Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time/B
Massimo Palombella
In today’s Gospel (Mk 6:7-13) Jesus sends the Apostles to proclaim the good news so that people would be converted, to cast out demons and to heal the sick.
Jesus gives concrete instructions to the Apostles: do not take anything for the journey except a stick, nor bread, nor a sack, nor money, wear sandals and do not wear two tunics. Basically, Jesus asks the Twelve for an essentiality that is the consequence of trust.
What Jesus asks of the Apostles, in a way, he asks of each of us.
In fact, slowly, if we are attentive and able to read our lives intelligently, we realise that the Lord leads us to “leave”, to be more and more “essential”.
We can learn, then – and not without effort -, to no longer spend our energies on “defending ourselves”, to always have “ways out”, “alternative projects”.
Not wearing “two tunics” with us can mean slowly abandoning patterns, attitudes, “beliefs” that have accompanied us throughout our lives, and that acquire their true value precisely because at a certain point in our existence we become capable of leaving them behind, “relativising” them for the sake of a more authentic, truer, freer life.
The Lord is awaiting for us not rich in our strategies, our plans, our implicit and silent defences (perhaps disguised as intelligent reasoning). He is waiting for us “fragile”, “weak”, with no more defences, and therefore ready, truly capable for “life in abundance”.
The Introit “ad libitum” of today’s celebration is taken from Psalm 15 (Ps 16, 15. 1) with the following text:
Ego autem cum iustitia apparebo in conspectu tuo:
satiabor, dum manifestabitur gloria tua.
(As for me, I will appear before you in righteousness;
I will be satisfied when your glory is made manifest).
The attached music, in Gregorian Chant, is taken from the Graduale Triplex published in Solesmes in 1979. The performance is by the Ensemble Calixtinus conducted by Gianni De Gennaro. The musical track can be found on the CD “Canti Gregoriani – Officum Sancti Severi” published by Tactus in 2021.
A blessed Sunday and heartfelt greetings.
