Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time/C
Massimo Palombella
In today’s Gospel (Lk 6:39-45) Jesus, through the parable of the blind man who leads another blind man, the mote and beam in the eye and the tree that produces fruit, leads us to a profound level of life. In fact, only contact with ourselves, knowledge of our inner selves and the true motivations for our actions allow us to have a healthy relationship with reality and an interlocutor with a God who is not an invention of ours. The simple and plastic images that Jesus proposes – in a language typical of the culture where he lived – tell us clearly the attitudes of those who have or do not have an interior life, of those who are or are not in touch with themselves.
If the God in whom we say we believe really exists, He should slowly lead us to reality, to know ourselves, to purify the motivations for our actions and to abandon – not without effort – many attitudes and actions that do not tell the truth about us.
The relationship with the true God leads us fundamentally to act, and no longer to react, to live, and no longer to defend ourselves, to connect, and no longer to run away.
The introit of today’s celebration is taken from Psalm 17 (Ps 17: 19. 20) with the following text:
Factus est Dominus protector meus et eduxit me in latitudinem:
salvum me fecit, quoniam voluit me.
(The Lord has become my protector; he has brought me forth into free and open spaces;
he delivered me because he was well pleased with me).
The attached music, in Gregorian Chant, is taken from the Graduale Triplex published in Solesmes in 1979. The interpretation is by the Consortium Vocale Oslo conducted by Alexander M. Schweizer.
A blessed Sunday and heartfelt greetings.
