Book of Isaiah 40,1-5.9-11. Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated; Indeed, she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins. A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low; The rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all mankind shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken. Go up onto a high mountain, Zion, herald of glad tidings; Cry out at the top of your voice, Jerusalem, herald of good news! Fear not to cry out and say to the cities of Judah: Here is your God! Here comes with power the Lord GOD, who rules by his strong arm; Here is his reward with him, his recompense before him. Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, Carrying them in his bosom, and leading the ewes with care.
Psalms 85(84) 9ab-10.11-12.13-14. I will hear what God proclaims; the LORD –for he proclaims peace to his people. Near indeed is his salvation to those who fear him, glory dwelling in our land.
Kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and justice shall look down from heaven.
The LORD himself will give his benefits; our land shall yield its increase. Justice shall walk before him, and salvation, along the way of his steps.
second Letter of Peter 3,8-14. But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard "delay," but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar and the elements will be dissolved by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be found out. Since everything is to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought (you) to be, conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved in flames and the elements melted by fire. But according to his promise we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you await these things, be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 1,1-8. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ (the Son of God). As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: "Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way. A voice of one crying out in the desert: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.'" John (the) Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins. John was clothed in camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He fed on locusts and wild honey. And this is what he proclaimed: "One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the holy Spirit."
ANGELUS , 6 December 2020 Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!
This Sunday’s Gospel passage (Mk 1:1-8) introduces the person and work of John the Baptist. He reveals to his contemporaries an itinerary of faith similar to the one that Advent proposes to us, who are preparing ourselves to receive the Lord at Christmas. This itinerary of faith is an itinerary of conversion. What does the word ‘conversion’ mean? In the Bible it means, first and foremost, to change direction and orientation; and thus also to change one’s way of thinking. In the moral and spiritual life, to convert means to turn oneself from evil to good, from sin to love of God. And this is what the Baptist was teaching, who in the desert of Judea was “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (v. 4). Receiving baptism was an outward and visible sign of the conversion of those who had listened to his preaching and decided to repent. That baptism occurred with immersion in the Jordan, in water, but it proved useless; it was only a sign and it was useless if there was no willingness to repent and change one’s life.
Conversion involves suffering for sins committed, the desire to be free from them, the intention to exclude them from one’s own life forever. To exclude sin it is also necessary to reject everything that is connected to it; the things that are connected to sin and thus, we have to reject: a worldly mentality, excessive esteem for comforts, excessive esteem for pleasure, for well-being, for wealth. The example of this detachment comes to us once again from today’s Gospel in the person of John the Baptist: an austere man who renounces excess and seeks the essential. This is the first aspect of conversion: detachment from sin and worldliness: commencing a journey of detachment from these things.
The other aspect of conversion is the aim of the journey, that is, the search for God and his kingdom. Detachment from worldly things and seeking God and his kingdom. Abandoning comforts and a worldly mentality is not an end in itself; it is not an ascesis only to do penance: a Christian is not a “fakir”. It is something else. Detachment is not an end in itself, but is a means of attaining something greater, namely, the Kingdom of God, communion with God, friendship with God. But this is not easy, because there are many ties that bind us closely to sin; and it is not easy.... Temptation always pulls down, pulls down, and thus, the ties that keep us close to sin: inconstancy, discouragement, malice, unwholesome environments, bad examples. At times the yearning we feel toward the Lord is too weak and it almost seems that God is silent; his promises of consolation seem far away and unreal to us, like the image of the caring and attentive shepherd, which resounds today in the reading from Isaiah (cf. 40:1, 11). And so one is tempted to say that it is impossible to truly convert. How often we have heard this discouragement! “No, I can’t do it. I barely start and then I turn back”. And this is bad. But it is possible. It is possible. When you have this discouraging thought, do not remain there, because this is quicksand. It is quicksand: the quicksand of a mediocre existence. This is mediocrity. What can we do in these cases, when one would like to go but feels he or she cannot do it? First of all, remind ourselves that conversion is a grace: no one can convert by his or own strength. It is a grace that the Lord gives you, and thus we need to forcefully ask God for it. To ask God to convert us, that we can truly convert, to the degree in which we open ourselves up to the beauty, the goodness, the tenderness of God. Think about God’s tenderness. God is not a bad father, an unkind father, no. He is tender. He loves us so much, like the Good Shepherd, who searches for the last member of his flock. It is love, and this is conversion: a grace of God. Begin to walk, because it is he who moves you to walk, and you will see how he will arrive. Pray, walk, and you will always take a step forward.
