17th Sunday in Ordinary Time (year C) [27 July 2025]

May God bless us and the Virgin protect us! This time I have taken a little longer to present some important details of the readings in the NOTES, which are useful for personal meditation and for lectio divina during this holiday period.

*First Reading from the Book of Genesis (18:20-32)

This text marks a step forward in the idea that men have of their relationship with God: it is the first time that one dares to imagine that a man can intervene in God's plans. Unfortunately, the liturgical reading does not allow us to hear the previous verses in which we read that immediately after the encounter at the Oaks of Mamre, Abraham takes his leave, accompanying the three mysterious men to contemplate Sodom from above. The Lord, speaking to himself, says: 'Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, when Abraham is to become a great and powerful nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him?' (vv. 17-19). God takes the covenant he has just made very seriously, and it is here that what we might call 'the most beautiful negotiation in history' begins: Abraham, armed with all his courage, intercedes to try to save Sodom and Gomorrah from a punishment they certainly deserve. In essence, he asks if God really wants to destroy these cities even if he finds at least fifty righteous people, or only forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, ten. What audacity! Yet, apparently, God accepts that man should act as his interlocutor: at no point does the Lord seem impatient and, indeed, he responds each time exactly as Abraham hoped. Perhaps God appreciates that Abraham has such a high opinion of his justice. In this regard, it can be noted that this text was written at a time when people were beginning to become aware of individual responsibility: in fact, Abraham would be scandalised by the idea that the righteous could be punished together with sinners and for their sins. We are far from the time when an entire family was eliminated for the sins of one. The great discovery of individual responsibility dates back to the prophet Ezekiel and the period of the Babylonian exile, i.e. the 6th century BC. We can therefore formulate a hypothesis about the composition of the chapter read today and last Sunday: it is a text written at a rather late date, although it derives from perhaps much older stories, whose oral or written form was not yet definitive. God loves it when people intercede for their brothers and sisters, as we can see with Moses: when the people made a 'golden calf' to worship immediately after swearing never to follow idols again. Moses intervened to beg God to forgive them, and God, who was waiting for nothing else, hastened to forgive them (Ex 32). Moses interceded for the people for whom he was responsible; Abraham, on the other hand, intercedes for pagans, and this is logical, after all, since he is the bearer of a blessing for all the families of the earth. This text is a great step forward in discovering the face of God, but it is only a stage, still within a logic of accounting: how many righteous people will it take to obtain forgiveness for sinners? The final theological step will be to discover that with God it is never a matter of payment. His justice has nothing to do with a scale, whose two pans must be perfectly balanced, and this is what St. Paul will try to make us understand in this Sunday's passage from the Letter to the Colossians. This text from Genesis is also a beautiful lesson on prayer, which is offered to us on the day when Luke's Gospel recounts Jesus' teaching on prayer, beginning with the Our Father, the plural prayer par excellence, which invites us to open our hearts to the whole of humanity. 

NOTE: Development of the notion of God's justice in the Bible: In the beginning, it was considered normal for the whole group to pay for the fault of one: see the case of Achan in the time of Joshua (Joshua 7:16-25). In a second phase, it is imagined that each person pays for himself. Here, there is a new step forward: if ten righteous people are found, they can save an entire city. Jeremiah dares to go further: a single righteous person can obtain forgiveness for all: 'Go through the streets of Jerusalem, search for one man who acts justly... I will forgive the city' (Jer 5:1). Ezekiel also reasons in these terms: 'I sought for a man among them who would stand in the breach before me... but I found none' (Ezek 22:30). It is with the book of Job, among others, that the final step is taken: when it is finally understood that God's justice is synonymous with salvation, not punishment. Jeremiah even goes so far as to invoke unconditional forgiveness, based solely on God's greatness: "If our sins testify against us, act, Lord, for the honour of your name!" (Jer 14:7-9). Before God, just like Jeremiah, Abraham understood that sinners have no other argument than God himself! Finally, note Abraham's optimism, which fully earns him the title of "father of faith": he continues to believe that all is not lost, that not all are lost. Even in a city as horrible as Sodom, he is convinced that there are at least ten good men!

Responsorial Psalm (137/138), 1-2a, 2bc-3, 6-7ab, 7c-8)

This psalm is a song of thanksgiving for the Covenant that God offers to humanity: the Covenant made first with Israel, but also the Covenant open to all nations, and Israel's vocation is precisely to bring other nations into it. Three times 

: 'I give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart', 'I give thanks to your name for your love and your faithfulness', and – in verse 4, which we do not hear this Sunday – 'May all the kings of the earth give thanks to you'. Here we see a progression: first, it is Israel speaking on its own behalf: "I give you thanks, Lord, with all my heart"; then the reason is specified: "I give thanks to your name for your love and your faithfulness"; finally, it is the whole of humanity that enters into the Covenant and gives thanks: "May all the kings of the earth give thanks to you". 

