READING OF THE DAY First reading from the Book of Deuteronomy Dt 18:15-20
Moses spoke to all the people, saying: “A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you from among your own kin; to him you shall listen. This is exactly what you requested of the LORD, your God, at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let us not again hear the voice of the LORD, our God, nor see this great fire any more, lest we die.’ And the LORD said to me, ‘This was well said. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin, and will put my words into his mouth; he shall tell them all that I command him. Whoever will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it. But if a prophet presumes to speak in my name an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die.’” PSALM 95 "Come, let us cry out with joy to Yahweh, acclaim the rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving, acclaim him with music. For Yahweh is a great God, a king greater than all the gods. In his power are the depths of the earth, the peaks of the mountains are his; the sea belongs to him, for he made it, and the dry land, moulded by his hands.
Come, let us bow low and do reverence; kneel before Yahweh who made us! For he is our God, and we the people of his sheepfold, the flock of his hand. If only you would listen to him today! Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as at the time of Massah in the desert, when your ancestors challenged me, put me to the test, and saw what I could do!
For forty years that generation sickened me, and I said, 'Always fickle hearts; they cannot grasp my ways.' Then in my anger I swore they would never enter my place of rest."
Second reading from the First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians 1 Cor 7:32-35
Brothers and sisters: I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I am telling you this for your own benefit, not to impose a restraint upon you, but for the sake of propriety and adherence to the Lord without distraction.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY From the Gospel according to Mark Mk 1:21-28
Then they came to Capernaum, and on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet! Come out of him!” The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him. All were amazed and asked one another, “What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER The power of Jesus confirms the authority of His teaching. He does not just speak with words, but he takes action. In this way, He manifests God’s plan with words and with the power of His deeds. In the Gospel in fact, we see that in His earthly mission, Jesus reveals the love of God both through preaching and through countless gestures of attention and aid to the sick, the needy, children and sinners. Jesus is our Teacher, powerful in word and deed. Jesus imparts to us all the light that illuminates the sometimes dark paths of our lives. He also transmits to us the necessary strength to overcome difficulties, trials and temptations. Let us consider what a great grace it is for us to have known this God who is so powerful and so good! A teacher and a friend who shows us the path and takes care of us especially when we are in need. (Angelus, 28 January 2018)
FAUSTI - The Word, the principle of creation, is also the principle of redemption. Just as it has the power to call us to follow Him, it also has the power to defeat the spirit of evil within us. “ Shut up," Jesus says to the unclean spirit. We can say that the whole Gospel is an exorcism: it is a "logotherapy" in which the Word, by telling us our truth, heals us from the lie and restores our identity as children of the Father and brothers among us. Mark, after having told us Who is that Jesus who invites us after Him, now tells us in synthesis what He does for us: by the power of His Word He delivers us from evil (21-28) and sets us free for good (29-31) . In the artificial setting of a Sabbath day - for those who meet and follow Him, the Sabbath without sunset begins! - we receive a panorama of His activity, His Messianic program in the first Messianic day. The Word of Jesus has the power to move us too to follow Him, as it did with the four first disciples; and the first effect that it has on us who follow Him, is precisely that of freeing us from the spirit of evil. Exorcism is included in the twofold mention of the authority of Jesus' Word. Placed at the beginning, the exorcism has a programmatic value: all the activity of Jesus has as its purpose to to free man from the spirit of evil, which holds him in bondage. It is called an unclean spirit - for Israel, an unclean spirit is everything related to death. It is the opposite of the Spirit of God, lover of life (Wisdom 11,26). For Mark, he is first of all the tempter precisely because steals the Word, replacing in man the Word of God, which makes him His son, with the lie that distances him from Him, his life. Satan has his visible face in the wealth that seduces, is the god mammon. In exorcisms it is described as the one who possesses, alienates and tortures man. He is called satan, the devil, the evil one, the tempter, the prince of darkness, the father of lies (Jn 8:44). He is the prince of this world (Jn 14:30); it has its own kingdom and is strong; indeed, after sin, everything is placed in its hands. Having abandoned the source of his own self, man digs cisterns with difficulty, cracked cisterns that hold no water but dead water (Jeremiah 2:13). Having lost his own identity, he seeks it in what increasingly alienates him from himself: having, being powerful, appearing. Hence the growing dissatisfaction and disesteem of self, the loneliness, the mortal anguish, the desire of saving oneself, the unquenchable lusts, the insatiable egoism, the injustices, the wars and the rest. All this evil, once accomplished, remains, solidifies and organizes itself in structures that multiply iniquity - true machines of oppression, of which man, their factor, becomes a mechanism. In the end, he remains imprisoned in them like a worm in the cocoon that he himself has made. But this undue evil is not our definitive situation. Jesus came to defatalize history and return it to our hands. He frees us with the Word of Truth, capable of silencing the lie that is at the origin of our slavery, showing us our reality as children and that of God Who is Father. This is why exorcisms are the sign of the coming of the Kingdom, the end of man's slavery. Not to recognize this is to lie to the evidence, it is the sin against the Holy Spirit (3,26-30). Christ's death on the cross, defeated for love of those who kill Him, will be the definitive exorcism: by revealing who God is for man, satan's lie will be definitively won.