-->May Mary Most Holy, whom we will celebrate the day after tomorrow as the Immaculate Conception, help us to separate ourselves more and more from sin and worldliness, in order to open ourselves to God, to his Word, to his love which restores and saves.
FAUSTI The " beginning" of the Gospel of Jesus Christ Son of God, the origin of the new creation, with which Scripture opens (Gen 1:1) is only the anticipated echo as promise, is embodied by the attitude of the Baptist who sees reality as God's judgment and salvation for man. For this reason the Baptist is not only a prophet, but "more than a prophet" (Mt 11:9), because he introduces into that absolute novelty of the Gospel that the prophets, only from distant horizons, had predicted. He closes the old time, and waits, pointing to the "new" that appears in Jesus Christ. In Him, the entire Old Testament's expectation, of which the prophets had announced the fulfillment in the future, is concentrated and hovered at last in its realization. Mark expresses all this with a brief citation, attributed to Isaiah, which is understandable only in the context from which his two parts are removed. The first part of the citation refers to the coming fulfilled of God's judgment, foretold by Malachi (3:1-9) which will destroy and crush all injustice on earth. Nothing can escape the "Behold, I make all things new" (Rev 21:5) of the coming kingdom. The second part of the quotation is taken from the book "of consolation" of Isaiah, it resounds in it, the hymn of freedom of the people saved by the Lord, the oppression is finally over! The Baptist urges us to see reality with new eyes in these terms. The Lord is here, His judgment on the present is to be grasped in the destruction, sighed and feared, of oppression and on the other in the liberation, dreamed and sung, of the oppressed one. The Lord is present and allows Himself to be found. He is near. To Him we must now turn: "Behold your God" (Is 40:9) in your midst! From this comes the vigorous call to conversion that the Baptist addresses to us and the call to a new exodus. In fact, "The whole region of Judea and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem rushed to him. Judea and Jerusalem are the sacred place from which one must now leave, passing through a new Red Sea, to free oneself from the slavery of the law and to welcome the Spirit who lives. That is why the message of the Baptist is that of waiting. Not like that of the ancient prophets, but rather of attention to see the present God. "In the midst of you stands One whom you do not know... The Baptist knows that behind the present reality there is something greater, a stronger One, to which we must give way and which comes immediately after: all our attention is turned to this "after", represented by Jesus, the Son who has walked the path of God among men, opening it to us all, with the effusion of the Spirit, so that we too can set out on the same path. Thus, the theme of following of Jesus emerges, felt so strongly by the Apostles and the first Christians, that it is the leading thread of the Gospel of Mark, who introduces us to Him Who must be followed. Jesus is the expected. He is the Lord who comes to immerse us in His Spirit, fulfilling His righteousness and leading us home from exile. The disciple must grow those desires within himself: desires are the need for brotherhood and freedom, the courage to go out, the strength to confront the desert, the knowledge of sin and the desire for forgiveness, the desire for conversion, the expectation of "He who is stronger" who comes and the gift of His Spirit. Everything that Jesus will do and say in the rest of the Gospel will be gradually understood and experienced by these desires, whether they are already within the disciple or induced by Jesus' teachings and example.
