A God Who accepts us as we are

Homily of the Forth Sunday per Annum

Fr. Francesco Pesce 

It is not always easy to believe in the God of Jesus Christ. Sometimes it is easier to believe in a God that "distributes miracles", a God whose love we need to deserve rather than a God that accepts us for whom we are.

Jesus, on the contrary, invites us to look at things more deeply and to see better. Our God is one that walks with us, that gives His help to a foreign widow in Zarephat, and that heals lepers. A God that walks with us daily and that does not look at our merits or memberships, but at our needs and, most importantly, a God that accepts and loves us the way we are.

Believing in a God that first looks at our merits or memberships results in representing a Church that defends itself, that excludes those without or with just a few merits to show off; a Church that becomes an elitarian and closed institution that does not receive nor attracts anybody but a few "elected". A Church that is not able to influence everyday life, which passes just to the ring road of our lives, stopping in TV programmes or in the lobbies as appropriate.

On the contrary, believing in the God of Jesus Christ, who first of all look at our weaknesses and needs, translates into building "a Church which goes forth", where pastors have the smell of the sheep (not only of the incense), and where no one feels excluded or left behind.

Around Jesus there have always been and yet there are groups of fanatical and violent people and also extremists that use religion and the Church for their own interests. Pope Francis knows this very well and recently warned against the fact that there are people that do not serve the Church but use the Church for their own interests.

This passage of the Gospel - "But he passed through the midst of them and went away" - represents an extraordinary warning to all of us and for the whole Church. Jesus passes over, He leaves. He leaves when faith joins forces with power; He leaves when clericalism prevails over the people of God and the Gospel. He leaves when the Gospel is reduced to the moral law and it is not its foundation, or when you defend abstract principles and concrete privileges instead of understanding and accompanying ordinary situations.

The Lord goes towards and remains where faith is simple and sincere; where hope is not rhetoric, but confident expectation of a promise that will be fulfilled; and where the charity is sensitive to the cry of the poor and reaches out to every brother, without judgment, pre-condition, or "preference of people."

Let us announce and take the Gospel to the poor

Homily of the Third Sunday per Annum

Fr. Francesco Pesce

That Saturday at the Synagogue, Jesus took the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah and as the Greek text says, he found that passage after he had looked for it. In fact, the Greek verb is eurisko - from which the well known exclamation eureka! comes from. Jesus perhaps chooses a passage that was not expected to be read and instead He looks for and then finds purposedly to read it at that time.

It is Chapter 61 of the Prophet Isaiah:

"The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,

because the LORD has anointed me;

He has sent me to bring good news to the afflicted,

to bind up the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to the captives,

release to the prisoners".

What is this "good news" Isaiah refers to and Jesus echoes? The "good news" that the poor are waiting for (the poor are again the first ones this joyful announcement is addressed to) is the end of poverty. The prisoners await liberty, the blind are hoping to be able to see, and the oppressed desire to be relieved from their burdens.

In our world, we are witnesses (or often rather "willing" or "unarmed" spectators), to the many forms of poverty (material, moral, spiritual) injustice, abuse, disability, vulnerability...We ourselves, in our own lives, have our poverties too. We are prisoners of so many things and we are oppressed in some part of our hearts. But, as Isaiah predicted and Jesus reminded us: "Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God...he comes to save you." (Is 35) and "the truth will set you free.” (John 8,32). That salvation, that truth is actually the Lord Jesus, who is the fulfillment of Scripture, namely the realization of the "good news". Therefore, it is important for all of us to have consciousness, to be sure that there is a reference point, a "Polar Star" to look at. We need to be aware that we walk across a path already traced and - using again Isaiah's words - "smoothed out" by the Lord in the desert, sometimes the desert of our lives, our societies....We need to keep our eyes on him and follow him, by being led by the Holy Spirit, while being confident that we will not lose the way. Many times we look for something but we cannot find it (e.g. the solution to a certain problem, the answer to a question, the courage to make a choice ...) because we only rely on our capacities,  we plan based on our reasoning, and we only consider our priorities.....We do not understand that we have to "overthrow" the way we think, see and do things: because first of all we have already been "found" by the Lord, and especially loved and "saved" by Him.

St. Luke continues to write: "Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, 'Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing'.”

Certainly we need to be informed., properly briefed; we must read, pray and meditate the Word of God. But after all that, we then have to close the "book", "roll it up" as Jesus did, to put ourselves at the service of those who wait for their liberation and that have their eyes on us and expect from us a word of comfort, a clear stand on an issue, a gesture of hope, maybe even to break something...Let us remember what the Lord told us:  "Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it."

Today there are millions of children, women, entire peoples that are waiting for us and watching us. Thinking "smaller", there are so many people who expect a response from us in our daily lives - our neighbors, colleagues, family members and the many poor who are on the streets of our cities...It has been for too long time that our Western world, our homes, and sometimes even churches look like the community of Ezra described in the First Reading. A community that was closed to the external world in its self-sufficiency and forgot the needs of the poor. Many people are awaiting their liberation and keep their eyes on us. We, as Christians, what are we doing?

Our role as Christians is first of all to contribute to building a society that is "liberated". All of us are first of all baptized in the Holy Spirit Who frees the oppressed. We must feel the pressing urgency of this task, of this mission - the liberation of the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized.