Contemplating today's Gospel
Today's Gospel + homily (in 300 words)
He is like a tree planted near running water, that yields its fruit in due season, and whose leaves never fade. Whatever he does, prospers.
Not so the wicked, not so; they are like chaff which the wind drives away. For the Lord watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked vanishes.
“Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!”
Fr. Enric RIBAS i Baciana (Barcelona, Spain)Today we relive the beatitudes and the misfortunes: “Blessed are you...,” if now you suffer in my name; “Woe to you...,” if you laugh now. Fidelity to Christ and to his Gospel makes us rejected, mocked in the media, hated, as Christ was hated and hung on the cross. Some think that this is due to the lack of faith of some, but perhaps – if you look closely – it is due to a lack of reason. The world does not want to think or be free; it lives immersed in the desire for wealth, for consumption, for libertarian indoctrination that is filled with vain, empty words where the value of the person is obscured and the teaching of Christ and the Church is mocked, since – today – it is the only thought that truly goes against the current. In spite of everything, the Lord Jesus gives us courage: “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. (...) your reward will be great in heaven” (Lk 6:22,23).
Saint John Paul II, in the encyclical Fides et Ratio, said: “It is faith which stirs reason to move beyond all isolation and willingly to run risks so that it may attain whatever is beautiful, good and true.” The Christian experience in its saints shows us the truth of the Gospel and of these words of the Holy Father. In the face of a world that takes pleasure in vice and selfishness as a source of happiness, Jesus shows us another way: the happiness of the Kingdom of God, which the world cannot understand, and which it hates and rejects. The Christian, in the midst of the temptations offered by the “easy life,” knows that the way is that of the love that Christ showed us on the cross, the way of fidelity to the Father. We know that in the midst of difficulties we cannot become discouraged. If we truly seek the Lord, let us rejoice and leap for joy (cf. Lk 6:23).
Thoughts on Today's Gospel
“Mercy wants you to be merciful; justice wants you to be just. In this way the Creator will appear in his own creature, and the image of God may shine in the mirror of the human heart.” (Saint Leo the Great)
“The Sermon on the Mount is addressed to the entire world, the entire present and future, and can be understood only by following Jesus and accompanying Him on his journey.” (Benedict XVI).
“The beatitude we are promised confronts us with decisive moral choices. It invites us to purify our hearts of bad instincts and to seek the love of God above all else (…)” (Catechism Of The Catholic Church, Nº 1723)