Thirtieth-one Sunday of Ordinary Time
Massimo Palombella
In today’s Gospel (Mt 23:1-12) Jesus, speaking of the scribes and Pharisees who sat in the chair of Moses, focuses on an interesting dimension that has to do with our relationships. In fact, by affirming not to be called ‘teachers’, not to call anyone ‘father’, not to be called ‘guides’, Jesus codifies a precise anthropology, a clear vision of the person and his being in relationship. Basically, each of us is spurred to find within ourselves that vital and life-giving relationship that leads us to be healthy and independent, to learn to discern, to make autonomous choices. Every serious and true educational process should lead people to a healthy independence, that is, to meet and relate with the Lord who awaits each of us in the interiority of our lives, in the texture of our history, in our strengths and weaknesses, in our successes and failures.
The Lord awaits us in the knowledge of ourselves, in the truth of who we are. The more we know ourselves, the more we know the Lord in truth, just as, the more we know the true God – and not the one we often invent to illude ourselves – the more we inevitably know ourselves in truth. It is only in this healthy maturation process that we learn to let people be free, not to possess anyone, to exercise that paternity and maternity that leads to freedom, to the inevitable separation, to the stabilisation of that one relationship, with the Lord. All this will make us more and more free, healthy autonomous persons in a dimension of life that is “beyond” emotional blackmail, “beyond” the conditioning of what others think. That dimension where only we can savour the ‘life in abundance’ to which we are called.
The Offertory antiphon of today’s celebration is taken from Psalm 102 (Ps 102, 2. 5) with the following text:
“Benedic anima mea Domino, et noli ablivisci omnes retributiones eius:
et renovabitur, sicut aquilae, iuventus tua.”
(Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits;
and your youth shall be renewed like the eagle’s).
The attached music, in Gregorian Chant, is taken from the Gradual Triplex published in Solesmes in 1979. The music track can be found on YouTube where there is no indication of the interpretation.
A blessed Sunday and heartfelt greetings.
