422. Twenty-ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time (B)

Meditations no. 615 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Like James and John, the Lord asks us if we are willing to accompany him closely.

THE moment of the Passion is approaching. Jesus walks towards Jerusalem in precedence of his disciples, who are in fear, because he has announced to them the sufferings that await him. Although they do not understand the meaning of his words, they continue to wait-with human visions-for the imminent establishment of the kingdom of the Messiah. James and John approach Jesus and say to him, “Teacher, we want you to grant us what we are going to ask of you.” He said to them, “What do you want me to do to you?” And they answered, “Grant that we may sit one on your right hand and one on your left in your glory.”

The Lord’s heart burns with desire to consummate our redemption, but the disciples think only of their own, and they aspire to secure the best place at the moment of triumph, which they believe is imminent. Jesus answers them: You do not know what you are asking for. Can you drink the cup that I drink, or receive the baptism with which I am baptized?” “We can,” they told him.

Commenting on this passage from the Gospel, St John Chrysostom explains: “Listen to Jesus’ answer: ‘You do not know what you are asking’ (Mic 20:22). In fact, it was not a time of crowns and rewards, but of battles, struggles, fatigues, sweats, trials and combats. This is what the phrase ‘you do not know what you ask’ means. You have not yet experienced prisons, you have not yet gone down to the arena to fight”.

Our Father writes: He also calls us, and asks us, as he did James and John: Potestis bibere calicem, quem ego bibiturus sum? (Mt 20:22): Are you ready to drink the cup - this cup of complete surrender to the fulfilment of the Father’s will - which I am going to drink? Possumus! (ibid.); yes, we are willing!, is the answer of John and James. Are you and I seriously willing to carry out the will of our Father God in everything? Have we given our whole heart to the Lord, or are we still attached to ourselves, to our interests, to our comfort, to our self-love? Is there something that does not correspond to our condition as Christians, and that makes us not want to purify ourselves? Today we have the opportunity to make amends.

And after inviting us to take an examination, he continues: it is necessary to begin by convincing ourselves that Jesus personally addresses these questions to us (…). Lord, how little I am worth, how cowardly I have been so many times! How many mistakes: on this occasion and on that, and here and there. And we can still exclaim: thank goodness, Lord, that you have held me with your hand, because I see myself capable of all infamies. Do not let me go, do not leave me, always treat me as a child. May I be strong, courageous, whole. But help me as an inexperienced creature; take me by your hand, Lord, and let your Mother also be at my side and protect me. And so, possumus, we will be able, we will be able to have you as a model.

Jesus closes the conversation by assuring James and John: you will drink the cup that I drink and you will receive the baptism with which I am baptized; but it is not for Me to sit at My right or on My left, but it is for whom He is ready. The path on which those who follow Him must walk will not be comfortable or leave them room for ambition; on the contrary, they will have to face pain and contradiction on so many occasions. Jesus suffers to fulfill the Will of the Father. … And you, who also want to fulfill the Most Holy Will of God, following in the footsteps of the Master, will you be able to complain if you find suffering as a companion on the way?

To accompany Christ means to participate in his Cross.

THE FIRST reading of the Mass reminds us, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, how Jesus Christ, foreshadowed by the Servant of Yahweh, suffered for us: the Lord ordained to break him with infirmities. Since he gave his life in atonement, he will see descendants, he will lengthen the days, and by his hand the Lord’s plan will prosper. Likewise, in the second reading, taken from the Epistle to the Hebrews, we are told: we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but, like us, has been tested in everything except sin.

Identifying oneself with Christ entails the encounter with the Cross. If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, let him take up his cross every day, and let him follow me; in the incidents of our ordinary life, without waiting for great occasions to present themselves. “The Cross, an instrument of torture, became the cause of salvation thanks to the infinite love of Jesus. And there the Lord remains, in some way, waiting for us to collaborate with Him in applying the merits of the Redemption to souls. Let us not leave Him alone! It is time for those of us who know Him, love Him and follow Him, not to take our shoulders away, and to identify ourselves more with Him.”

There is no reason to be surprised, if we feel a movement of repulsion in the face of setbacks; Jesus Christ also experienced it before the imminent Passion, and prayed aloud: Father, if you will, take this cup away from me; but not my will, but yours be done.

