Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Year B,

 
We pray through the merits of this holy Eucharist, that God gives us the grace to always in our daily lives recognize the signs of salvation with which He visits our streets and our homes, learning to live in this continuous dialogue between gift and welcome. Happy Sunday

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Genesis 15,1-6;21,1-3; Ps 104 (105); Hebrew 11,8.11-12.17-19; Luke 2,22-40; Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Year B, 30th December, 2023)

After having made us fix our gaze on the mystery of Jesus' birth, on this feast the liturgy urges us to pay attention to the mystery of welcoming him. First of all to that offered by his parents, Mary and Joseph, but then, starting from this first and fundamental hospitality, the vision broadens towards other figures, such as those of Simeon and Anna, or of the same fathers and mothers in the faith, such as Abraham and Sarah, who preceded and prepared, with their own anticipation, the beauty of this event. The singularity of this birth, which has its own completely incomparable peculiarity, however allows us to recognize, in depth, what happens every time a new life buds on the trunk of humanity. There always happens to be an encounter between a gift that precedes and a welcome that responds; between a promise to wait for and a fulfilment to be savored in joy. The celebration of the Holy Family invites us to rediscover how the dialogue between gift and acceptance is the foundation of every relationship of authentic love. Love manifests itself in the tension between way and a home. It is a path, because it sets one in motion, forces one to make an exodus from oneself and from one's own narrow and limited horizons, pushes towards encounters, opens up to the future with hope, is not afraid to dream, gives impetus and enthusiasm to one's steps, swells the lungs and dilates the space of the heart. However, love also needs to become a home, that is, established, nourished, fruitful, hospitable and fulfilled. Indeed it has to be in an incessant dialogue, precisely, between a gift offered with trust and a welcome given with availability. When one of the two poles fades, or enters the routine of habit and the laziness of resignation, one no longer walks and the house itself metamorphoses, from being hospitable, into a suffocating prison.

The dialogue between gift and acceptance matures first of all in the relationship between man and woman, but then it is called to open up towards the children and towards the very sky of God, as it happens in Genesis for Abram, who is invited by the Lord to combine his expectation of a child with a gaze that rises to contemplate the starry sky. At this moment Abram is disappointed because the promise of his descendants is slow in being fulfilled: "I go without children and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus" (Gen 15,2). These words are to be understood in a strong sense: I am heading towards death without a child yet, and not only because of impending old age, but above all because it is already death to experience the sterility of one's existence. Immediately afterwards Abram adds: “Behold, you have given me no offspring” (v. 3); in other words: the responsibility is yours, for you did not keep your word.

God responds to Abram's affliction by renewing his promise and leading him out: he makes him make an exodus from this bitterness, inviting him to raise his gaze towards a starry sky. So it is night, but precisely in this night of faith, in this night of fruitlessness and disappointment, Abram must find the courage to raise his gaze towards a beyond to be contemplated without being able to dominate it. The conversion to be made, which then becomes a condition for every other transformation in our existence, consists precisely in emerging from an attitude hunched over and withdrawn from our fears or complaints. The God of the alliance is always the God of the Exodus, the one who leads us out. To Abram who asks for an heir, God promises much more: descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. God underlines the “excess” of his promise with the expression “if you can count them”, which first of all shows how God's plan is infinitely greater than Abram's own hope. Furthermore, this starry sky, which cannot be counted, reminds him that he will have to trust the sign without claiming to dominate it or verify it. Finally, to the one who asks: “What will you give me?” (v. 2), God remembers: “I am your shield” (v. 1) That is to say, even before I give you, I will be with you. This is the foundation of every promise. Even the promise of a son.

God renews his alliance, returns to give us his presence, his being with us. In the mutual acceptance that we are called to live in our relationships, between man and woman, between parents and children, between brothers and friends, he always gives us, if we are willing to raise our gaze and fix it on a starry sky, to welcome the very presence of God who returns to promise us: I am with you, I am with you.

Mary and Joseph, presenting their firstborn to the temple and to the Lord, not only obey the Law of Moses, but recognize its profound meaning: the new life they welcome comes from God and leads to God, because in every true welcome we always open ourselves not only to receive the gift of God, but his very presence. The meaning of life and death then changes. If Abram, in his initial disappointment, says with bitterness: "I am going towards death", Simeon can say with joy: "Now can you, O Lord, let your servant go in peace, according to your word, because my eyes have seen your salvation" (Luke 2,29-30). Here is the invitation that this celebration offers us today: to recognize the signs of salvation with which God visits our streets and our homes, learning to live in this continuous dialogue between gift and welcome.

+ John I. Okoye

3rd Sunday of Advent. Year B, 17 December, 2023

 
On this Gaudete Sunday, we are called to share the joy of the groom’s friend. May our joy be as complete as his. Happy Sunday!

