts. In 70 d.Cr., following the fall of Jerusalem, they disappear from the scene as a party political activities, while gaining more and more influence and power of the Pharisees. Their presence in the Gospels is a real historical memory of Jesus' time
In the passage in question some Sadducees, who - as we have seen - they did not believe in the resurrection, Jesus propose a hypothetical case, a story in the rabbinical schools: if a woman under the law of levirate (Deut.25, ssg 5.), has had seven husbands, whose wife will she be in the resurrection? And say it with a good dose of irony, as if to say if there is a resurrection, as we have made in such a case? what complications would arise absurd the existence of the resurrection! They were certain to throw ridicule on any response of Jesus
The question was part of the series on which it held frequent and fervent debate in rabbinical academic. But the Master as always falls on the ground of the dispute and move the issue to another level, while the Sadducees and giving us an important teaching on the resurrection. From his words, it is understood that it was not intended as a continuation and expansion of the joys of life on earth (as stated then a rough popular view), but as an absolutely new, which is not possible to express with the language and categories of mental life this, because it escapes the patterns of this world.
In essence he says the resurrected do not marry, because that is immortal and no longer need marriage to continue the human race, in addition, they are like angels, that they have as a spiritualized body (see St. Paul 1 ° Cor. 15, 42-46), and finally they are full "sons of God" because it participates fully in the divine condition, and hence eternity.
And then, like the Sadducees, Jesus also makes a scriptural quotation from the Pentateuch, but tit for tat reply to the claims of opponents, but, once again, to move the debate to another level by identifying the "Center" of the matter: what matters is not "how" will be the men after death, but who is the God who reveals himself and shows them a boundless loyalty. He recalls the episode of the burning bush in which God reveals himself to Moses and says, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob" (Es.3 0.2 to 6) and deduces from this that "God is the God of the dead but of the living , for all live to him" (V.38).
Now the expression "the God of Abraham, etc.." invokes the covenant, which is close to one another and belonging that has bound Israel to Yahweh, but then, if the Jewish people were offered a special love, a preference by God, who is the Savior by definition, can not happen that death has the last word, God can not be weaker than the death! Above all, if God loves man, he can not leave the power of death. That's why all "for him," that thanks to him, live!
course, the resurrection will not have a simple continuation of earthly life (like the Pharisees believed, and more with increased fertility!), But life that is totally "new" and can not be expressed in earthly categories. Our current situation can be compared to that of the fetus lives and moves in the womb as in an environment familiar to him, but who are not and can not have the slightest idea about the world is waiting to see when the light!
So it will be for us when we will cross the "wall of shadow" We do not know, we never know how will be! Thus we are asked to reject the useless curiosity about how, how, when, etc.., When we should rather seek to respond to the unlimited faithfulness of God, trying to make every day to His will.
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