Since we are talking about the Covenant, it is normal that there are allusions to the experience of Sinai and echoes of the great discovery of the burning bush when God told Moses that he had seen the misery of his people and had come down to free them (Ex 2:23-24). Echoing this, the psalm sings: "On the day I called, you answered me" (v. 3). Another reference to God's revelation at Sinai is the expression "your love and faithfulness" (v. 2): these are the same words with which God defined himself before Moses (Ex 34:6). The phrase "Your right hand saves me" (v. 7) is, for Jews, an allusion to the exodus from Egypt. The "right hand" is, of course, the right hand, and since Moses' song after the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea (Ex 15), it has become customary to speak of the victory that God obtained with a strong hand and a powerful arm (Ex 15:6, 12). The expression "Lord, your love is forever" (v. 8) also evokes all of God's work, particularly the Exodus, as in Psalm 135/136, whose refrain is: "For his love is forever." Another link between this psalm and Moses' song is the connection between the entire epic of the Exodus, the Covenant at Sinai, and the Temple in Jerusalem. Moses sang:

"The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him" (Ex 15:1-2, 13), and the psalm echoes:

"Not to the gods, but to you I will sing, I bow down toward your holy temple" (vv. 1-2) because the

Temple is the place where all God's work on behalf of his people is remembered. However, God's presence is not limited to a stone temple, but that temple, or what remains of it, is a permanent sign of that presence. And even today, wherever they are in the world, every Jew prays facing Jerusalem, towards the holy temple mountain, because it is the place chosen by God, in the time of King David, to offer his people a sign of his presence. Finally, God's greatness does not crush man, at least not those who recognise their own smallness: "The Lord is exalted, but he looks upon the humble; he recognises the proud from afar" (v. 6). This too is a great biblical theme: his greatness is manifested precisely in his goodness towards the smallness of man (cf. Wis 12:18) and Psalm 113/112: "He raises the weak from the dust, lifts the poor from the ash heap" and in the Magnificat: "He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the humble". The believer knows this and is amazed: God is great, he does not crush us, but on the contrary, he makes us grow.

These parallels, that is, the influence of Moses' song, the experience of Sinai from the burning bush to the exodus from Egypt and the Covenant, are found in many other psalms and biblical texts.

This shows how much this experience was – and remains – the foundation of Israel's faith.

Second Reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Colossians (2:12-14)

God has cancelled the document written against us (Col 2:14). Paul here refers to a widespread practice when money was borrowed: it was customary for the debtor to give the creditor a 'debt acknowledgement document'. Jesus also used this image in the parable of the dishonest steward. On the day his master threatens to fire him, he thinks of making friends for himself; to this end, he summons his master's debtors and says to each one, 'Here is your debt document; change the amount. Did you owe a hundred sacks of wheat? Write eighty' (Lk 16:7). As he often does, Paul uses the language of everyday life to express a theological thought. His reasoning is this: because of the seriousness of our sins, we can consider ourselves debtors to God. Moreover, in Judaism, sins were often called "debts"; and a Jewish prayer from the time of Jesus said: "In your great mercy, cancel all the documents that accuse us." Well, anyone who looks up at the cross of Christ discovers the extent of God's mercy for his children: with Him, it is not a matter of keeping accounts: 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do' is the prayer of the Son; but it is He himself who said, 'Whoever has seen me has seen the Father'. The body of Christ nailed to the cross shows that God is like this: He forgets all our wrongs, all our faults towards Him. His forgiveness is displayed before our eyes: "They will look on him whom they have pierced," said the prophet Zechariah (Zech 12:10; Jn 19:37). It is as if the document of our debt had been nailed to the cross of Christ. However, we are still surprised because this whole passage is written in the past tense: "buried with Christ in baptism, you have also been raised with him... with him God has given you life... forgiving us all our sins and cancelling the document written against us... he took it away by nailing it to the cross". 

NOTE Paul wants to affirm that the salvation of the world is already accomplished: this 'already-realised' salvation is one of the great themes of the Letter to the Colossians. The Christian community is already saved through baptism; it already participates in the heavenly reality. Here too we see an evolution with respect to some of Paul's earlier letters, such as 'We have been saved, but in hope' (Rom 8:24); "If we have been united with him in death, we will also be united with him in resurrection" (Rom 6:5). While the Letter to the Romans places the resurrection in the future, the Letters to the Colossians and Ephesians speak in the past tense, both of burial with Christ and of resurrection as an already present reality. “When we were dead in our sins, he made us alive with Christ – by grace you are saved –; with him he raised us up and seated us in the heavens in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:5-6). “You were buried with Christ, with him you were also raised... You were dead... but God gave you life with Christ.” For Paul, baptism is like a second birth, and his insistence that salvation has already taken place through birth into a totally new life is probably also linked to the historical context: behind many expressions in the Letter, we can glimpse a climate of tension and conflict. The community in Colossae seems to be under dangerous influences, against which Paul wants to warn them: "Let no one deceive you with seductive words" (Col 2:4)... "Let no one trap you with empty and deceptive philosophy" (Col 2:8)... "Let no one judge you in matters of food and drink, or in regard to festivals or sabbaths" (Col 2:16). Thus, a recurring problem reappears in the background: how does one enter into salvation? Must one continue to strictly observe all Jewish law? Paul answers: through faith. This theme is present in many letters, and we find it clearly here as well (v. 12): buried in baptism with Christ... raised... through faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead. The Letter to the Ephesians repeats it even more clearly: 'It is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. It is not the result of works, so that no one can boast.' (Eph 2:8-9) Life with Christ in the glory of the Father is not only a future hope, but a present experience of believers: an experience of new life, of divine life. From now on, if we want, Christ lives in us; and we are enabled to live the divine life of the risen Christ in our daily lives! This means that none of our old ways of acting is any longer an inevitable condemnation. Love, peace, justice, and sharing are possible. And if we do not believe this is possible, then we are saying that Christ has not saved us! Be careful! Until now, we have always spoken of the Letter to the Colossians as if Paul were the author; in reality, many exegetes believe that it was written by a disciple very close to Paul, inspired by his thought, but from a later generation. 