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Isaiah 61,1-2.10-11; Magnificat Canticle: Luke 1,46-50.53-54; 1Thessalonians 5,16-24; John 1,6-8.19-28; 3rd Sunday of Advent. Year B, 17 December, 2023)

“Look, O Father, at your people, who faithfully await the birth of the Lord, and let them celebrate the great mystery of salvation with renewed exultation”. Thus we pray in this Sunday's Collect/Opening Prayer which the liturgical tradition titles with the Latin imperative "Gaudete", that is, "rejoice, rejoice", "always be happy", according to the exultation that Paul addresses to the disciples of Thessalonica (see 1 Thess 5,16). We are now close to Christmas and, while the wait becomes more intense, the vigilance becomes more acute/attentive, the joy of the encounter with the Lord can already be perceived, as adding a different flavor to our journey.

The word of God that we welcome today, inviting us to rejoice, colors our joy with peculiar shades. It is above all an espousal/hearty joy. The prophet Isaiah compares it to the exultation of those who allow themselves to be clothed in the robes of salvation and wear them as if they were wedding dresses, "like a groom puts on a diadem and like a bride adorns herself with jewels" (Isaiah 61,10). Nuptiality implies fruitfulness: the love between a man and a woman generates a new life, just as the Lord will make the earth fruitful and "make justice and praise spring up before all the people" (Isaiah 61,11).

It is the same joy that Mary sings about in her Magnificat, which today's liturgy makes us pray as a responsorial psalm. Starting from the extraordinary wisdom that God has brought about in her life, opening her virginity to an unheard-of maternity, the girl from Nazareth does not remain closed in her own experience nor in the horizon of her small Galilian village, but contemplates and celebrates the justice that God causes to spring from the earth, fertilized by mercy that extends to every generation: "he has filled the hungry with good things, he has sent the rich away empty-handed" (Luke 1,53). Thus can Mary sing who welcomes and cherishes within herself the "sprout of the Lord", sent to "bring good news news to the miserable, to bind up the wounds of broken hearts, to proclaim the freedom of slaves, the release of prisoners, to promulgate the year of favor of the Lord" (Isaiah 61,1-2). The child she carries in her womb, besides filling her with exultation, opens her eyes, allowing her to discern the salvation that God works in history, especially in favor of the poor and the little ones, the first to whom the year of grace of the Lord must be announced. Among them is she, first and foremost, the humble servant of the Lord, whom God clothes not only with a robe of salvation, but with love that radically transforms and renews her.

This nuptial theme is also present, albeit implicitly, in the Gospel passage, which once again focuses our gaze on John the Baptist. According to the synoptic tradition, in fact, he baptizes with water, prophesying the coming of the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. In the Fourth Gospel John becomes above all the "witness", as already highlighted in the verses of the Prologue that speak of him (see John 1,6-8). After this poetic introduction, the narrative part of the Gospel opens again with the testimony that John gives to Jesus. “He was not the light” (states the Prologue)  and John, with the triple “no” with which he responds to those who question him, confirms that he is entirely relative to the one who comes after and of whom he is not worthy “of untying the thong of the sandal” (John 1,27). The expression sounds completely similar to the one we read in the synoptic tradition, but the Greek text presents a notable difference, which should not be overlooked. In the Synoptics the adjective “worthy” translates the Greek term hikanos; John instead uses a different word - axios - which rather evokes a right, an authority: "I have no right to untie the lace of his sandal". To fully understand, we must remember the so-called law of the levirate, prescribed by the Torah of Moses. If a woman remained widowed and childless, her closest relative had the duty to marry her to ensure descendants for her deceased husband. Escaping this task involved a symbolic gesture, prescribed by Deuteronomy: "he will take the sandal off his foot" (Deut. 25,9). And what happens in the book of Ruth. Boaz would like to take her as his wife, but there is a closer relative who boasts of greater rights than him, which he however renounces by performing the rite of taking off his sandal (see Ruth 4,5-8). It is probable that the evangelist is thinking of this tradition when he writes that the Baptist recognizes that he does not have the authority or the right to take away Jesus' sandal, Christ is the only groom and the Baptist knows that he cannot take away the bride from him. As he himself confesses a few pages later: You yourselves are witnesses that I said: "I am not the Christ", but: "I was sent ahead of him". The groom is the one to whom the bride belongs; but the groom's friend, who stands and hears him rejoices with joy at the groom's voice. Now this joy of mine is complete/full. He must increase, and I must decrease" (John 3,28-30).

