Memorial of the death of Gandhi, killed in1948 in New Delhi. With him we remember all those who, in the name of non-violence, are peacemakers.

Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Mark 4,35-41

With the coming of evening that same day, he said to them, 'Let us cross over to the other side.' And leaving the crowd behind they took him, just as he was, in the boat; and there were other boats with him. Then it began to blow a great gale and the waves were breaking into the boat so that it was almost swamped. But he was in the stern, his head on the cushion, asleep. They woke him and said to him, 'Master, do you not care? We are lost!' And he woke up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Quiet now! Be calm!' And the wind dropped, and there followed a great calm. Then he said to them, 'Why are you so frightened? Have you still no faith?' They were overcome with awe and said to one another, 'Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him.'

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Gospel of Mark continues to present Jesus walking through the streets of the world. There is in him un unstoppable urgency to communicate the Gospel to everyone. For this reason, he does not stop in places that may be more secure and reliable. He says to his disciples, "Let us go across to the other side." The other side in the Gospel of Mark refers to the pagan world, of those who are far from faith in the God of Israel. The disciples would not have gone there alone, just as we find it hard to go towards those whom we believe are distant or not suitable to receive the Gospel of Jesus. We all know the temptation to stop along the boundaries that are known to us, the usual and warm horizons. Jesus broadens our hearts and our minds from the start. There is an urgency for universality that Jesus communicates to the disciples and that manifests itself with varied intensity through the passage of the centuries. Today, in a globalized world, which has dramatically discovered its own fragility, that urgency is still even more evident. Globalisation, which made us accept an often senseless development that caused cruel inequalities, today needs to be marked by effective solidarity and by a development that leaves no one behind. Yes, never before the whole world needs to "pass to the other side," that of fraternity, of solidarity between peoples. And Christians have a crucial task on this horizon. We need to welcome the invitation of Jesus like his first disciples did. Mark writes: "And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was." During the crossing, as often happens in the lake of Galilee, there was a storm. It is easy to read in this storm the many storms that hits nations in our time and devastate the existence of many. We often dwell on our small psychological agitations. In the cry of the disciples we hear the echo of the cry of many men and many women whose lives are overwhelmed by the waves of evil. This cry often also collects the feeling of powerlessness and the resignation of someone who, overwhelmed by the storms of life, ends up believing that the Lord is far away, asleep and not keeping watch over them. Pope Francis gathered this cry during the pandemic of the coronavirus and addressed it to the Lord in the empty St. Peter Square. With him we too gather the cries of those who suffer and we transform them in prayer to the Lord so that, like that time, he can get up, rebuke the winds and the sea saying, "Peace! Be still!" And thus, men and women who have been hit hard by evil may reach the other side, to the shore of peace.