From the Gospel according to Luke (11:1-13)

It may come as a surprise, but Jesus did not invent the words of the Lord's Prayer: they come directly from Jewish liturgy and, more profoundly, from the Scriptures. Starting with the vocabulary, which is very biblical: Father, name, holy, kingdom, bread, sins, temptations... Let us begin with the first two questions: with great pedagogical skill, they are addressed first of all to God and teach us to say 'your name', 'your kingdom'. They educate our desire and commit us to collaborate in the growth of his kingdom. The Our Father, probably taught by Jesus in Aramaic, 'Abun d'bashmaya... nethqadash shimukin', which recalls liturgical Hebrew, is a school of prayer, or if you prefer, a method for learning to pray: let us not forget the disciple's request that immediately precedes it: 'Lord, teach us to pray' (v. 1). Well, if we follow Jesus' method, thanks to the Lord's Prayer, we will end up knowing how to speak the language of God, whose first word is Father. The invocation 'Our Father' immediately places us in a filial relationship with God and was already present in the Old Testament: 'You, Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from everlasting'. (Is 63:16). The first two questions concern the name and the kingdom. "Hallowed be thy name": in the Bible, the name represents the person himself; to say that God is holy (kadosh / shmokh in Aramaic - separate) is to affirm that He is "beyond everything, and this request means: "Make yourself known as God". "Thy kingdom come": repeated every day, this question will transform us into workers in the Kingdom. God's will, as we know, is that humanity, gathered in his love, should become queen of creation: 'Fill the earth and subdue it' (Gen 1:27), and believers await the day when God will be recognised as king over all the earth, as the prophet Zechariah announced: 'The Lord will be king over all the earth' (Zech 14:9). Our prayer, our method of learning the language of God, will make us people who desire above all else that God be recognised, adored and loved, that everyone recognise him as Father, passionate about evangelisation and the Kingdom of God. The next three questions concern daily life: "Give us", "Forgive us", "Do not abandon us to temptation". God never ceases to do all this, and we place ourselves in an attitude of acceptance of his gifts. "Give us this day our daily bread" (τὸν ἐπιούσιον): the manna that fell every morning in the desert taught the people to trust day by day, and this request invites us not to worry about tomorrow and to receive food each day as a gift from God: here bread has various meanings, including the Eucharistic bread, as I will explain in the Note, and the plural "our bread" invites us to share the Father's concern to feed all his children. "Forgive us our sins, for we too forgive everyone who is indebted to us": God's forgiveness is not conditioned by our behaviour, and fraternal forgiveness does not buy God's forgiveness, but is the only way to enter into the divine forgiveness that is already given: those who have a closed heart cannot receive God's gifts. "Do not abandon us to temptation." Here there is a translation problem, because – once again – Hebrew grammar is different from ours: the verb used in the Hebrew prayer means "do not let us enter into temptation." This refers to every temptation, of course, but above all to the most serious one, the temptation to doubt God's love. The whole of life is involved in the Lord's Prayer: speaking the language of God means knowing how to ask, and asking is not only permitted but recommended because it is an exercise in humility and trust. Nor are these just any requests: bread, forgiveness, strength against temptation. All the requests are in the plural, and each of us makes them on behalf of the whole of humanity. Ultimately, there is a close connection between the first petitions of the Lord's Prayer and the subsequent ones: we ask God for what we need to fulfil our baptismal mission: Give us all we need – bread and love – and protect us, so that we may have the strength to proclaim your Kingdom. The Gospel immediately follows with the parable of the importunate friend who invites us never to stop praying, certain that the heavenly Father always gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask him (v. 13), so that even if our problems are not solved with a wave of a magic wand, we will no longer experience them alone but together with Him.

NOTE 

1 – Regarding 'bread' in verse 3: the same adjective is found in a prayer in the Book of Proverbs: 'Give me neither poverty nor riches; give me only my daily bread' (Pr 30:8).  

2 The term bread τὸν ἐπιούσιον, a very rare adjective, is a hapax legomenon, i.e. it appears only here (and in Mt 6:11), and is not found elsewhere in classical Greek literature or in the LXX (Septuagint). There are many interpretations, but ἐπιούσιος remains enigmatic and carries with it a wealth of meanings: the material bread necessary for daily life; spiritual bread, that is, the Word of God and the Eucharist, the sign of daily trust in the Providence of the Father. Some exegetes read it as 'bread for the day that is coming', thus a confident invocation for the immediate future. 

