In this section you can find a daily commentary on the Gospel of the Day.

Monday 16 March 2020

Third Week of Lent

Word for today
The Gospel of Luke 4:24-30

Everyone’s field

Rocks, stones and pebbles do not absorb water, but when it rains, it rains on them as well. When it rains, the drops of water are not affected by the absorptive properties of the soil. The rain falls on impermeable rock, and if it is not absorbed, it does not stop, it does not give up, it is not lost: the water runs off, it keeps going, from rock to rock, from place to place towards welcoming and receptive soil where it brings novelty and life, strength and energy.
Jesus offers His word to all His children, just as the rain that falls and waters everywhere and always regardlessly, throughout time and history, without differentiating. More than a spiritual text founded on ritualistic and religious systems, the Gospel is, rather, a book of instructions, a guide on how to live so that our hearts and minds are in unity with God, in peace and in harmony with one another and with creation. The words of Jesus are true procedures on how to behave; they are the instructions on how human life and every individual's life functions; and they reveal the principles and dominant laws to which everything obeys and on which everything depends. The Gospel, like the generous and revitalizing rain, is given to mankind as a possibility to learn how to build the world and live in a harmonious and vital way.
Initially the Heavenly Father had chosen and patiently and carefully prepared the ears and hearts of a generation for that wonderful rain: He had to start with someone somewhere. But from the moment the ears of the chosen people were found to be distracted and impermeable to  rain of the good news (so beneficial to their evolution) or rather, from the moment the chosen people transformed the rain intended for all into a private rain and claimed the right to preemption, the Word of Life, when the time has come, slips away. It slips away from the temples and palaces, from the books and libraries, from the churches and authorities, from institutions and ancient rituals; it simply runs off and falls elsewhere, beyond someone’s private property, beyond flags, signs, and fences. From land to land, from people to people, it slips away down the road; yes the road, which represents the place for everyone. The road is Jesus' earth; it is the place where Jesus met the people, the field where he planted the seeds of life. The people of the road are the new people of the Gospel. No one can stop in a private field to drink from a well, as someone can ask: “What are you doing there? Go away!” But if the source of the well is on the road, you can stop whenever and as often you want, day or night without needing to pay or or ask for permission. 
Open and willing ears, intelligent and perceptive minds, passionate and eager hearts searching for good and beauty, peace and true well-being make it possible to bring forth all the fruit that is possible. So it was, so it is, and so it will be, as long as the rain falls.