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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Saturday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
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Gospel text (Lk 6:43-49): Jesus said to his disciples: “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I command? I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, listens to my words, and acts on them. That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when the flood came, the river burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been well built..."

The "power" of Jesus: obedience to His Father

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, Christ reveals the source of His "power": perfect obedience to His Father. In Jesus Christ obedience is not a secondary, added, factor, but an essential one. His power does not have any limit from the outside, but a limit that comes from within: the will of the Father, freely consented to the point of renouncing himself totally.

Jesus becomes one with God, so God’s power becomes His own power. The power He now proclaims comes from the source of the Cross and therefore, is the antithesis of the arbitrary power of total possession, of total permission and of total possibility. The redemption of the world rests in the prayer of the Mount of Olives: "Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done", prayer that the Lord taught us in the "Lord’s Prayer".

—O Lord. do take and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my will, all my having and all my owning; You gave it to me, I give it back, O Lord, to You.