READING OF THE DAY First reading from the Book of Deuteronomy Dt 4:32-34, 39-40
Moses said to the people: "Ask now of the days of old, before your time, ever since God created man upon the earth; ask from one end of the sky to the other: Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of? Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live? Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, with strong hand and outstretched arm, and by great terrors, all of which the LORD, your God, did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? This is why you must now know, and fix in your heart, that the LORD is God in the heavens above and on earth below, and that there is no other. You must keep his statutes and commandments that I enjoin on you today, that you and your children after you may prosper, and that you may have long life on the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you forever."
PSALM 33. (12b) Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
4 Upright is the word of the LORD, and all his works are trustworthy. 5 He loves justice and right; of the kindness of the Lord the earth is full. R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
6 By the word of the LORD the heavens were made; by the breath of his mouth all their host. 9 For he spoke, and it was made; he commanded, and it stood forth. R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Second reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans Rom 8:14-17
Brothers and sisters: For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY From the Gospel according to Matthew Mt 28:16-20
The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When they all saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted. Then Jesus approached and said to them, "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age."
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER Today’s liturgical solemnity, while making us contemplate the amazing mystery from which we come and toward which we are going, renews for us the mission of living in communion with God and living in communion among ourselves on the model of the divine communion. We are called to live not as one without others, above or against others, but one with others, for others, and in others. This means to accept and witness in harmony the beauty of the Gospel. […] In a word, we have been entrusted with the task of edifying ecclesial communities which increasingly become families, capable of reflecting the splendour of the Trinity and evangelizing not only with the words but with the power of the love of God that lives within us. (Angelus, 31 May 2015)
S. FAUSTI - "Go therefore and make disciples all peoples," Jesus says to the eleven. When His Mission is over, those who have met Him begin their journey. It is His own of Son, who testifies the Love of the Father to the brothers who do not yet know Him. What the Nazorean offered to Israel, the "Nazoreans" offer to all peoples. Those who, in Him, have discovered their own name of son, realize it, like Him, by going towards their brothers, until that the Name of the Father in heaven is sanctified on the whole earth. The passage is a synthetic vision of the entire book of Matthew. Like the finale of a symphony, it reprises and blends into a single harmony the themes developed in His Gospel. Those who are sent are not "masters": One alone is the Master. They are and remain always "disciples", who learn! They are not masters, but listeners of the Wisdom of the Son, veiled to the wise and intelligent, but revealed to infants. And they are eleven, not twelve, one is absent. The Community is structurally imperfect: sin and betrayal are always present, even in those who listen to the Word of God: sin and betrayal are always present, even in those who listen to the Word. Matthew knows this: that is why he insists, even here, that it is necessary to put it into practice, without discounts. The text, as always, is addressed to the readers, so that they too may have the experience of the first disciples. They must go to Galilee, to the mountain indicated to them by Jesus. There they see Him and adore Him. Doubt is also part of the encounter, of which faith represents the overcoming. Those who go to the mountain know the Son and His own power is given to them. It is that of doing what He says, of forgiving and overcoming evil. He has shown this, with great power and glory, in the sign of the Son of Man :the Cross! The Apostles are not to teach, but to make all men disciples of the one Master: the Spirit who guides in the Truth of the Son. Their mission is to communicate to others the same power that Jesus communicated to them: that of listening and doing the Word, in order to become a people that gives the fruit of the Kingdom. Jesus came to immerse us in the Father of Life, of Whom we had rejected the Name, losing our own. It is in the Name of the Son, in His person, that we are in the Father! It is in the Name of the Spirit, mutual Love between the Father and the Son, that we are inserted in the Trinity, participants in the Life of God. The Son is forever Our Brother: His Name is God-with-us. His being with us makes our being with Him possible. Time is a journey whose aim is to be with the One who has always and forever been with us. This will be when, through the witness of the disciples, we all become children and brothers.
PRAYER OF Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity "O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing be able to trouble my peace or make me leave you, O my unchanging God, but may each minute bring me more deeply into your mystery! Grant my soul peace. Make it your heaven, your beloved dwelling and the place of your rest. May I never abandon you there, but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to your creative action.
O my beloved Christ, crucified for love, I would like to be a bride of Your Heart; I would like to cover You with glory and ask You to clothe me with Yourself, to immerse my soul in all the movements of Your Soul, to submerge me, to invade me, to replace you in me, so that my life may be only an irradiation of your life. Come into my Soul as Adorer, as Repairer and as Savior.
O Eternal Word, Word of my God, I want to spend my life listening to you; I want to make myself all docility to learn everything from you. Then, through all the nights, all the emptiness, all the helplessness, I want to stare always at You and remain under Your great light. O my beloved Star, Enchant me, that I may never again leave from the splendor of your rays.
O Consuming Fire, Spirit of Love, descend upon me that He may make my soul like an incarnation of the Word, and that I may be for Him an addition of humanity in which He renews all His mystery.
And You, O Father, bend down over your little creature, cover her with your shadow, and look in her only as the Beloved in whom you have placed all your pleasure.