3. Jesus takes the Our Father directly from the Jewish liturgy, and here are some Jewish prayers that are at its origin: 'Our Father who art in heaven' (Mishnah Yoma, common invocation); 'May your name be sanctified in the world you have created according to your will' (Qaddish, Qedushah and Shemoné Esré); May your kingdom come quickly and be recognised throughout the world... May your will be done in heaven and on earth... Give us our daily bread...

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us... Lead us not into temptation... Yours is the greatness, the power, the glory... (1 Chr 29:11)

4. The final doxology of the Lord's Prayer: Many Christian groups, well before the Second Vatican Council, recited at the end of the Lord's Prayer: Yours is the kingdom, yours is the power and glory forever. This "doxology" (word of praise) is found in some manuscripts of Matthew, and is probably derived from a very ancient liturgical use, already in the first century, but dating back even further, to David's prayer (cf. Chronicles 29:11).

5. On the importance of prayers of petition, I echo an interesting image proposed by Duns Scotus: imagine a boat on the sea; on the shore there is a rock, on which there is a ring, and another ring on the boat, tied together with a rope The man who prays is like someone in the boat pulling on the rope: he does not pull the rock towards himself, but brings himself – and the boat – closer to the rock.

+ Giovanni D'Ercole

(Mt 20:17-28)

The Roman Empire subjugated the Mediterranean basin with the strength of the Legions.

Through a large base of slaves and tributes, it concentrated titles and wealth in the hands of small circles - with abuse of power and coercion.

The new Kingdom must be the seed of an alternative society.

The pivot will be to regain a kind of synthesis of Jesus' life in order to make it one's own, as expressed in v.28.

Three titles are enunciated here that gave rise to Christology:

«Son of man» is the One who manifested man in the divine condition: fullness of humanity that reflects and reveals the very intimate life of God.

Figure of an accessible and transmissible "holiness", fully embodied -  day-to-day even.

Son of man is in fact the authentic and full development of the person according to the active Dream of the Father, which sweeps away the obsessive "yoke" of the common religion - expanding life (and the ego boundaries).

In adhering to the «Son of man» we are introduced as protagonists into salvation history.

Collaborators in the apex of Creation - that is, in the process of love. And we are detached from the pre-human of competitions [a warlike condition for supremacy’s desire].

«Servant» of Yahweh: Righteous who suffers pains of Love, to save us - an icon of the subdued and wise strength of the Father who through his sons expresses himself not as a conqueror, but as a meek lamb.

Sacrificial icon - in the ancient sense of «sacrum facere», to make Sacred - to revive a people unable to go to God through their brothers.

In Judaism, the ‘death of the righteous’ - even in the legal dimension of the Torah - was equal to a ransom, already understood as reparation-atonement for the multitude (v.28) of the guilty (cf. Is 53:11-12).

In Christ the vicarious mechanism vanishes: the Father sends the Son not as an external or propitiatory victim, necessary and predestined, but to make us reflect, first step in humanization.

Thus recovering the dimension of awareness and Communion [conviviality of differences].

Hence: the only title of "pre-eminence" remains that of «Go'el»: making oneself (each) «close relative» who takes on all debt for the ransom of others, for the restoration of personal dignity - and total self-possession.

Full brotherhood with women and men of all conditions: should be the growing programme of the Apostle.

Despite the disproportion, only this reversal of the Face is at the center of history and doesn’t lower God to the level of banal ‘domination’.

Turning and Freedom that becomes a permanent program of effective solidarity, and stimulates fervor.

Determining Principle of the new Kingdom, where ambitions are not chased.

Rather, the Master’s fate is shared, that is, «drinking the same Chalice» (vv. 22-23) and the destiny of others’ fulfillment; even paradoxical.

In Christ, the Church-Family people proceed towards Jerusalem, without merits or functions that claim a right - but with the keys of ‘life’.

This is how we concretely find ourselves «on the right and left» (vv. 21.23) of the royal Crucified One - and in mystical Union with the wounded Risen One.

By ascending together.

[St James the Apostle, July 25]

The anti-ambition or the front row in the pattern of satraps

(Mt 20:20-28)

Unofficially, Pius VII tried to lift the triregnum (neoclassical style, unusual) given to him by Napoleon, but his pages could hardly lift it up because of the weight.

Let alone carry 8 kilos and 200 grams on his head! He even tried to put it on, however, while of course someone also supported him from the side [imagine if he had fallen on his red slippers].

But it was also too tight: impossible to get your head into it!

Out of spite, Bonaparte the new emperor had it made so that no pope could ever wear it; and so it was, the ironic museum piece.

The imposition formula was: 'Receive the Tiara adorned with three crowns, and know that Thou art Father of Princes and Kings, Ruler of the world, Vicar on earth of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

While amidst symphonies and choirs some were waiting for the moment of the tiara to weep a little over the ancient splendours, at the celebration of the reopening of the Council - after the coronation - Paul VI finally laid the triregnum on the papal altar.

