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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Wednesday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
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Gospel text (Lk 19:11-28): While people were listening to Jesus speak, he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem and they thought that the Kingdom of God would appear there immediately. So he said, “A nobleman went off to a distant country to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return. He called ten of his servants and gave them ten gold coins and told them, ‘Engage in trade with these until I return.’ His fellow citizens, however, despised him and sent a delegation after him to announce, ‘We do not want this man to be our king.’

But when he returned after obtaining the kingship, he had the servants called, to whom he had given the money, to learn what they had gained by trading (…). And to those standing by he said: (…) ‘I tell you, to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away’(…)."

Final states of man (I): "Hell"

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

Today —while avoiding speculation about His "triumph"— Jesus Christ asks us to "negotiate" the gift of our life. With death, our life-choice becomes definitive; at this point, nothing can be hidden or changed: our life stands before the judge. Our choice, which in the course of an entire life takes on a certain shape, can have a variety of forms, even the ultimate self-destruction.

There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie and people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves. This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word "Hell".

—Jesus, I wish Your "triumph" in my freedom: which is completely and always at Your service.