O my THREE, my All, my Bliss, infinite Solitude, Immensity in which I lose myself, I give myself up to You as a prey. Bury Yourself in me, that I may bury myself in You, waiting to come and contemplate, in Your light, the abyss of your greatness.
DIAC. Giarlotto Ing. Lodovico - Gospel. By placing "on the mountain" (v.16) the manifestation of the Risen One, Matthew wants to say that only those who have had a true experience of Jesus and have assimilated His message can accomplish the mission that He entrusts to the Apostles. In the second part (vv.18-20) this mission is presented: the disciples receive the assignment to instruct all the nations, to baptize them and to teach them to observe what Jesus has commanded. The moment is decisive and Jesus refers to His authority. The Father has sent Him to bring the message of salvation and has given Him all power in heaven and on earth. Heaven and earth mean all creation and power consists in serving man by leading him to salvation and introducing him into the intimacy of Love of the Father. It is at this point that the reference to the mystery of divine life, which we call the Trinity, must be placed. The family of God, the Trinity, is the image of perfect harmony, of full integration, of total fulfillment that takes place in the encounter and dialogue of love. The unity of all people in the peace of the Father's house will be realized when the Risen One will have reached, through the disciples, all mankind. The vocation to which the Christian community is called is demanding and exceeds human capabilities. In the Bible, however, every vocation, which is always accompanied by human fear, is associated with God's promise: "Do not be afraid, I am with you". To Jacob, on his way to an unknown land, God guarantees: "I am with you..." (Gen 28:15). To Israel, deported to Babylon, he declares: " ... I am with you" (Is 43:4-5). (Is 43:4-5). To Paul, who is tempted to discouragement in Corinth, the Lord says: "Do not be afraid ... I am with you ..." (Acts 18:9-10). The promise of the Risen One to the disciples, who are about to take their first timid steps, could not be different: "Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the world" (v.20). This is how Matthew's Gospel closes, as it began, with a reference to Emmanuel, the God with us, the name by which the Messiah was announced by the prophets (Mt 1:22-23). He is the God with us, the God who stands by our side and shares our joys and our anguish, every day, until he has welcomed us all in His house, forever.
READING OF THE DAY
RispondiEliminaFirst reading from the Book of Deuteronomy
Dt 4:32-34, 39-40
Moses said to the people:
"Ask now of the days of old, before your time,
ever since God created man upon the earth;
ask from one end of the sky to the other:
Did anything so great ever happen before?
Was it ever heard of?
Did a people ever hear the voice of God
speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?
Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself
from the midst of another nation,
by testings, by signs and wonders, by war,
with strong hand and outstretched arm, and by great terrors,
all of which the LORD, your God,
did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?
This is why you must now know,
and fix in your heart, that the LORD is God
in the heavens above and on earth below,
and that there is no other.
You must keep his statutes and commandments that I enjoin on you today,
that you and your children after you may prosper,
and that you may have long life on the land
which the LORD, your God, is giving you forever."
PSALM 33. (12b) Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
4 Upright is the word of the LORD,
and all his works are trustworthy.
5 He loves justice and right;
of the kindness of the Lord the earth is full.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
6 By the word of the LORD the heavens were made;
by the breath of his mouth all their host.
9 For he spoke, and it was made;
he commanded, and it stood forth.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Second reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans
Rom 8:14-17
Brothers and sisters:
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
but you received a Spirit of adoption,
through whom we cry, “Abba, Father!”
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit
that we are children of God,
and if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ,
if only we suffer with him
so that we may also be glorified with him.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY
From the Gospel according to Matthew
Mt 28:16-20
The eleven disciples went to Galilee,
to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.
When they all saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.
Then Jesus approached and said to them,
"All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age."
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
Today’s liturgical solemnity, while making us contemplate the amazing mystery from which we come and toward which we are going, renews for us the mission of living in communion with God and living in communion among ourselves on the model of the divine communion. We are called to live not as one without others, above or against others, but one with others, for others, and in others. This means to accept and witness in harmony the beauty of the Gospel. […] In a word, we have been entrusted with the task of edifying ecclesial communities which increasingly become families, capable of reflecting the splendour of the Trinity and evangelizing not only with the words but with the power of the love of God that lives within us. (Angelus, 31 May 2015)
S. FAUSTI - "Go therefore and make disciples all peoples," Jesus says to the eleven. When His Mission is over, those who have met Him begin their journey.
RispondiEliminaIt is His own of Son, who testifies the Love of the Father to the brothers who do not yet know Him. What the Nazorean offered to Israel, the "Nazoreans" offer to all peoples.
Those who, in Him, have discovered their own name of son, realize it, like Him, by going towards their brothers, until that the Name of the Father in heaven is sanctified on the whole earth.
The passage is a synthetic vision of the entire book of Matthew. Like the finale of a symphony, it reprises and blends into a single harmony the themes developed in His Gospel.
