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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)
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Gospel text (Lk 16:19-31): Jesus said to the Pharisees: "There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores...."

Solidarity: to wake the “accustomed heart” up

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

Today, there are some scenarios we end up getting used to seeing and hearing. The big risk of getting accustomed is indifference: we are not surprised anymore by anything; nothing can give us a shake or question… Something similar may happen to us in relation to the sad scenario which is becoming more and more prominent in our streets (people of all ages begging or stirring the garbage, sleeping on the street corners…) and in our world (terrorism, war… ).

After getting accustomed comes indifference: we couldn’t care less about their lives, their history or their future. However, this is the word around us and whether if we, like it or not, are part of it.

_This accustomed heart of ours is awakened and rescued from the evil of indifference by the Church’s invitation to fasting: fasting that springs out of love and that takes us to a higher love. The fasting that God wants is not “turning our back to our brethren”. Fasting from the standpoint of solidarity! Today we can only fast toiling to stop others from fasting.