Diac. Lod. Giarlotto - After the call of the first four disciples (see last Sunday) Jesus establishes His residence in Capernaum and begins to teach and heal. The first one that Mark recounts represents the synthesis of all the action of Jesus on behalf of mankind. It is Saturday, the people go to the synagogue and Jesus, as is His custom, joins Himself to His people and gets up to do the readings followed by the explanation of the text. At the end of the homily a dramatic episode happens. A man possessed by an unclean spirit begins to inveigh against Jesus. The demon opens hostilities (it is always those who feel weaker who attack) because it has realized that the strong Man has arrived, capable of bringing down his kingdom and, frightened, shouts two questions: "What have you to do with us? Have you come to ruin us?" The plural pronoun is not surprising because there are many forces that keep man away from God and there are many powers that feel menaced by Jesus' Words. Jesus does not answer but gives two peremptory orders: "Shut up! Get out!". The unclean spirit obeys Him and all those present, amazed, realize that a prophet has risen in their midst, announcing a new doctrine, a Word that has the power of God in itself, that has authority, that is, it realizes what it says. When Jesus appears, everything changes, a prodigious transformation takes place in the man, because He speaks with authority and the reaction of the possessed is violent, it does not accept passively the order, resists, begins to scream because it wants to perpetuate the dominion over its victim. This struggle represents the rebellion of the forces of evil, of the demons that are present in man, in society, in ideologies. In the demoniac who remains good until the confrontation with Jesus, one can grasp the ability of the scribes, and of many Christians, to tame the protagonist of evil by yielding to the spirit of the world and to hypocrisy. As long as this lasts, in the Christian and in the Church, the evil one remains silent and lets it do its work; when, however, a prophetic voice is raised, when an authentic witness of faith and charity is offered, then it rebels and mobilizes all the energy it possesses. We have to ask ourselves if we still perceive, today, the sensation of novelty, of "good news" that comes to us from the Gospel, or if we consume the proposal without distinguishing it from the many that are made to us every day.
READING OF THE DAY
RispondiEliminaFirst reading from the Book of Deuteronomy
Dt 18:15-20
Moses spoke to all the people, saying:
“A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you
from among your own kin;
to him you shall listen.
This is exactly what you requested of the LORD, your God, at Horeb
on the day of the assembly, when you said,
‘Let us not again hear the voice of the LORD, our God,
nor see this great fire any more, lest we die.’
And the LORD said to me, ‘This was well said.
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin,
and will put my words into his mouth;
he shall tell them all that I command him.
Whoever will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name,
I myself will make him answer for it.
But if a prophet presumes to speak in my name
an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak,
or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die.’”
PSALM 95
"Come, let us cry out with joy to Yahweh, acclaim the rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving, acclaim him with music.
For Yahweh is a great God, a king greater than all the gods.
In his power are the depths of the earth, the peaks of the mountains are his;
the sea belongs to him, for he made it, and the dry land, moulded by his hands.
Come, let us bow low and do reverence; kneel before Yahweh who made us!
For he is our God, and we the people of his sheepfold, the flock of his hand.
If only you would listen to him today!
Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as at the time of Massah in the desert,
when your ancestors challenged me, put me to the test, and saw what I could do!
For forty years that generation sickened me, and I said,
'Always fickle hearts; they cannot grasp my ways.'
Then in my anger I swore they would never enter my place of rest."
Second reading from the First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians
1 Cor 7:32-35
Brothers and sisters:
I should like you to be free of anxieties.
An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord,
how he may please the Lord.
But a married man is anxious about the things of the world,
how he may please his wife, and he is divided.
An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord,
so that she may be holy in both body and spirit.
A married woman, on the other hand,
is anxious about the things of the world,
how she may please her husband.
I am telling you this for your own benefit,
not to impose a restraint upon you,
but for the sake of propriety
and adherence to the Lord without distraction.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY
From the Gospel according to Mark
Mk 1:21-28
Then they came to Capernaum,
and on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.
The people were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.
In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit;
he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”
Jesus rebuked him and said,
“Quiet! Come out of him!”
The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.
All were amazed and asked one another,
“What is this?
A new teaching with authority.
He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”
His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.
THE WORD OF THE LORD
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
RispondiEliminaThe power of Jesus confirms the authority of His teaching. He does not just speak with words, but he takes action. In this way, He manifests God’s plan with words and with the power of His deeds. In the Gospel in fact, we see that in His earthly mission, Jesus reveals the love of God both through preaching and through countless gestures of attention and aid to the sick, the needy, children and sinners. Jesus is our Teacher, powerful in word and deed. Jesus imparts to us all the light that illuminates the sometimes dark paths of our lives. He also transmits to us the necessary strength to overcome difficulties, trials and temptations. Let us consider what a great grace it is for us to have known this God who is so powerful and so good! A teacher and a friend who shows us the path and takes care of us especially when we are in need. (Angelus, 28 January 2018)
FAUSTI - The Word, the principle of creation, is also the principle of redemption. Just as it has the power to call us to follow Him, it also has the power to defeat the spirit of evil within us.