He took it off with satisfaction, not because it was uncomfortable (he had a good four and a half kilos on his head): later he also made other gestures of unexpected renunciation with demands to be obeyed.

After him, no pope had the courage to adorn himself.

It was an opportunity not to be missed by anyone with vast experience of curial and diplomatic circles.

With in his fist the keys of Heaven, the reins of the earth and the command of Purgatory [the three crowns], the pontiff decided to bring up several flames from underground - to overheat the strains of some careerist from the sidelines, accustomed to directing souls by standing on top of any trunk.

Pope Francis speaks explicitly of clericalism as the root of all the Church's moral evils [if we do not get the grace of principality, it would not hurt to at least aspire to the roles of those who stand beside the leaders: v.21].

Like the ambition of the sons of Zebedee, among us it is all a scramble for a place in the sun - a very serious and radical deficiency, incapable of any activity of critical prophecy.

A false concept of the kingdom: that is why the plane is often off course, which does not bode well for ambitious leaders, always strangely in the race.

(Never shrink back and let the faithful or brethren think of us as idiots who do not 'reap' and therefore do not know how to be in the world).

Officially united to the Offering of the Servant Son, in fact not everyone believes that in the weakness of the believer stands out the divine Power and authentic Esteem that builds the fabric of the present and launches the future.

So much for the dreamers of Neverland: to so many it seems more dignified to presume upon oneself.

It is better to think that the glorious Cross of Christ is a momentary parenthesis and entirely his own, the fruit of a pre-established plan or of a blind destiny, so that the humiliation of making oneself small does not touch us.

Behind the good manners, bad habits creep in - and greed, which through fixed privileges leads the churches to the loss of meaning and cohesion.

With a trail of life annuities [lifelong prerogatives and titles, with no possibility of ministerial replacement, no checks and balances].

Those who aim for visibility and trunks have no real interest in people, except for their co-opted elite.

They think calculatingly and act according to vanity: displaying their 'spiritual' rank, with an artificial sense of honour, and pre-eminence, arrogance, spin.

Let us imagine the inscrutable quality of pastoral proposals deprived of the conviction of another Waiting, enlightening. Sometimes set up for greater external shine, and self-congratulation; promoting numbers, window-dressing, and catwalks.

The Empire subjugated the Mediterranean basin with the strength of the Legions. Through a vast slave and tribute base, it concentrated titles and wealth in the hands of small circles - with abuse of power and coercion.

The new kingdom must be the seed of an alternative society.

And when the archetype of the pyramidal Church falls apart, a victim of its own internal contradictions, we must be ready to offer people a model of coexistence that no longer disintegrates [with its own boomerangs].

The pivot will be to re-appropriate a kind of synthesis of Jesus' life to make it our own, as expressed in v.28.

Three titles are enunciated here that gave rise to Christology:

"Son of Man" is the One who manifested man in the divine condition: fullness of humanity that reflects and reveals God's own intimate life.

He is the figure of an accessible and transmissible 'holiness', all incarnate - even summary.Son of Man is in fact the authentic and full development of the person according to the active Dream of the Father, which sweeps away the obsessive "Yoke" of common Religion - dilating life (and the boundaries of the ego).

In joining the "Son of Man" we are introduced as protagonists in salvation history.

Collaborators in the pinnacle of Creation - that is, in the process of love. And we are detached from the pre-human of competitions [belligerent condition of lust for supremacy].

"Yahweh's 'Servant': Righteous One who suffers the pains of Love, in order to save us - icon of the Father's resigned and wise strength, who through his sons reveals himself not as victor, but as a meek lamb.

Sacrificial icon - in the ancient sense of 'sacrum facere', to make sacred - to raise up a people unable to go to God through their brothers.

In Judaism, the death of the righteous - even in the juridical dimension of the Torah - was equal to a ransom, already understood as reparation-expiation for the multitude (v.28) of the guilty (cf. Is 53:11-12).

In Christ the vicarious mechanism vanishes: the Father sends the Son not as an external or propitiatory victim, necessary and predestined, but to make us reflect, the first step of humanisation.

Thus recovering the dimension of awareness and Communion [i.e. conviviality of differences].

Hence: the only title of "pre-eminence" remains that of "Go'el": to make oneself (each one) a "Next of kin" who takes on every debt for the redemption of others, for the restoration of personal dignity and total self-possession.

Full fraternity with woman and man of every condition should be the apostle's growing programme.

Unusual instrument of 'excellence' or 'eminence' - yet frankly sapiential, according to nature:

Even the Tao Tê Ching (LII) states: 'Enlightenment, is to see the small; strength, is to stick to softness'.

Despite the disproportion, only this turning of the Face stands at the centre of the story and does not lower God to the level of trivial domination.

Reversal and Freedom that becomes a permanent programme of active solidarity, and stimulates fervour.

Determining principle of the new Kingdom, where one does not chase ambitions.

Rather, one shares the Master's fate, that is, "drinking the same cup" (vv.22-23) and the destiny of others' fulfilment, even paradoxical.

