Twenty-Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time/B
Massimo Palombella
In today’s Gospel (Mk 9:38-43, 45, 47-48) Jesus’ language seems harsh and perhaps even incomprehensible or “exaggerated”. In fact, expressions such as ‘cutting off’ one’s hand, one’s foot, ‘casting away an eye’, risk being taken out of context today by proposing a lifestyle far from our cultural understanding. But Jesus, in the specific language of the culture in which he lived, basically wants to communicate to us, for the sake of an ‘abundant life’, the need to become capable of radical choices that inevitably include toil, suffering and separation. Those who really live and struggle to stay alive, those who have really had to confront themselves professionally and have accepted the challenge to continue to do so, those who have encountered their own humanity and continue to remain in touch with it, know very well that in life if we are not ‘exaggerated’ we are automatically mediocre. And today’s Gospel leads us exactly here, to the profound awareness that the dignity of being a person is a daily conquest, and remaining inwardly alive is a struggle that leads us slowly to abandon all that is not necessary and essential in order to gain what no one can ever take away from us.
The Communion antiphon for today’s Celebration is taken from Psalm 118 (Ps 118:49, 50) with the following text:
“Memento verbi tui servo tuo,
in quo mihi spem dedisti,
haec me consolata est in humilitate mea.”
(Be m indful of your word to your servant, O Lord,
in which you caused me to hope;
this has been my comfort in my affliction).
The attached music, in Gregorian Chant, is taken from the Graduale Triplex published in Solesmes in 1979. The performance is by the Schola Gregoriana Pragensis conducted by David Eben. The musical track can be found on the CD Liturgical Year. Gregorian Chant published by Supraphon in 1997.
A blessed Sunday and heartfelt greetings.