Far from discouraging us, setbacks must be an incentive to grow as Christians: in this fight we sanctify ourselves, and our apostolic work acquires greater effectiveness. As we meditate on those moments in which Jesus Christ - in the Garden of Olives and, later, in the abandonment and revelry of the Cross - accepts and loves the Father’s Will, while feeling the giant weight of the Passion, we must be convinced that, in order to imitate Christ, to be his good disciples, we must embrace his advice: if anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me (Mt 16:24). For this reason, I like to ask Jesus, for myself: Lord, no day without a cross! In this way, with divine grace, our character will be strengthened, and we will serve as support to our God, above our personal miseries.

Understand: if, when you drive a nail into the wall, you meet with no resistance, what could you hang there? If we do not strengthen ourselves, with divine help, through sacrifice, we will not attain the condition of instruments of the Lord. On the other hand, if we decide to take advantage of setbacks with joy. for God’s sake, it will not be difficult for us in the face of the difficult and the unpleasant, in the face of the hard and the uncomfortable, to exclaim with the Apostles James and John: we can! (Mk 10:39).

The path towards identification with Christ leads us, first of all, to the firm resolution to make, with the help of grace, a turn in our lives, so that the north of our lives is not ourselves, but God; and that every day we rectify our course a little. It is true that we experience weaknesses, but we trust in the Lord, who wants our response and gives us the strength to make this desire come true: he who calls you is faithful, and therefore he will fulfill it.

Fortitude leads to resisting contradictions and tackling obstacles decisively.

TO PLACE ourselves in God’s hands is a source of authentic joy. No one is happy, on earth, until he decides not to be happy. This is how the path goes: pain, in Christian!, Cross; God’s Will, Love; happiness here and then eternally. To do this, it is necessary to put into practice the virtue of fortitude, which is manifested in a double attitude: to exercise patience in the face of trial, difficulty, temptation and one’s own weakness; and to undertake decisively, without hesitation or delay, what we have to do, according to the way indicated in each case not by comfort, but by prudence. This virtue will give us the right measure, avoiding both excess - recklessness and the presumption of relying only on our own strength - and defect or pusillanimity. Fortitude, audacity, is not imprudence, nor thoughtless daring, nor simple daring.

Audacity is strength, a cardinal virtue, necessary for the life of the soul.

To resist is, in the first place, to receive patiently, as an expiation, the contradictions that come from the hand of God, those that our companions provide us, with their character, and those of our own miseries. The Apostle James recalls this when he says: Blessed is the man who patiently endures adversity, because, once he has been tested, he will receive as a crown the life that God promised to those who love him. If we accept everything as coming from God, we will not lose our serenity and we will be joyful, resting in the Lord, who never loses battles.

The path of the Christian, that of any man, is not easy. Certainly, in certain times, it seems that everything is fulfilled according to our forecasts; but this usually does not last long. To live is to face difficulties, to feel in the heart joys and sorrows; and in this forge man can acquire strength, patience, magnanimity, serenity.

He is strong who perseveres in the fulfillment of what he understands he must do, according to his conscience; he who does not measure the value of a task exclusively by the benefits he receives, but by the service he renders to others. The strong sometimes suffer, but he resists; he weeps perhaps, but he drinks his tears. When the contradiction intensifies, he does not bend. Remember the example that the Book of Maccabees tells us: that old man, Eleazar, who prefers to die rather than break the law of God. I will courageously give my life and show myself worthy of my old age, leaving to the young a noble example, to die courageously and generously for our venerable and holy laws (2 Mac 6:27-28).

Fortitude moves us not only to accept contradictions with patience, but also to undertake decisively what we have to do: what has to be done, is done. When we face our task, we can feel an attempt at rebellion, because it is difficult for us, because it goes against the inclination not to complicate our lives, or it clashes with laziness or bad experiences. However, trusting in the Lord, we must fulfill what He asks of us, knowing that “many things that we do not dare to do, because they seem difficult to us, are in reality difficult because we do not dare”; but, above all, we must rely on the certainty that God has the power to grant us infinitely more than we ask or think, thanks to the strength he displays in us.

Let us apply these considerations when it comes to fighting against defects, to fulfill family and work duties, to make a profound apostolate with those around us, so that we can never say: I am not the apostle I should be. I am … the timid one. If that thought ever appeared in our minds, our Father would ask us, encouraging us to rectify it: “Are you not small, because your love is short?” “React!”

We return to the second reading of today’s Mass, in which we listen to words that our Father meditated on so many times, filling himself with consolation: adeamus cum fiducia. … Let us approach the throne of grace with confidence-the powerful intercession of the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God and our Mother-so that we may obtain mercy and find the grace that helps us at the right time.