In Christ, the people of the Church-Family proceed towards Jerusalem, without merits or functions that claim a right - but with the keys to life.

This is how one finds oneself concretely "on the right and left" (vv.21.23) of the royal Crucified One - and in mystical union with the wounded Risen One.

Ascending together.

Jesus presents himself as a servant, offering himself as a model to be imitated and followed.

In the Gospel we have just heard proclaimed there is offered a model to imitate and to follow. Against the background of the third prediction of the Passion, death and resurrection of the Son of Man, and in profound contrast to it, is placed the scene of the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, who are still pursuing dreams of glory beside Jesus. They ask him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory” (Mk 10:37). The response of Jesus is striking, and he asks an unexpected question: “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?” (Mk 10:38). The allusion is crystal clear: the chalice is that of the Passion, which Jesus accepts as the will of God. Serving God and others, self-giving: this is the logic which authentic faith imparts and develops in our daily lives and which is not the type of power and glory which belongs to this world.

By their request, James and John demonstrate that they do not understand the logic of the life to which Jesus witnesses, that logic which – according to the Master – must characterize the disciple in his spirit and in his actions. The erroneous logic is not the sole preserve of the two sons of Zebedee because, as the evangelist narrates, it also spreads to “the other ten” apostles who “began to be indignant at James and John” (Mk 10:41). They were indignant, because it is not easy to enter into the logic of the Gospel and to let go of power and glory. Saint John Chrysostom affirms that all of the apostles were imperfect, whether it was the two who wished to lift themselves above the other ten, or whether it was the ten who were jealous of them (“Commentary on Matthew”, 65, 4: PG 58, 619-622). Commenting on the parallel passages in the Gospel of Luke, Saint Cyril of Alexandria adds, “The disciples had fallen into human weakness and were discussing among themselves which one would be the leader and superior to the others… This happened and is recounted for our advantage… What happened to the holy Apostles can be understood by us as an incentive to humility” (“Commentary on Luke”, 12, 5, 24: PG 72, 912). This episode gives Jesus a way to address each of the disciples and “to call them to himself”, almost to pull them in, to form them into one indivisible body with him, and to indicate which is the path to real glory, that of God: “You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all” (Mk 10:42-44).

Dominion and service, egoism and altruism, possession and gift, self-interest and gratuitousness: these profoundly contrasting approaches confront each other in every age and place. There is no doubt about the path chosen by Jesus: he does not merely indicate it with words to the disciples of then and of today, but he lives it in his own flesh.

[Pope Benedict, address to the Consistory 18 February 2012]

St James!
Behold me here, once again, beside your tomb
which I approach today, a pilgrim of all the pathways of the earth,
to honour your memory and implore your protection.

I come from luminous and perennial Rome
to you who became a pilgrim, following the footprints of Christ
and who brought his name and his voice
to this farthest part of the earth.

I come from Peter's side
and, as his successor, I bring to you,
to you who, with him, are a pillar of the Church,
the fraternal embrace that traverses centuries
and the song which resounds firm and apostolic in its catholicity.

With me, St James, there is an immense and youthful flood
which has surged from springs in all the countries of the world.
Here, you have it, united and still in your presence,
anxious to refresh its faith in the vibrant example of your life.

We come to this blessed threshold in eager pilgrimage.
We come immersed in this great throng
which throughout the centuries
has led people to Compostela
where you are pilgrim and host, apostle and patron.

And we come today to you because we are on a common journey.
We are walking towards the end of a millennium
which we want to close with the seal of Christ.
We are going further still, to the beginning of a new millennium
which we want to open in the name of God.

St James,
for this pilgrimage of ours we need
your zeal and courage.
For this reason, to ask them of you, we have come
as far as this "finisterrae" of your apostolic adventures.

Teach us, apostle and friend of Our Lord,
the WAY which leads to him.
Open us, preacher of the lands of Spain,
to the TRUTH your learned from the Master's lips.
Give us, witness of the Gospel,
the strength always to love the LIFE .

Place yourself, patron of pilgrims,
at the head of our Christian youthful pilgrimage.
And just as, in the past, the peoples walked towards you,
may you be a pilgrim with us when we go to meet all peoples.
With you, St James, Apostle and Pilgrim,
we want to teach the nations of Europe and the world
that Christ is - today and always -
the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE.

[Pope John Paul II, prayer at the tomb of St James, Santiago 19 August 1989]

[The Jubilee Year 2021 dedicated to the Apostle James, whose remains, preserved in the Cathedral, are visited by countless pilgrims, has begun in Santiago de Compostela, in the region of Galicia, Spain. In the message sent by Francis, the invitation to a journey of conversion and solidarity with one's fellow travellers].

It opened on 31 December 2020, the Compostelan Year, a jubilee that is declared for the year in which 25 July, the memorial of St James the Martyr, falls on a Sunday. This will be the case in 2021. The theme of the event is "Come out of your land! The Apostle is waiting for you'.The announcement by the Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, Monsignor Julián Barrio Barrio to all the faithful speaks of "a year of grace and forgiveness" for all those who wish to participate. "In this third Holy Year of Compostela in the third millennium of Christianity," the archbishop continues, "the courageous witness of the apostle St James is an opportunity to rediscover the vitality of faith and mission, received at Baptism.

