XXXIIIth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Massimo Palombella
Today’s Gospel (Lk 21:5-19) ends with an interesting phrase from Jesus: “By your perseverance you will save your life”.
It seems interesting to me to reflect on the notion of ‘perseverance’, not as something ‘static’ but as a dynamic reality, changing and deepening.
It is both easy and deceptive to codify ‘things’ on which to persevere. This is necessary and irreplaceable at a time in life, but the real perseverance, the one that ‘saves’ our life by not reducing it to sterile patterns, is the ability to change, to renew ourselves, to be dynamically faithful to the truth that we understand more and more about ourselves every day.
There is then an intelligent perseverance that is faithful to ‘external’ things because these tell the truth about us, they are our true good. On the other hand, placing “salvation” in external things repeated mechanically, and identifying this process as “perseverance”, is a subtle temptation that prevents us from vital contact with ourselves, true creativity, the exercise of freedom, living our humanity to the full.
Any true educational process is effective if it leads us to know ourselves, to grasp our truth, and to that healthy autonomy by virtue of which we exercise our freedom by learning to be intelligently and fruitfully ‘persevering’ in order to live ‘in abundance’.
The Offertory antiphon for today’s celebration is taken from Psalm 129 (Ps 129:1. 2) with the following text:
“De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine; Domine, exaudi orationem meam.”
“De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine;
(Out of the depths have I cried to you O Lord, Lord hear my prayer;
out of the depths have I cried to you, O Lord).
The attached music, in Gregorian Chant, is taken from the Graduale Triplex published in Solesmes in 1979. The interpretation is by the Coro De Monjes Del Monasterio De Silos.
A blessed Sunday and heartfelt greetings.
