Twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time Lees meer
Twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time
First Reading
Isaiah 50,5-9
Lord Yahweh has opened my ear and I have not resisted, I have not turned away. I have offered my back to those who struck me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; I have not turned my face away from insult and spitting. Lord Yahweh comes to my help, this is why insult has not touched me, this is why I have set my face like flint and know that I shall not be put to shame. He who grants me saving justice is near! Who will bring a case against me? Let us appear in court together! Who has a case against me? Let him approach me! Look, Lord Yahweh is coming to my help! Who dares condemn me? Look at them, all falling apart like moth-eaten clothes!
Psalmody
Psalm 114
Antiphon
The Lord has freed me from death.
I love the Lord for he has heard
the cry of my appeal;
for he turned his ear to me
in the day when I called him.
The surround me, the snares of death,
with the anguish of the tomb;
they caught me, sorrow and distress.
I called on the Lord's name.
O Lord my God, delivery me!
How gracious is the Lord, and just;
our god has compassion.
The Lord protects the simple hearts;
I was helpless so he saved me.
Turn back, my soul, to your rest
for the Lord has been good;
he has kept my soul from death,
and my feet from stumbling.
I will walk in the presence of the Lord
in the land of the living.
Second Reading
James 2,14-18
How does it help, my brothers, when someone who has never done a single good act claims to have faith? Will that faith bring salvation? If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, 'I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty,' without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that? In the same way faith, if good deeds do not go with it, is quite dead. But someone may say: So you have faith and I have good deeds? Show me this faith of yours without deeds, then! It is by my deeds that I will show you my faith.
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
Mark 8,27-35
Jesus and his disciples left for the villages round Caesarea Philippi. On the way he put this question to his disciples, 'Who do people say I am?' And they told him, 'John the Baptist, others Elijah, others again, one of the prophets.' 'But you,' he asked them, 'who do you say I am?' Peter spoke up and said to him, 'You are the Christ.' And he gave them strict orders not to tell anyone about him. Then he began to teach them that the Son of man was destined to suffer grievously, and to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again; and he said all this quite openly. Then, taking him aside, Peter tried to rebuke him. But, turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said to him, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are thinking not as God thinks, but as human beings do.' He called the people and his disciples to him and said, 'If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
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
"But who is this Jesus of Nazareth?" No doubt that we are dealing with a fundamental issue; it was so in Jesus' time, and it does not cease to be so in our time. In Mark's Gospel, this question even occupies the "physical" centre of the narrative; it is that determinative. We have come to the eighth of the sixteen chapters that comprise Mark's Gospel. In effect, the evangelist makes us arrive at a decisive watershed. The scene takes place in Upper Galilee, as Jesus makes the rounds in the villages in the region of Caesarea Philippi, a city located quite far from Jerusalem, in the midst of an almost totally pagan region. The evangelist wants to suggest that from here decisively begins Jesus' way towards the holy city. From this moment, Jesus "openly" speaks with the disciples, with nothing to hold him back (v. 32). Making his way, he asks them about the people's opinion concerning him. As one can see, it is Jesus himself who poses, in the middle of the narrative, the "central question" of the whole Gospel, the problem of his identity.
Substantially, one could say, people evaluate him positively and, partially, come close to his identity. All agree that, with Jesus, there is the finger of God, but the judgment is not clear in spite of all the admiration they have for him as a great doer of good and healer. This is why Jesus ignores the people's opinion and intentionally directs the question to the disciples, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answers him openly and unequivocally, "You are the Messiah!" (Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew "Messiah," which literally means "one who is consecrated"). This seems to be the answer that Jesus at last expected.
Jesus, at the words which acknowledged him as Messiah, begins to speak about his passion (he will speak two other times about it after this). He says that the Son of man must suffer much, be rejected by the elders of the people, by the high priests and scribes; then be killed and rise on the third day. Peter, hearing these words, takes Jesus apart and begins to scold him. He had recognized the incomparable greatness of Jesus to the extent of using the greatest title at his disposal, but he could not accept the "end" that Jesus had presented to them. And it is here that two concepts of the Messiah collide: that of Peter, connected to strength, to power which overcomes, to the establishment of a political kingdom; the other one, that of Jesus, marked by humbling himself to the point of death which will nevertheless end in resurrection.
The disciple who, speaking for the others, recognized Jesus as Messiah now becomes an adversary; Jesus cannot but reprove him in front of the others. With astonishing harshness, he tells Peter, "Get behind me, Satan!" These are words analogous to those we find in Matthew's Gospel at the end of the temptations in the desert. In both cases, Jesus is pushed to give a political connotation to his messiahship, that it might attain to power and lordship of an earthly sort. It is certainly difficult to accept a Messiah who chooses the way of the cross and of lowering oneself; and yet, this is precisely God's way. Jesus, calling the crowd who followed him, says that if anyone wants to become his disciple, he or she must deny himself or herself, take up his or her own cross and follow him. And he adds: whoever thus loses his or her life, really saves it. All this will be clarified on the day of Jesus' resurrection. But already now, also for us, the way of service of the Gospel and of the Lord is the way to fully live according to God. And it will never be permitted to anyone to distort the path trod by Jesus.
Het gebed is het hart van het leven van de Gemeenschap van Sant’Egidio. Het is haar eerste “werk”. Aan het einde van de dag komt elke Gemeenschap, of die nu klein of groot is, samen bij de Heer om het Woord te beluisteren en zich tot Hem te richten in het gebed. De leerlingen kunnen niet anders dan aan de voeten van Jezus zitten, zoals Maria van Bethanië, om het “betere deel” te kiezen (Lc 10, 42) en van Hem zijn gezindheid te leren (vgl. Fil 2, 5).
Elke keer dat de Gemeenschap zich tot de Heer richt, maakt ze zich die vraag eigen van de anonieme leerling: “Heer, leer ons bidden!” (Lc 11, 1). En Jezus, meester in het gebed, antwoordt: “Wanneer jullie bidden, zeg dan: Abba, Vader”.
Wanneer we bidden, ook in de geslotenheid van ons eigen hart, zijn we nooit alleen of verweesd. Integendeel, we zijn leden van de familie van de Heer. In het gemeenschappelijk gebed wordt naast het mysterie van het kindschap, ook dat van de broederschap en zusterschap duidelijk.
De Gemeenschappen van Sant’Egidio, verspreid over de wereld, verzamelen zich op de verschillende plaatsen die gekozen zijn voor het gebed en brengen de hoop en het verdriet van de “uitgeputte en hulpeloze mensenmenigte” waarover het Evangelie spreekt (Mt 9, 37) bij de Heer. Deze oude menigte omvat de inwoners van onze hedendaagse steden, de armen die zich bevinden in de marge van het leven, en iedereen die wacht om als dagloner te worden aangenomen (vgl. Mt 20).
Het gemeenschappelijk gebed verzamelt de schreeuw, de hoop, het verlangen naar vrede, genezing, zin en redding, die beleefd worden door de mannen en vrouwen van deze wereld. Het gebed is nooit leeg. Het stijgt onophoudelijk op naar de Heer opdat verdriet verandert in vreugde, wanhoop in blijheid, angst in hoop, eenzaamheid in gemeenschap. En het rijk Gods zal spoedig temidden van de mensen komen.
