Meditation

Today, the Lord challenges us to convert as He speaks about what goes on in our hearts. The commandment says “You shall not kill” (Mt 5, 21), but Jesus reminds us that there are other ways of killing life in others. We can kill life in others by harboring excessive anger towards them in our hearts or not treating them respectfully and calling them “Fool” (cf. Mt 5, 22).
 

Today, we celebrate the Chair of St. Peter. Since the 4th century, the Church wants to emphasize with this celebration the fact that —as a gift from Jesus Christ to us— the edifice of his Church stands upon the Prince of the Apostles, who enjoys a peculiar divine help to fulfill that mission. This is how the Lord said it at Caesarea Philippi: “I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church” (Mt 16, 18).

St. John Chrysostom writes in the person of Christ: “For Jonah was a servant, but I am the Master; and he came forth from the great fish, but I rose from death. He proclaimed destruction, but I am come preaching the good tidings of the kingdom.”
 

During Lent, the Church is asking us to go deeper into our prayers. Saint John Chrysostom says: “The prayer, our conversation with God, is our best treasure, because it means… being united to him.” Oh Lord! I need to learn how to pray and how to draw specific benefits for my own life. Mostly to live the virtue of charity: the prayer gives me strength to live it better every day. 

Saint John of the Cross says: “When evening comes, you will be examined in love. Learn to love as God desires to be loved and abandon your own ways of acting.” Neglecting to do what is right in the service of the other sons of God, our own brothers, means to deprive Christ of these details of due love: sins of omission.
 

Today, the Church celebrates the liturgy of the First Sunday of Lent. The Gospel presents Jesus preparing for His public life. He goes into the desert where He spends forty days in prayer and penance. There, He is tempted by Satan.
 

Today we see how Lent is moving forward and the strength of the conversion our Lord summons us to. The figure of Matthew, the apostle and evangelist, is very representative of those of us who think that, because of our background, or because of our personal sins or complicated life, we are unworthy of our Lord.
 

Today the first Friday of Lent, having experienced the fasting and abstinence of Ash Wednesday, we have attempted to offer our fasting and the prayer of the Holy Rosary, for the Peace, that our World needs so badly. We are willing to take care of this Lenten exercise, our Church, Mother and Teacher, is asking us to abide by, and to remember it was the same Lord...
 

Today is the first Thursday of Lent. The ashes our Church placed on our foreheads yesterday are still fresh, introducing us into this holy time, a forty-day journey. Jesus, in the Gospel, teaches us two paths: the Way of the Cross that He must walk, and our path in following Him.
 

Today we start our itinerary towards Easter, and the Gospel reminds us of the fundamental Christian duties, not only as a preparation for the liturgical time, but also as a preparation for the Eternal Easter: “Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father” (Mt 6, 1). 

Today, —once again— we can see the wisdom of our Lord Jesus. His behavior is amazing, as it is so different from the rest of the people…, it is original. He has just worked some miracles and now He is going somewhere else where the Grace of God must also reach. 
 

Today, it looks like the Gospel does not say too much about Jesus or about us. “Why does this generation seek a sign?” (Mk 8, 12). Commenting on this episode of Jesus' life, Saint John Paul II said: “Jesus invites us to discern between the words and the deeds testimony of (or a “sign of”) the arrival of God's Kingdom.” 
 

Today, the Gospel invites us to contemplate the faith of this leper. We know that, in the times of Jesus, lepers were socially marginalized and considered impure. The healing of the leper foretells the salvation that Jesus proposes to everyone, and calls us to open our hearts so that He can transform them.
 

To whom is the Lord calling? The text says: “he summoned the disciples” (Mk 8, 1), that is, He calls me, not to send them home hungry, to give them something to eat. Jesus sympathizes with them —this time in heathen land— because they are hungry.
 

Today, the Gospel presents us with a miracle of Jesus: he makes the deaf hear and the mute speak. The people were astonished and said: “He has done all things well” (Mk 7, 37).
 

Today, we see the faith of a woman who did not belong to God's chosen people, but trusted Jesus could cure her daughter. That mother “was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter” (Mk 7, 26). Pain and love bring her to insistently beg, ignoring scorn, delays or indignities...
 