RispondiElimina“ Shut up," Jesus says to the unclean spirit. We can say that the whole Gospel is an exorcism: it is a "logotherapy" in which the Word, by telling us our truth, heals us from the lie and restores our identity as children of the Father and brothers among us. Mark, after having told us Who is that Jesus who invites us after Him, now tells us in synthesis what He does for us:
by the power of His Word He delivers us from evil (21-28) and sets us free for good (29-31) .
In the artificial setting of a Sabbath day - for those who meet and follow Him, the Sabbath without sunset begins! - we receive a panorama of His activity, His Messianic program in the first Messianic day.
The Word of Jesus has the power to move us too to follow Him, as it did with the four first disciples; and the first effect that it has on us who follow Him, is precisely that of freeing us from the spirit of evil.
Exorcism is included in the twofold mention of the authority of Jesus' Word.
Placed at the beginning, the exorcism has a programmatic value: all the activity of Jesus has as its purpose to
to free man from the spirit of evil, which holds him in bondage. It is called an unclean spirit - for Israel, an unclean spirit is everything related to death.
It is the opposite of the Spirit of God, lover of life (Wisdom 11,26).
For Mark, he is first of all the tempter precisely because steals the Word, replacing in man the Word of God, which makes him His son, with the lie that distances him from Him, his life.
Satan has his visible face in the wealth that seduces, is the god mammon.
In exorcisms it is described as the one who possesses, alienates and tortures man. He is called satan, the devil, the evil one, the tempter, the prince of darkness, the father of lies (Jn 8:44).
He is the prince of this world (Jn 14:30); it has its own kingdom and is strong; indeed, after sin, everything is placed in its hands.
Having abandoned the source of his own self, man digs cisterns with difficulty, cracked cisterns that hold no water but dead water (Jeremiah 2:13).
Having lost his own identity, he seeks it in what increasingly alienates him from himself: having, being powerful, appearing.
Hence the growing dissatisfaction and disesteem of self, the loneliness, the mortal anguish, the desire of saving oneself, the unquenchable lusts, the insatiable egoism, the injustices, the wars and the rest.
All this evil, once accomplished, remains, solidifies and organizes itself in structures that multiply iniquity - true machines of oppression, of which man, their factor, becomes a mechanism.
In the end, he remains imprisoned in them like a worm in the cocoon that he himself has made.
But this undue evil is not our definitive situation.
Jesus came to defatalize history and return it to our hands.
He frees us with the Word of Truth, capable of silencing the lie that is at the origin of our slavery, showing us our reality as children and that of God Who is Father.
This is why exorcisms are the sign of the coming of the Kingdom, the end of man's slavery.
Not to recognize this is to lie to the evidence, it is the sin against the Holy Spirit (3,26-30).
Christ's death on the cross, defeated for love of those who kill Him, will be the definitive exorcism: by revealing who God is for man, satan's lie will be definitively won.
Diac. Lod. Giarlotto - After the call of the first four disciples (see last Sunday) Jesus establishes His residence in Capernaum and begins to teach and heal. The first one that Mark recounts represents the synthesis of all the action of Jesus on behalf of mankind. It is Saturday, the people go to the synagogue and Jesus, as is His custom, joins Himself to His people and gets up to do the readings followed by the explanation of the text. At the end of the homily a dramatic episode happens. A man possessed by an unclean spirit begins to inveigh against Jesus. The demon opens hostilities (it is always those who feel weaker who attack) because it has realized that the strong Man has arrived, capable of bringing down his kingdom and, frightened, shouts two questions: "What have you to do with us? Have you come to ruin us?" The plural pronoun is not surprising because there are many forces that keep man away from God and there are many powers that feel menaced by Jesus' Words. Jesus does not answer but gives two peremptory orders: "Shut up! Get out!". The unclean spirit obeys Him and all those present, amazed, realize that a prophet has risen in their midst, announcing a new doctrine, a Word that has the power of God in itself, that has authority, that is, it realizes what it says.
RispondiEliminaWhen Jesus appears, everything changes, a prodigious transformation takes place in the man, because He speaks with authority and the reaction of the possessed is violent, it does not accept passively the order, resists, begins to scream because it wants to perpetuate the dominion over its victim. This struggle represents the rebellion of the forces of evil, of the demons that are present in man, in society, in ideologies. In the demoniac who remains good until the confrontation with Jesus, one can grasp the ability of the scribes, and of many Christians, to tame the protagonist of evil by yielding to the spirit of the world and to hypocrisy. As long as this lasts, in the Christian and in the Church, the evil one remains silent and lets it do its work; when, however, a prophetic voice is raised, when an authentic witness of faith and charity is offered, then it rebels and mobilizes all the energy it possesses.
We have to ask ourselves if we still perceive, today, the sensation of novelty, of "good news" that comes to us from the Gospel, or if we consume the proposal without distinguishing it from the many that are made to us every day.