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Mes: diciembre 2023

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Lectio Divina on the Feast of the Holy Family

First Reading: A reading from the Book of Sirach 3, 2-6.12-14

Ps 127:1-2. 3. 4-5

Reading from the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Colossians 3:12-21.

Gospel of St. Luke 2:22-40

Living as authentic homes in the style of the Family of Nazareth is the challenge presented to us by the octave of Easter, a beautiful feast capable of awakening spirituality and the connection between parents and children, following the example of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

This year, the celebration of the Holy Family commemorates its 150th anniversary since its institution by Pope Leo XIII. This celebration not only illuminates history, but also sheds light on today’s experience of family life. Have you asked yourself how you live your role as a mother, father or child in the mission God has entrusted to you? Take time for prayer and reflection.

In the first reading the text provides a reflection on the importance of love and respect for parents. It reminds us that honoring parents is an act of justice and gratitude, no matter the circumstances, carrying with it the promise of long life and blessings for children. It invites us to consider how we honor and show love to our parents and how it impacts the community and to understand that love, respect and gratitude are fundamental to the fullness of life.

Psalm 127 is a beautiful poem that speaks to us about the importance of depending on God in all areas of our lives. it reminds us that we must allow God to be the foundation and guide in all that we undertake. Without His help, our efforts may be in vain. Trusting in God’s protection and care in our lives and in all of creation. It is an invitation to trust in providence by putting Him first and not placing and depending on our efforts and titles. Finally, there is the care of children as a gift from God, to be cared for with love and responsibility, teaching and preparing them to face the challenges of life.

In the second reading, St. Paul begins an exhortation of a mystical nature regarding the virtues that all those chosen by God have. When he mentions the expression «clothe yourselves», undoubtedly you imagine a dress, a suit, a blanket, because from there he recognizes the greatness of feeling chosen and at the same time what it implies to clothe yourself not with material attire but with the virtues proper to the children of God. Compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience and forgiveness. It is not easy to live them because our human condition makes us fragile, however, prayer as a fundamental element of the life of faith allows you to achieve unsuspected and spiritual paths. A simple and practical exercise that can help you is mentioned by Paul himself: «Begin by giving thanks for every situation, person or event in your life».

And finally we approach a family gospel that recounts the faithfulness of Joseph and Mary in fulfilling the prescriptions and laws of Israel; in this case, the purification in the temple reflects a pious and devout family, committed to faithfully fulfilling what the Lord demands. However, let us focus on the figures of Joseph, Mary and Jesus.

Joseph, a prudent and silent man, represents the authentic proposal of a husband capable of assimilating these virtues for family life. Mary, an industrious, hardworking and prayerful wife, embodies the figure of a mother who is attentive to the process of her family. Jesus, as Luke says, grows in wisdom and grace; this process is proper to children who, throughout their lives, grow and, with experience, recognize the presence of God.

Today, we find ourselves in a society with different proposals about what it means to be a family, but Jesus, Mary and Joseph are the authentic BEING of a family that never ceases to assume the full, mystical and contemplative experience of existence. Today they present the virtues proper to a Christian family.

BEING FAMILY is a challenge that not only challenges social schemes, but also breaks into the real life of charity, fraternity and love in a home. TO BE A FAMILY is the proposal of the Kingdom expressed in affective bonds. If you are a mother and you feel that this task is difficult, assume the example of Mary in her spirit of prayer. If you are a father, adopt the role of Joseph, a prudent man attentive to the needs of his wife. If you are a child, remember that you are in a learning process and that God will show you day by day the necessary teachings to grow in wisdom.

S. Johanna Andrea Cifuentes Gómez, tc

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Lectio divina fourth Sunday of Advent

First Reading. II Samuel 7:1-5, 8-12, 14, 16. … «Go and do whatsoever thou thinkest, for the Lord is with thee.»

Responsorial Psalm. Psalm 89:2-5, 27, 29. … «I have sealed a covenant with my chosen one.»

Second Reading. Romans 16:25-27. … «Revelation of the mystery kept secret for eternal centuries.»

Gospel. Luke 1:26-38. » I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word.»

We have arrived at the Fourth Sunday of Advent and with it, at the end of the road traveled in preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of the Lord, we have traveled this Advent path with the sole purpose of arriving ready to renew one more year God’s greatest gift to the History of Humanity which is His own Son, Emmanuel.  Today, on the fourth Sunday of Advent, the liturgy allows us to remember that God fulfills his promises in the long awaited Messiah.

In the first reading, we hear how the prophet Nathan speaks to King David about God’s promise to establish an eternal rule for his people. This promise was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who is a descendant of David.

In the Responsorial Psalm, we are reminded that God is faithful to his promises and that his love and mercy is eternal.  And in the second reading, St. Paul tells us about the mystery of salvation that has been revealed through Jesus Christ.

But let us dwell today in a special way on the Gospel. St. Luke gives us the story of the Annunciation, in which the angel Gabriel visits Mary and announces that she will be the mother of the Messiah. Mary, with bewilderment but still with deep faith, accepts her role in the salvation history.

At the heart of this celebration is the crucial role that Mary played. She, a humble and faithful young woman, was visited by the Angel Gabriel, who announced to her that she would be the mother of the Son of God and her «Yes» was an act of total surrender and trust in the divine plan, an example of obedience and humility that changed the course of history.

Mary’s «Yes» teaches us that true greatness lies in the willingness to do God’s will, even when we do not fully understand His plan. Her example of faith and determination at a time in history when, as a woman, she was totally subordinated to the custody of a man is truly disconcerting; Mary inspires us by defying the established social order of her time, only affirmed in the certainty that it was God who spoke to her heart and God does not lie.

