Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time Read more
Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time
First Reading
Proverbs 9,1-6
Wisdom has built herself a house, she has hewn her seven pillars, she has slaughtered her beasts, drawn her wine, she has laid her table. She has despatched her maidservants and proclaimed from the heights above the city, 'Who is simple? Let him come this way.' To the fool she says, 'Come and eat my bread, drink the wine which I have drawn! Leave foolishness behind and you will live, go forwards in the ways of perception.'
Psalmody
Psalm 33
Antiphon
Let us bless the Lord at all times.
I will bless the Lord at all times,
his praise always on my lips;
in the Lord my soul shall make its boast.
The humble shall hear and be glad.
Glorify the Lord with me,
together let us praise his name.
I sought the Lord and he answered me;
from all my terrors he set me free.
Look towards him and be radiant;
let your faces not be abashed.
This poor man called; the Lord heard him
and rescued him from all his distress.
The angel of the Lord is encamped
around those who revere him, to rescue them.
Taste and see that the Lord is good.
He is happy who seeks refuge in him,
Revere the Lord, you his saints.
They lack nothing, those who revere him.
Strong lions suffer want and go hungry
but those who seek the Lord lack no blessing.
Come, children, and hear me
that I may teach you the fear of the Lord.
Who is he who long for life
and many days to enjoy his prosperity?
Then keep your tongue from evil
and you lips from speaking deceit.
Turn aside the evil and do good;
seek and strive after peace.
The Lord turns his face against the wicked
to destroy their remembrance from the earth.
The Lord turns his eyes to the just
and his ears to their appeal.
They call and the Lord hears
and rescues them all in their distress.
The Lord is close to the broken-hearted;
those whose spirit is crushed he will save.
Many are the trials of the just man
but from them all the Lord will rescue him.
He will keep guard over all his bones,
not one of his bones shall be broken.
Evil brings death to the wicked;
those who hate the good and doomed.
The Lord ransoms the souls of his servants.
Those who hide in him shall not be condemned.
Second Reading
Ephesians 5,15-20
So be very careful about the sort of lives you lead, like intelligent and not like senseless people. Make the best of the present time, for it is a wicked age. This is why you must not be thoughtless but must recognise what is the will of the Lord. Do not get drunk with wine; this is simply dissipation; be filled with the Spirit. Sing psalms and hymns and inspired songs among yourselves, singing and chanting to the Lord in your hearts, always and everywhere giving thanks to God who is our Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Reading of the Gospel
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
John 6,51-58
I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.' Then the Jews started arguing among themselves, 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' Jesus replied to them: In all truth 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. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise that person up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in that person. As the living Father sent me and I draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will also draw life from me. This is the bread which has come down from heaven; it is not like the bread our ancestors ate: they are dead, but anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Homily
Jesus says, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." In the memory of the listeners resounded many passages in which communion with God was expressed through the image of a banquet. In the book of Proverbs, it is written that Wisdom prepares a banquet and invites all, "Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight" (9:5-6). With the theme of the banquet, Jesus was gathering the Scriptures and fulfilling them, he clarified that the bread of that banquet was himself, his body. "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" They were discussing what he meant by these words. But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, is even more explicit and says, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." Jesus' language is very concrete, even outrageously blunt. "The flesh and blood" indicated the whole person, his life, his story. Jesus offers himself to his listeners; we could say in the more realistic sense of the term that he offers himself as food for everyone. Truly, Jesus does not want to keep anything for himself and he offers his entire life for men and women. The Eucharist, this awesome gift the Lord has left to His Church, makes our mysterious, and very intimate, communion with him real. Paul, with energy, says to the Christians in Corinth, "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?" (1 Cor 10:16). All this raises questions about our path to the Eucharist. Unfortunately, many times we acquiesce in a tired habit that deprives those who take communion from tasting the sweetness of this tender and sublime mystery of love. It is such a high mystery of love that everyone should always and anyhow think ourselves to be unworthy to receive it. It is a truth we very often forget. It is the Lord who comes towards us. It is he who comes close to us to the point of becoming food and drink for us. The attitude that we should have in approaching the Eucharist is that of a beggar who stretches out his or her hand, a beggar of love, of a beggar of healing, of a beggar of comfort and support.
The ancient stories say that a woman went to the fathers in the desert and confessed that she was assaulted by terrible temptations, and that often they overwhelmed her. The holy monk asked her how long she was not receiving Communion. She said that it has been several months since she last received the Holy Eucharist. The monk answered her more or less with these words, "Try not to eat at all for several months, and then you will tell me how you feel!" The woman understood what the monk told her, and she started to receive communion regularly. Eucharist is the essential food for the life of the believer; more so, it is one's very life, as Jesus himself says at the end of his speech, "Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me." The Lord seems not to ask us anything else but to answer his invitation and taste the sweetness and strength of this bread that he freely and abundantly continues to give us.
Prayer is the heart of the life of the Community of Sant'Egidio and is its absolute priority. At the end of the day, every the Community of Sant'Egidio, large or small, gathers around the Lord to listen to his Word. The Word of God and the prayer are, in fact, the very basis of the whole life of the Community. The disciples cannot do other than remain at the feet of Jesus, as did Mary of Bethany, to receive his love and learn his ways (Phil. 2:5).
So every evening, when the Community returns to the feet of the Lord, it repeats the words of the anonymous disciple: " Lord, teach us how to pray". Jesus, Master of prayer, continues to answer: "When you pray, say: Abba, Father". It is not a simple exhortation, it is much more. With these words Jesus lets the disciples participate in his own relationship with the Father. Therefore in prayer, the fact of being children of the Father who is in heaven, comes before the words we may say. So praying is above all a way of being! That is to say we are children who turn with faith to the Father, certain that they will be heard.
Jesus teaches us to call God "Our Father". And not simply "Father" or "My Father". Disciples, even when they pray on their own, are never isolated nor they are orphans; they are always members of the Lord's family.
In praying together, beside the mystery of being children of God, there is also the mystery of brotherhood, as the Father of the Church said: "You cannot have God as father without having the church as mother". When praying together, the Holy Spirit assembles the disciples in the upper room together with Mary, the Lord's mother, so that they may direct their gaze towards the Lord's face and learn from Him the secret of his Heart.
The Communities of Sant'Egidio all over the world gather in the various places of prayer and lay before the Lord the hopes and the sufferings of the tired, exhausted crowds of which the Gospel speaks ( Mat. 9: 3-7 ), In these ancient crowds we can see the huge masses of the modern cities, the millions of refugees who continue to flee their countries, the poor, relegated to the very fringe of life and all those who are waiting for someone to take care of them. Praying together includes the cry, the invocation, the aspiration, the desire for peace, the healing and salvation of the men and women of this world. Prayer is never in vain; it rises ceaselessly to the Lord so that anguish is turned into hope, tears into joy, despair into happiness, and solitude into communion. May the Kingdom of God come soon among people!
For the sick, in memory of the dead, for peace