"Comfort, comfort my people! God's prayer to the prophets announcing salvation. They announce the coming of the Lord, the Good Shepherd who takes care of His flock, gathers them and leads them. God asks for a strong and decisive message, a Voice that cries out in the desert and prepares the way. In the prophetic Announcements of Isaiah (9 - 11- ...) Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah (5,1 ...), Hosea, (11,9) Zechariah and others, the expectation of the Saviour is traced out, marking the way for the people of God, an event longed for and sung in the Psalms and prefigured in the history of Israel. An event proclaimed imminent by John the Baptist, the Voice that cries out in the desert and prepares hearts by purifying them through the Baptism of Penance in the Jordan. He announces the coming of the Saviour, the Bridegroom, the One who will baptise in the Holy Spirit. It is the passage from promise to fulfilment. The Baptist experienced this when, in his mother's womb, he leapt for joy at the greeting of Mary, who was in the presence of the little Jesus, receiving the irradiation of the Spirit, with his mother Elizabeth who recognised in her cousin the Mother of her Lord. Precursor of the Lord, Witness to his appearance among the people gathered on the banks of the Jordan, He can point out to the people that He is the Lamb of God, the One who takes away the sins of the world! And this after having seen the Spirit descend upon Him in the Baptism that He wanted to receive among the people, to enter into the course of events, the theophanies of Salvation. In the beautiful "loving plan of His Will", God chose us before the creation of the world to be holy and immaculate before Him in love, predestining us to be adopted children in Christ for Him. And this, writes Paul, "to the praise of the splendour of his grace, with which He has blessed us in the beloved Son", in fact in the prologue of John we read "from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace" (1, 16). Mary Most Holy had the privilege of being the Mother of Christ and therefore, as She herself revealed at Lourdes, She was preserved by Her Conception from every original stain, which for all of us is cancelled out by the Sacrament of Baptism. In God's plan, Mary is the All Pure, already at the moment of her conception, the creature chosen by God to be the Mother of his Son in the Holy Spirit. Preserved therefore from all sin, Most Holy Mother and Tabernacle of the Most High, Mother of Him who is Life "and the Life was the Light of men" (Jn 1:4). That is why She is the only one assumed into Heaven by the Son, and, from Heaven, the attentive Mother of every man entrusted to Her by Christ on the Cross: "Woman, behold your son" (Jn 19:26) and for the Disciple John and for all of us with him: "Son, behold your mother". From her countless apparitions and interventions, messages and miracles, we can see how lovingly and devotedly She cares for the Church, born at Pentecost, when the apostles, praying with Her, received the Holy Spirit and began their mission (Acts 1:8 - 2:1 ...). And not only for the Church, but for all humanity. God's Beloved responded humbly to His will, being the Yes to God, a filial and trusting obedience to His Plan of Salvation, which became necessary from Eve onwards. Mary reopens the door to heaven for us by giving us the Saviour. Her "Here I am" is a loving response to the Father who chose every human being to make him or her a son in His Son Jesus.
Book of Isaiah
RispondiElimina40,1-5.9-11.
Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated; Indeed, she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins.
A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!
Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low; The rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley.
Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all mankind shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Go up onto a high mountain, Zion, herald of glad tidings; Cry out at the top of your voice, Jerusalem, herald of good news! Fear not to cry out and say to the cities of Judah: Here is your God!
Here comes with power the Lord GOD, who rules by his strong arm; Here is his reward with him, his recompense before him.
Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, Carrying them in his bosom, and leading the ewes with care.
Psalms 85(84)
9ab-10.11-12.13-14.
I will hear what God proclaims;
the LORD –for he proclaims peace to his people.
Near indeed is his salvation to those who fear him,
glory dwelling in our land.
Kindness and truth shall meet;
justice and peace shall kiss.
Truth shall spring out of the earth,
and justice shall look down from heaven.
The LORD himself will give his benefits;
our land shall yield its increase.
Justice shall walk before him,
and salvation, along the way of his steps.
second Letter of Peter
3,8-14.
But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day.
The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard "delay," but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar and the elements will be dissolved by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be found out.
Since everything is to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought (you) to be, conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion,
waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved in flames and the elements melted by fire.
But according to his promise we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Therefore, beloved, since you await these things, be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
according to Saint Mark 1,1-8.
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ (the Son of God).
As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: "Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way.
A voice of one crying out in the desert: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.'"
John (the) Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.
John was clothed in camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He fed on locusts and wild honey.
And this is what he proclaimed: "One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.
I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the holy Spirit."
POPE FRANCIS
RispondiEliminaANGELUS , 6 December 2020
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Good morning!
This Sunday’s Gospel passage (Mk 1:1-8) introduces the person and work of John the Baptist. He reveals to his contemporaries an itinerary of faith similar to the one that Advent proposes to us, who are preparing ourselves to receive the Lord at Christmas. This itinerary of faith is an itinerary of conversion. What does the word ‘conversion’ mean? In the Bible it means, first and foremost, to change direction and orientation; and thus also to change one’s way of thinking. In the moral and spiritual life, to convert means to turn oneself from evil to good, from sin to love of God. And this is what the Baptist was teaching, who in the desert of Judea was “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (v. 4). Receiving baptism was an outward and visible sign of the conversion of those who had listened to his preaching and decided to repent. That baptism occurred with immersion in the Jordan, in water, but it proved useless; it was only a sign and it was useless if there was no willingness to repent and change one’s life.