Pope Francis' message at the opening of the Holy Door

And it is to Monsignor Julián Barrio Barrio that the message that Pope Francis sent on the occasion of the opening of the Holy Door is addressed, to express his affection and closeness "to all those who participate in this moment of grace for the whole Church, and in particular for the Church in Spain and Europe". "Following in the footsteps of the Apostle," writes Pope Francis, "we leave our selves, those securities to which we cling, but with a clear objective in mind, we are not wandering beings, always revolving around ourselves without getting anywhere. It is the voice of the Lord that calls us and, as pilgrims, we welcome it in an attitude of listening and seeking, undertaking this journey to encounter God, others and ourselves".

God's mercy accompanies our journey

The destination, the Pope emphasises, is as important as the journey towards it, which is a journey of conversion following Jesus Way, Truth and Life. Quoting the Apostolic Letter "Misericordia et misera" of 20 November 2016, the text continues with a message that reassures: "On this journey God's mercy accompanies us and even if the condition of weakness due to sin remains, it is overcome by the love that allows us to look to the future with hope and to be ready to put our lives back on the right path.

We walk lightly and in company

To set out on the journey we must first of all detach ourselves from the things that weigh us down, but then in life we do not walk alone and relying on our companions without suspicion and mistrust "helps us to recognise in our neighbour a gift that God gives us to accompany us on this journey". It is a matter of "going out of ourselves to join with others", of expecting and supporting one another, sharing labours and achievements. At the end of the journey, the Pope writes, we will find ourselves with an empty rucksack, but with "a heart full of experiences forged in contrast and in harmony with the lives of our other brothers and sisters who come from different existential and cultural contexts". And rediscovering our duty to be missionary disciples "to call everyone to that homeland towards which we are moving".

The pilgrim communicates faith with his life

Francis describes the pilgrim as one who is capable of placing himself in God's hands, aware that the promised homeland is already present in Christ who is close to him and thus "touches the heart of his brother, without artifice, without propaganda, in the outstretched hand ready to give and to take". The three gestures that pilgrims make on arriving at the Holy Door, remind us of the reason for the journey, the Pope goes on to write: the first "is to contemplate in the Portico of Glory the serene gaze of Jesus, the merciful judge", who welcomes us into his home. The second is the embrace that comes to us from the image of the Apostle James who shows us the way of faith. Participation in the Eucharistic celebration, the third gesture, invites us "to feel that we are the people of God", called "to share the joy of the Gospel".

Ferment in the city of the Apostle

It was 1122 when the Holy Year originated and has been celebrated every 6, 5, 6 and 11 years since then. This makes about 14 jubilee years every century. The opening of the door of the Cathedral of Santiago, where the relics of the Apostle James, architect of the Hispanic evangelisation, are kept, is creating a restrained ferment in the Galician city. It is precisely to this land and its coasts that the silhouette of the scallop depicted in the event's logo, a universal symbol of the Way of Compostela, refers. It also features the emblematic cross of Santiago and a fan of rays representing brotherhood between peoples of all races and cultures. Millions of people undertake the pilgrimage along the Way - Europe's first cultural route and a World Heritage Site, one of the oldest and most important routes of Christianity - every year.

In the Cathedral a renewed beauty

In 2020, pilgrimages were suspended due to the pandemic, but the lockdown period was used to carry out restoration work on the Cathedral, which now shines with a more idealised illumination and everything glows with renewed beauty. And it is under the sign of the contemplation of beauty and hope, while the pilgrimages have officially resumed but the ongoing health emergency prevents the arrival of the walkers, that the Holy Year opens.

[Adriana Masotti and Antonella Palermo -  

https://www.vaticannews.va/it/papa/news/2021-01/il-papa-per-l-anno-compostelano.html]

Getting lost, for the transformation

(Mt 13:10-17)

St Paul expresses the sense of the "mystery of blindness" that contrasts him on the way with the famous expression «thorn in the side»: wherever he went, the enemies were ready; and unexpected disagreements.

This is also the case for us: fateful events, catastrophes, emergencies, the disintegration of old reassuring certainties - all external and swampy; until recently assessed with a sense of permanence.

Perhaps in the course of our existence, we have already realized that misunderstandings have been the best ways to reactivate ourselves, and introduce the energies of renewed Life.

These are those resources or situations that perhaps we would never have imagined allies of our own and others' realisation.

Says Erich Fromm:

«To live means to be born in every moment. Death is produced when one ceases to be born. Birth is therefore not an act; it is an uninterrupted process. The purpose of life is to be born fully, but the tragedy is that most of us die before we are truly born».

In fact, in the climate of unrest or absurd divergences [which oblige us to regenerate] sometimes appear out the most neglected intimate virtues.

New energies - looking for space - and external powers. Both malleable; unusual, unimaginable, heterodox.

