Tuesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
The new economy of the gospel
Peter began to say to him, “We have given up everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come. But many that are first will be last, and (the) last will be first.” Mk 10,28-31
Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, the city where his earthly mission will end. He has always known it, but he will do nothing to avoid the events which await for him, because he completely married the plan which the Father, in the history of the salvation, has prepared for him. As his mission is nearing the completion, his life choices and his talk are becoming more radical and essential, both to the opponents and to the disciples. In this light it should be read the answer which today Jesus gives to Peter, which is the most imaginable radical. The Peter’s question is: what does it mean to leave home, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children and fields for the Lord and the gospel? The answer is by St. Paul: “The time is running out. From now on, let those having wives act as not having them,….., those buying as not owing, those using the world as not using it fully. For the world in its present form is passing away” (1 Cor 7,29 – 31). This does not mean contempt for the family and the relations of the earth, but their overcome, to avoid that the earthly concerns defraud us of the Lord, making us forgetting his proposal for the life and the goal to which we are headed. However, when these choices are made in communion with the wife, the sons and the friends, new and purified relationships are established, which rise to the level of the kingdom of the heaven. This is what happened among us, after so many years of prayer together and in particular what is happening to your mother and me with the elapsing of the time. Now our marriage is much more mature than when we were young and we feel the need to begin our days together going to receive the Eucharist at the Sanctuary of Saronno, or in the church of Castiglioncello, during
the holidays time. When this happens it does not mean to leave persons and affections, but to reconstitute it in God for a new life plan to follow the Lord. This is the direction in which the Christian couples, with the elapsing of the time, must be oriented to make the relationship between them, with their loved ones and with the neighbor more stable and blessed by the Lord.