Conversion involves suffering for sins committed, the desire to be free from them, the intention to exclude them from one’s own life forever. To exclude sin it is also necessary to reject everything that is connected to it; the things that are connected to sin and thus, we have to reject: a worldly mentality, excessive esteem for comforts, excessive esteem for pleasure, for well-being, for wealth. The example of this detachment comes to us once again from today’s Gospel in the person of John the Baptist: an austere man who renounces excess and seeks the essential. This is the first aspect of conversion: detachment from sin and worldliness: commencing a journey of detachment from these things.
The other aspect of conversion is the aim of the journey, that is, the search for God and his kingdom. Detachment from worldly things and seeking God and his kingdom. Abandoning comforts and a worldly mentality is not an end in itself; it is not an ascesis only to do penance: a Christian is not a “fakir”. It is something else. Detachment is not an end in itself, but is a means of attaining something greater, namely, the Kingdom of God, communion with God, friendship with God. But this is not easy, because there are many ties that bind us closely to sin; and it is not easy.... Temptation always pulls down, pulls down, and thus, the ties that keep us close to sin: inconstancy, discouragement, malice, unwholesome environments, bad examples. At times the yearning we feel toward the Lord is too weak and it almost seems that God is silent; his promises of consolation seem far away and unreal to us, like the image of the caring and attentive shepherd, which resounds today in the reading from Isaiah (cf. 40:1, 11). And so one is tempted to say that it is impossible to truly convert. How often we have heard this discouragement! “No, I can’t do it. I barely start and then I turn back”. And this is bad. But it is possible. It is possible. When you have this discouraging thought, do not remain there, because this is quicksand. It is quicksand: the quicksand of a mediocre existence. This is mediocrity. What can we do in these cases, when one would like to go but feels he or she cannot do it? First of all, remind ourselves that conversion is a grace: no one can convert by his or own strength. It is a grace that the Lord gives you, and thus we need to forcefully ask God for it. To ask God to convert us, that we can truly convert, to the degree in which we open ourselves up to the beauty, the goodness, the tenderness of God. Think about God’s tenderness. God is not a bad father, an unkind father, no. He is tender. He loves us so much, like the Good Shepherd, who searches for the last member of his flock. It is love, and this is conversion: a grace of God. Begin to walk, because it is he who moves you to walk, and you will see how he will arrive. Pray, walk, and you will always take a step forward.
-->May Mary Most Holy, whom we will celebrate the day after tomorrow as the Immaculate Conception, help us to separate ourselves more and more from sin and worldliness, in order to open ourselves to God, to his Word, to his love which restores and saves.
RispondiEliminaFAUSTI The " beginning" of the Gospel of Jesus Christ Son of God, the origin of the new creation, with which Scripture opens (Gen 1:1) is only the anticipated echo as promise, is embodied by the attitude of the Baptist who sees reality as God's judgment and salvation for man.
RispondiEliminaFor this reason the Baptist is not only a prophet, but "more than a prophet" (Mt 11:9), because he introduces into that absolute novelty of the Gospel that the prophets, only from distant horizons, had predicted.
He closes the old time, and waits, pointing to the "new" that appears in Jesus Christ.
In Him, the entire Old Testament's expectation, of which the prophets had announced the fulfillment in the future, is concentrated and hovered at last in its realization. Mark expresses all this with a brief citation, attributed to Isaiah, which is understandable only in the context from which his two parts are removed. The first part of the citation refers to the coming fulfilled of God's judgment, foretold by Malachi (3:1-9) which will destroy and crush all injustice on earth.
Nothing can escape the "Behold, I make all things new" (Rev 21:5) of the coming kingdom.
The second part of the quotation is taken from the book "of consolation" of Isaiah, it resounds in it, the hymn of freedom of the people saved by the Lord, the oppression is finally over!
The Baptist urges us to see reality with new eyes in these terms. The Lord is here, His judgment on the present is to be grasped in the destruction, sighed and feared, of oppression and on the other in the liberation, dreamed and sung, of the oppressed one.
The Lord is present and allows Himself to be found. He is near.
To Him we must now turn: "Behold your God" (Is 40:9) in your midst!
From this comes the vigorous call to conversion that the Baptist addresses to us and the call to a new exodus. In fact, "The whole region of Judea and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem rushed to him.
