Wednesday of the Thirty-FourthWeek in Ordinary Time
The church, salvation of the world
“Before all this happens, however, they will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name. It will lead to your giving testimony. Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute. You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives. Lk 21,12-19
The gospel of today is a continuation of the yesterday’s gospel, in which we noted the presence of alarmists and deceivers in the scenario of the daily disasters: wars, earthquakes, floods, bombings, famine, destruction, suffering of the migrant populations. In all these evils the christian has the privilege to see the travail of the birth of a new world. In this context, the today’s passage describes the social climate in which the church and the individual believers live: “They will seize and persecute you”. The persecution is not a disaster, it is grace of God, since it allows to testify on the faith in Christ and on the hope for a better world. It is a vital service to the society, for which the christian has nothing to do, the Holy Spirit does everything: “Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute”. However we must not make great speeches, most often
the silence is more eloquent. When I was asked to leave the political scene, no reason was put forward and I have not even asked it because clearly the Lord was closing that door to open another for me. I said goodbye and I left. “By your perseverance you will secure your lives”, Luke tells us today, but the perseverance is not persistence in implementing our plans, it is willingness to open up to those of the Lord. It is also the human secret to resist to the adversities: the oak trees break under the storm, meanwhile the reeds bend and when the wind drops, they return back to the previous life.