In this “Gaudete” Sunday our exultation is that we are called to share the joy of the groom's friend. May our joy be as full /complete as his. We could then, as Paul exhorts us, give thanks in everything, since "he who calls you is trustworthy: he will do all this" (1 Thess 5,24). +John I. Okoye.

graphics by Chukwubike

2nd Sunday of Advent, Year B, December 10, 2023

In this Eucharistic celebration, we implore the good Lord to give us the grace in this season of advent to be prepared and ready for the coming of the incarnate Word. Happy Sunday!

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Isaiah 40,1-5.9-11; Psalm 84 (85); 2 Peter 3,8-14; Mark 1,1-8; 2nd Sunday of Advent, Year B, December 10, 2023)

“The day of the Lord will come like a thief”, states Peter in his letter (2 Peter 3,10). This is a frequent image in the New Testament; it recurs in all its main sections: in the Synoptics, in Paul, in the Catholic Letters, in the Apocalypse. It is, therefore, the image in which Jesus spoke of his coming, which was very much imprinted in the memory of the first community, and in which the original Christians summarized the attitudes with which to live the expectation of the Kingdom. It is a paradoxical image: the thief tries to surprise; he desires everything except wanting us to prepare for his arrival. On the contrary, Jesus wishes to be awaited for and that his coming to be prepared for, as is recalled on this Sunday by the announcement of the Baptist, sent as a messenger to prepare the way of the Lord. However, the image of the thief, with its disconcerting strength, remains there to remind us that preparing the way does not mean planning the meeting, predicting the ways and circumstances, carefully preparing everything so as not to be surprised. Far from it! No matter how much effort we make, the thief will always surprise us. Ultimately, preparing the way means being willing to be surprised by something new that transforms us. We await - Peter always recalls - new heavens and a new earth which, in their unprecedented character, we can await and hope for, but not imagine or plan. We often confuse hope with the forward projection of our expectations and memories; that is, with the attempt to forever preserve the beautiful things we have experienced, or that we would have liked to experience, if some adverse circumstances had not prevented us from doing so. True hope is something else. About twenty days before his kidnapping, on 8 March 1996, Fr. Christian de Cherge, in a reflection for Lent proposed to the small and troubled Christian community present in Algeria, stated:

“There is hope only where one accepts not to see the future. Let's think about the gift of manna. It was daily. But it couldn't be saved for the next day. Wanting to imagine the future is creating fantasy-hope. The apostles were worried because they only had one loaf of bread. They didn't understand that it was enough. We know who the bread is. If he is with us, the bread will be multiplied. As soon as we think of the future, we think of it as the past. We do not have the imagination of God. Tomorrow it will be something else and we cannot imagine it”.

Surprising us like a thief (rather than taking away) the Lord comes to give, on the condition that we are willing to let something be taken away from us: our possessions, our certainties, our prejudices, our wrong expectations, our wounded memories, to leave room for the new wine with which he wishes to renew the wineskins of our lives, for the new bread - the manna - with which he intends to nourish our paths. As the prophet Isaiah recalls in the first reading, preparing the way for the Lord involves the effort of opening a new way through the desert, raising valleys and lowering mountains and hills; transforming rough terrain into flat terrain and steep terrain into a valley.

John the Baptist himself does not limit himself to proclaiming the urgency of preparing this new path, he himself is the first to experience its needs by entering the desert. This is how we prepare for the coming of the thief: by leaving our usual homes to go into the desert, a place where we experience that life does not depend on our projects or possessions, but on the unexpected gift that comes from elsewhere, which you can only wait for. and not produce, and which will surprise you as something you had not yet experienced or known. In the desert you learn the true art of waiting and hoping. In fact, we discover manna there - man-hu: “what is it?” (see Exodus 16,15) - and we finally understand that what makes us live is a bread that "you did not know and that your fathers never knew" (Deutt 8,3).

Thus, nourished by the manna, we walk in the desert towards the promised land. And we get there not through a linear and flat road, but by straightening twisted paths, leveling the rough terrain, lowering mountains and raising valleys, often losing our bearings, as happens to people who wander for forty years, so as to learn that the path is not the one that we draw on our topographic maps, nor the one that is indicated to us by satellite navigators, but the one that draws in our lives the one who (Isaiah reminds us in the final image of his text) "like a shepherd grazes his flock and gathers them with his arm; he carries the little lambs on his chest and gently leads the mother sheep” (Isaiah 40, 11). Only by maintaining this attitude can we walk towards those new heavens and that new earth that the thief gives to those who allow themselves to be surprised, with joy and not with fear, by his coming.

We will now experience that our efforts and commitments, symbolized by the "baptism of conversion for the forgiveness of sins" (Mark 1,4), necessary and at the same time insufficient, will find their fulfillment from the newness (which does not come from us but reaches from elsewhere) of him who "will baptize you with the Holy Spirit" (Mark 1,8). + John I. Okoye.