Those who are sent are not "masters": One alone is the Master. They are and remain always "disciples", who learn! They are not masters, but listeners of the Wisdom of the Son,
veiled to the wise and intelligent, but revealed to infants. And they are eleven, not twelve, one is absent. The Community is structurally imperfect: sin and betrayal are always present, even in those who listen to the Word of God:
sin and betrayal are always present, even in those who listen to the Word. Matthew knows this: that is why he insists, even here, that it is necessary to put it into practice, without discounts.
The text, as always, is addressed to the readers, so that they too may have the experience of the first disciples. They must go to Galilee, to the mountain indicated to them by Jesus.
There they see Him and adore Him. Doubt is also part of the encounter, of which faith represents the overcoming. Those who go to the mountain know the Son and His own power is given to them.
It is that of doing what He says, of forgiving and overcoming evil. He has shown this, with great power and glory, in the sign of the Son of Man :the Cross!
The Apostles are not to teach, but to make all men disciples of the one Master: the Spirit who guides in the Truth of the Son.
Their mission is to communicate to others the same power that Jesus communicated to them: that of listening and doing the Word, in order to become a people that gives the fruit of the Kingdom.
Jesus came to immerse us in the Father of Life, of Whom we had rejected the Name, losing our own. It is in the Name of the Son, in His person, that we are in the Father!
It is in the Name of the Spirit, mutual Love between the Father and the Son, that we are inserted in the Trinity, participants in the Life of God.
The Son is forever Our Brother: His Name is God-with-us. His being with us makes our being with Him possible.
Time is a journey whose aim is to be with the One who has always and forever been with us.
This will be when, through the witness of the disciples, we all become children and brothers.
PRAYER OF Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity
RispondiElimina"O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing be able to trouble my peace or make me leave you, O my unchanging God, but may each minute bring me more deeply into your mystery! Grant my soul peace. Make it your heaven, your beloved dwelling and the place of your rest. May I never abandon you there, but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to your creative action.
O my beloved Christ, crucified for love,
I would like to be a bride of Your Heart;
I would like to cover You with glory and ask You to clothe me with Yourself,
to immerse my soul in all the movements of Your Soul,
to submerge me, to invade me, to replace you in me,
so that my life may be only an irradiation of your life.
Come into my Soul as Adorer, as Repairer and as Savior.
O Eternal Word, Word of my God, I want to spend my life listening to you;
I want to make myself all docility to learn everything from you.
Then, through all the nights, all the emptiness, all the helplessness,
I want to stare always at You and remain under Your great light.
O my beloved Star,
Enchant me, that I may never again leave from the splendor of your rays.
O Consuming Fire, Spirit of Love,
descend upon me
that He may make my soul like an incarnation of the Word,
and that I may be for Him an addition of humanity in which He renews all His mystery.
And You, O Father,
bend down over your little creature,
cover her with your shadow, and look in her only as the Beloved
in whom you have placed all your pleasure.
O my THREE, my All,
my Bliss, infinite Solitude, Immensity in which I lose myself,
I give myself up to You as a prey.
Bury Yourself in me, that I may bury myself in You,
waiting to come and contemplate, in Your light,
the abyss of your greatness.
DIAC. Giarlotto Ing. Lodovico - Gospel. By placing "on the mountain" (v.16) the manifestation of the Risen One, Matthew wants to say that only those who have had a true experience of Jesus and have assimilated His message can accomplish the mission that He entrusts to the Apostles. In the second part (vv.18-20) this mission is presented: the disciples receive the assignment to instruct all the nations, to baptize them and to teach them to observe what Jesus has commanded. The moment is decisive and Jesus refers to His authority. The Father has sent Him to bring the message of salvation and has given Him all power in heaven and on earth. Heaven and earth mean all creation and power consists in serving man by leading him to salvation and introducing him into the intimacy of Love of the Father.
RispondiEliminaIt is at this point that the reference to the mystery of divine life, which we call the Trinity, must be placed. The family of God, the Trinity, is the image of perfect harmony, of full integration, of total fulfillment that takes place in the encounter and dialogue of love. The unity of all people in the peace of the Father's house will be realized when the Risen One will have reached, through the disciples, all mankind. The vocation to which the Christian community is called is demanding and exceeds human capabilities. In the Bible, however, every vocation, which is always accompanied by human fear, is associated with God's promise: "Do not be afraid, I am with you". To Jacob, on his way to an unknown land, God guarantees: "I am with you..." (Gen 28:15). To Israel, deported to Babylon, he declares: " ... I am with you" (Is 43:4-5). (Is 43:4-5). To Paul, who is tempted to discouragement in Corinth, the Lord says: "Do not be afraid ... I am with you ..." (Acts 18:9-10).
The promise of the Risen One to the disciples, who are about to take their first timid steps, could not be different: "Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the world" (v.20). This is how Matthew's Gospel closes, as it began, with a reference to Emmanuel, the God with us, the name by which the Messiah was announced by the prophets (Mt 1:22-23). He is the God with us, the God who stands by our side and shares our joys and our anguish, every day, until he has welcomed us all in His house, forever.