Today is a celebration of thanks to the Lord, who does great things to humble people who trust in God. In the Old Testament Hannah gives thanks to God because he has given her a son. She dedicates him to God. Samuel will be a very great prophet of the Lord. And Mary, a young,
Few things, if any, are more beautiful on the human – and the divine – level than the encounter between persons. An encounter is a great joy and a grace. The first reading (from the Song of Songs) speaks of the encounter between a suitor and the young woman he loves; this is probably an
Greeting Glory to God who is able to give you the strength to live according to the Good News about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This Good News is now proclaimed to all. May you accept this Good News and may the Lord Jesus be always with you. R/ And also with you. Introduction
People chosen by God for a special mission in his plan of salvation are constantly presented in the Bible as chosen and loved before birth, with their birth announced in a special way; they are moved by the Spirit of God; their mission demands sacrifices. Witness the call of Samson in his folkloric saga, or
When the kings of God’s people had not fulfilled their mission of guiding the people to God, the prophet Jeremiah announced that God would do away with them and himself become the shepherd of his people. But he would make this new beginning through a human, a virtuous shoot of the house of David. Through
The liturgical readings of today call our attention to Christ in his human reality: human like us in everything except sin, as St. Paul clarifies. He was a descendant of sinners, who, as the Church Fathers stress, are even singled out in Matthew’s family tree of Christ. He was a man born of a woman,
People and events are agents of salvation: heaven and earth cooperate, but ultimately it is God who saves through people. In the first reading, through the prophet, God addresses Cyrus the Great, who let the Jews return from exile. He was an instrument of God to bring liberation to the Jews. Pagans, too, are called
God had spoken continually to his people in words and deeds, yet they did not listen. But among them a remnant of poor people will return to God. With them, all the pagan, sinful nations will come to serve God. Sinners who recognize their poverty are perhaps more open to God than those who boast
“We want to be liberated from those illusions, frustrations, injustices and repression to which the modern world has subjected us in violation of its promises – this is what the young are saying, the disinherited, the automatons of modern technology: we want to be free persons, real persons, people rescued from hunger and from the
The religious name, which Juan de Yepes took as a Carmelite, was a very fitting one: Juan de la Cruz. Once St. Teresa of Jesus had drawn him into the reform of the Carmelite order, trials beset him from all sides, especially from his own confreres, who misunderstood his intentions and even imprisoned him. Yet