Judea and Jerusalem are the sacred place from which one must now leave, passing through a new Red Sea, to free oneself from the slavery of the law and to welcome the Spirit who lives.
That is why the message of the Baptist is that of waiting. Not like that of the ancient prophets, but rather of attention to see the present God. "In the midst of you stands One whom you do not know...
The Baptist knows that behind the present reality there is something greater, a stronger One, to which we must give way and which comes immediately after: all our attention is turned to this "after", represented by Jesus, the Son who has walked the path of God among men, opening it to us all, with the effusion of the Spirit, so that we too can set out on the same path. Thus, the theme of following of Jesus emerges, felt so strongly by the Apostles and the first Christians, that it is the leading thread of the Gospel of Mark, who introduces us to Him Who must be followed.
Jesus is the expected. He is the Lord who comes to immerse us in His Spirit, fulfilling His righteousness and leading us home from exile.
The disciple must grow those desires within himself: desires are the need for brotherhood and freedom, the courage to go out, the strength to confront the desert, the knowledge of sin and the desire for forgiveness, the desire for conversion, the expectation of "He who is stronger" who comes and the gift of His Spirit. Everything that Jesus will do and say in the rest of the Gospel will be gradually understood and experienced by these desires, whether they are already within the disciple or induced by Jesus' teachings and example.
"Comfort, comfort my people! God's prayer to the prophets announcing salvation. They announce the coming of the Lord, the Good Shepherd who takes care of His flock, gathers them and leads them. God asks for a strong and decisive message, a Voice that cries out in the desert and prepares the way. In the prophetic Announcements of Isaiah (9 - 11- ...) Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah (5,1 ...), Hosea, (11,9) Zechariah and others, the expectation of the Saviour is traced out, marking the way for the people of God, an event longed for and sung in the Psalms and prefigured in the history of Israel.
RispondiEliminaAn event proclaimed imminent by John the Baptist, the Voice that cries out in the desert and prepares hearts by purifying them through the Baptism of Penance in the Jordan.
He announces the coming of the Saviour, the Bridegroom, the One who will baptise in the Holy Spirit. It is the passage from promise to fulfilment.
The Baptist experienced this when, in his mother's womb, he leapt for joy at the greeting of Mary, who was in the presence of the little Jesus, receiving the irradiation of the Spirit, with his mother Elizabeth who recognised in her cousin the Mother of her Lord. Precursor of the Lord, Witness to his appearance among the people gathered on the banks of the Jordan,
He can point out to the people that He is the Lamb of God, the One who takes away the sins of the world!
And this after having seen the Spirit descend upon Him in the Baptism that He wanted to receive among the people, to enter into the course of events, the theophanies of Salvation.
In the beautiful "loving plan of His Will", God chose us before the creation of the world to be holy and immaculate before Him in love, predestining us to be adopted children in Christ for Him. And this, writes Paul, "to the praise of the splendour of his grace, with which He has blessed us in the beloved Son", in fact in the prologue of John we read "from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace" (1, 16). Mary Most Holy had the privilege of being the Mother of Christ and therefore, as She herself revealed at Lourdes, She was preserved by Her Conception from every original stain, which for all of us is cancelled out by the Sacrament of Baptism.
In God's plan, Mary is the All Pure, already at the moment of her conception, the creature chosen by God to be the Mother of his Son in the Holy Spirit.
Preserved therefore from all sin, Most Holy Mother and Tabernacle of the Most High, Mother of Him who is Life "and the Life was the Light of men" (Jn 1:4). That is why She is the only one assumed into Heaven by the Son, and, from Heaven, the attentive Mother of every man entrusted to Her by Christ on the Cross: "Woman, behold your son" (Jn 19:26) and for the Disciple John and for all of us with him: "Son, behold your mother".
From her countless apparitions and interventions, messages and miracles, we can see how lovingly and devotedly She cares for the Church, born at Pentecost, when the apostles, praying with Her, received the Holy Spirit and began their mission (Acts 1:8 - 2:1 ...). And not only for the Church, but for all humanity.
God's Beloved responded humbly to His will, being the Yes to God, a filial and trusting obedience to His Plan of Salvation, which became necessary from Eve onwards.
Mary reopens the door to heaven for us by giving us the Saviour.
Her "Here I am" is a loving response to the Father who chose every human being to make him or her a son in His Son Jesus.