Today, Jesus teaches us that God made everything good. But our intentions —which are not always right— may contaminate what we do. This is why Jesus Christ says: “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” (Mk 7, 15). 
 

Today, we are given to see how some late traditions of the Masters of the Law had actually manipulated the true meaning of the Fourth Commandment of God's Law. Those scribes taught that sons offering money and goods to the Temple were doing well. But, according to these teachings, parents could no longer ask or dispose of these goods.
 

Today, in the Gospel we see the tremendous power of contact with Our Lord’s person: “They laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak; and as many as touched it were healed” (Mk 6, 56). The slightest physical touch can work miracles for those who approach Christ with faith. 

Jesus’ hand is extended towards us as we lie overwhelmed by so many evils; it's enough to open our own, and we will find ourselves standing and renewed for service. We can “open” our hand through prayer, taking example from the Lord: "Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed" (Mk 1, 35).
 

Jesus tells them: “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” (Mk 6, 31). In God's plans there is a place of rest! But there is more, as our whole existence, with all that entails, must rest in God. An anxious Saint Augustine claims: “You made us for you and our heart is restless while not resting with You.” God's rest is creative; not “anesthetic”: bumping into God's love makes us focus on our heart and our thoughts.
 

The Holy Spirit had assured Simeon “that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord” (Lk 2, 26), and today, led by the Holy Spirit, he has gone into the Temple. He is not a levite, nor a scribe, nor a doctor of the law, he is just a “righteous and devout man, awaiting the consolation of Israel” (Lk 2, 25). But the Holy Spirit blows where it wills (cf. Jn 3, 8).
 

Today, the Gospel refers to the Apostles' first apostolic mission. Jesus Christ sends the Twelve to preach, to heal the sick and to prepare the ways of our definite salvation. This is the mission of the Church, and our mission, too. The II Vatican Council asserted, “Christian vocation is by its very nature a vocation to the apostolate...

Today, God also speaks to us through the Scriptures. At the synagogue, the Scriptures were read and, afterwards, the learned ones commented upon them and explained the sense of the message God wanted to transmit through them. The following thought is attributed to Saint Augustine: “As we speak to God through prayer, God speaks to us through reading.”
 

Today, the Gospel presents us with two of Jesus' miracles that speak of the great faith of two entirely different persons. Whether Jairus —an official of the synagogue— or that poor ailing woman, both displayed much faith: Jairus is certain Jesus can cure his daughter, while that good old woman knows that just touching Jesus' robe will be more than enough to deliver her from her very serious bleeding. 

Today, we find a fragment of the Gospel that might induce someone to smile. Imagining a herd of some two thousand pigs rushing down a cliff and into a lake, is a sort of funny image. But the truth is that those herdsmen did not find any humor in what had happened; they were very angry and begged Jesus to leave their neighborhood immediately.
 

Today, Christ addresses us with His forceful cry, without doubts and with authority: “Quiet! Come out of him!” (Mk 1, 25). He speaks to the evil spirits that live within us and prevent us from being free, as God has created and desired us to be.
 

Today, we see how our Lord scolds his disciples for their lack of faith: “Do you not yet have faith?” (Mk 4, 40). They had seen demonstrations of His divine power that proved beyond doubt that Jesus Christ was God's Envoy. Nevertheless, some of His closest followers did not believe Him. They did not realize that they should fear nothing because the Lord was with them. 
 

Today, Jesus is telling people about an experience very close to His life: “a man were to scatter seed on the land…, the seed would sprout and grow… Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear” (Mk 4,26-28). With these words Jesus is speaking of the kingdom of God, consisting “of sanctity and grace, Truth and Life, justice, love and peace”...
 

Today, the Church commemorates the conversion of St. Paul, apostle. The short fragment of the Gospel according to St. Mark contains part of the address on the mission bestowed to the apostles by Jesus, resurrected. His exhortation to go out to the whole world and proclaim the Good News includes the thesis that faith and baptism are necessary essentials for salvation...