But they find solutions, the real way out of our problems; the path to a future that is not a simple rearrangement of the previous situation, or how we imagined "it should have been and done".

Once a cycle is over, we begin a new phase; perhaps with greater rectitude and frankness - brighter and more natural, humanizing, close to the 'divine'.

Genuine and engaging contact with our deep states of being is acutely generated by detachments.

They bring us into dynamic dialogue with the eternal reservoirs of transmuting forces that inhabit us, and belong to us most.

Primordial experience that reaches straight to the heart.

Within us such a way “fishes” the creative, floating, unprecedented option.

In this way, the Lord conveys and opens up his proposal using ‘images’.

Arrow of Mystery that goes beyond the fragments of consciousness,  culture, procedures, and of what is common.

For a knowledge of oneself and the world that goes beyond that of history and the news; for active awareness of other contents.

Until labour and chaos itself guide the soul and force it to Another beginning, to a different gaze (all shifted), to an unprecedented understanding of ourselves and the world.

Well, the transformation of the universe cannot be the result of a cerebral or dirigiste teaching; rather, of a narrative exploration - which does not take people away from themselves.

And Jesus knows it.

[Thursday 16th wk. in O.T.  July 24, 2025]

This Gospel also puts the accent on Jesus’ preaching “method”, that is, on his use of parables. “Why do you speak to them in parables?”, his disciples ask (Mt 13:10). And Jesus answers distinguishing between them and the crowd: to his disciples — namely to those who have already decided for him — he can speak openly about the Kingdom of God, to others, instead, he must proclaim it in parables, precisely to encourage their decision, conversion of the heart; indeed, by their very nature parables demand the effort of interpretation, they not only challenge the mind but also freedom. St John Chrysostom explained: “And this he [Jesus] says to draw them unto him, and to provoke them and to signify that if they would covert he would heal them” (cf. Homily on the Gospel of Matthew, 45, 1-2).

Basically, God's true “Parable” is Jesus himself, his Person who, in the sign of humanity, hides and at the same time reveals his divinity. In this manner God does not force us to believe in him but attracts us to him with the truth and goodness of his incarnate Son: love, in fact, always respects freedom.

[Pope Benedict, Angelus, 10 July 2011]

1. “He left the house and sat by the sea” (Mt 13:1).
Jesus is the Master; he is also the Master in the way he looks at nature. In the Gospels, there are numerous passages that present him immersed in the natural environment, and if we pay attention, we can see in his behaviour a clear invitation to a contemplative attitude towards the wonders of creation. This is the case, for example, in this Sunday's Gospel account. We see Jesus sitting by the Sea of Tiberias, almost absorbed in meditation.
The divine Master, before dawn or after sunset, and at other decisive moments of his mission, loved to withdraw to a solitary and quiet place, apart from others (cf. Mt 14:23; Mk 1:35; Lk 5:16), so that he could be alone with his heavenly Father and talk with him. In those moments, he certainly did not fail to contemplate creation as well, to gather from it a reflection of divine beauty.
2. His disciples and a large crowd joined him on the shore of the lake. “He spoke to them at length in parables” (Mt 13:3). Jesus spoke “in parables”, that is, using events from everyday life and elements drawn from his contemplation of creation.
But why does Jesus speak "in parables"? This is what the disciples ask themselves, and we ask ourselves with them. The Master responds, echoing Isaiah: So that they may see but not perceive, hear but not understand (cf. Mt 13:13-15). What does this mean? Why speak in parables and not "openly" (cf. Jn 16:29)?
3. Dear brothers and sisters! In reality, creation itself is like a great parable. Is not everything that exists – the cosmos, the earth, living beings, man – a single, immense parable? And who is its author, if not God the Father, with whom Jesus converses in the silence of nature? Jesus speaks in parables because this is God's "style". The only-begotten Son has the same way of acting and speaking as his heavenly Father. Whoever sees him sees the Father (cf. Jn 14:9), whoever listens to him listens to the Father. And this concerns not only the content, but also the manner; not only what he says, but also how he says it.
Yes, the 'how' is important because it reveals the deep intention of the speaker. If the relationship is meant to be dialogical, the way of speaking must respect and promote the freedom of the interlocutor. This is why the Lord speaks in parables: so that those who listen may be free to accept his message; free not only to hear it, but above all to understand it, to interpret it and to recognise in it the intention of the One who speaks. God addresses man in such a way that it is possible to encounter him in freedom.
4. Creation is, so to speak, the great divine story. However, the profound meaning of this marvellous book of creation would have remained difficult for us to decipher if Jesus – the Word made man – had not come to 'explain it' to us, enabling our eyes to recognise more easily the imprint of the Creator in creatures.
Jesus is the Word that holds the meaning of all that exists. He is the Word in whom the 'name' of everything rests, from the smallest particle to the immense galaxies. He himself is therefore the 'Parable' full of grace and truth (cf. Jn 1:14), through which the Father reveals himself and his will, his mysterious plan of love and the ultimate meaning of history (cf. Eph 1:9-10). In Jesus, God has told us everything he had to say.
[Pope John Paul II, homily at St. Stephen of Cadore, 11 July 1993]