 How admirable her trust, the trust that we often lack because there is a great difference between believing God and believing in Him.   Undoubtedly Mary believed God and her faith was enough to make possible the most important event in history: The Incarnation.

The Annunciation is an invitation to think that God wants to establish a relationship, an encounter with us, that He sends us messengers and messages to make this bond possible, that He approaches our lives in a surprising and unsuspected way, with no other pretension than to find our hearts as willing as Mary’s. And that in this message there is an enormous amount of information about God. 

And that in this message there is an enormous amount of trust placed in our lives, He is the God who puts Himself in our hands, within our reach, who makes Himself fragile, defying the stereotypes and comfortable images that we have made of Him.

Let us end this reflection by quoting the words of Father Eduardo Meana in his beautiful musical interpretation «Oh, tierracielo», so that we may understand in it the sublime act of love that the incarnation of the Son of God contains.

O God who has tied yourself with the ropes of time

To our coordinates, to our slow rhythms

To the uncertain becoming of our learning

To the irregular river of our growth

You revealed the depths of this, our existence.

What was ours was in You, what was ours was yours

The human was «more» – God-capable, and sacred

Dramatic and sacred, our «being in the world».

The opaque of the earth in you was transparent!

The opaque was capable of heaven and Word

And it was mirrored in your flesh that we are «earth-sky».

Fragments of infinity in illuminated flesh

Holy kiss of two words

O Jesus Christ, O heavenly earth!

Strong tender, human Lord

Divine ours, Divine ours

Divine and bereft, amazing God and ours

Brotherly and vulnerable, exposed to unloves

Concrete surface of human skin ready

To moon and sun, to hugs, and to whips and blows

Your incarnation is the map of our hope

The human, in your humanity, rises in silence

Destiny and wonder that your body narrates to us

What is ours fits in God and this God fits in what is ours

What unpronounced God traveled in pregnancy

Serene and mysterious of the Mother Maiden

But the God whose back comes by the work

Of sowings and seeds, of nets and fishing?

Holy kiss of two words

O Jesus Christ, O heavenly earth!

Strong tender, human Lord

Divine ours, Divine ours.

May God with us be the truest motive that fills our hearts with joy in this new Christmas.

 

S. Sandra Milena Velásquez B, TC

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Lectio Divina Third sunday of advent

1st reading: Isaiah 61:1-2, 10-11.»I rejoice with the Lord and rejoice with my God,» said Isaiah,

«My spirit rejoices in God my Savior,» said Mary.

2nd reading: 1Thess. 5:16-24 «Rejoice always,» said St. Paul.

GOSPEL St. John 1:6-8,19-28: «I am the voice crying in the wilderness, «Make straight the way of the Lord.»

«On the path of this new Advent we have arrived at Joy Sunday and the church calls it «Gaudete» a Latin word meaning «rejoice». In the context of Joy Sunday in Advent, the Church calls it so to highlight the importance of the joy we feel as we approach the celebration of Jesus’ birth. It is a reminder that, despite difficulties and challenges, there is always reason for hope and joy.

Let us unravel from these texts of the liturgy the invitation to joy as a backdrop.

The first reading, taken from the prophet Isaiah, allows us to go back to the Gospel of Isaiah

Let us unravel from these texts of the liturgy the invitation to joy as a backdrop.

The first reading, taken from the prophet Isaiah, allows us to go back to the Gospel of Isaiah:

 Let us bring to our memory that biblical text taken from the gospel of St. Luke 4, 18-22, when Jesus arriving in the synagogue on Shabbat, took the scroll of Isaiah, proclaimed just this chapter that we have read today and that in his expressions defines the Messiah and his commission ratifying first that he is anointed by the Spirit and that he has been sent to.

Give good news to the poor

  1. Heal the brokenhearted.
  2. To proclaim amnesty to the captives and prisoners of freedom.
  3. to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Let us dwell on this last assignment of the sending. José Antonio Pagola, a Spanish theologian and writer, interprets Jesus’ proclamation of «the year of the Lord» in the context of the Jubilee, an Old Testament concept. In his book «Jesus, Historical Approach,» Pagola explains that Jesus alludes to the jubilee, a special sabbatical year celebrated every 50 years, during which the release of debts and the restoration of property were proclaimed.

For Jesus, proclaiming the «year of the Lord» symbolized a message of liberation, justice and integral restoration for people.  Jesus was announcing a profound transformation in people’s lives, both spiritually and socially, focusing on mercy and equity.

There is no doubt that the commissioning of the Messiah was news that would fill his fellow countrymen with joy and hope, feelings that were almost inconceivable in the context of a time in history when the oppressive yoke of the Roman Empire and its alliances (Pax Romana) was being experienced.

The liturgy of this Third Sunday of Advent continues presenting to us in the psalm the figure of Mary in the proclamation of the Magnificat, her reason for joy, her deepest joy: To know that the Lord has looked upon the humility of his handmaid and in her all the little and simple ones the «Anawin» (Poor of Yahweh).

Finally, in the Gospel of this Third Sunday we continue to identify in John the prophet who today defines himself as the witness of light, the one who, as the biblical text says, confesses and does not deny that he is not the Messiah. He who prepares the way for the Lord. The Voice that cries out in the desert: «Make the Paths Straight».

 A few days ago Monsignor Manilla said beautifully in this regard: «John was the Voice, Jesus the Word» Do we lend our Voice to the Word?

 

S. Sandra Milena Velásquez B, tc

 

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Lectio Divina Second Sunday of Advent

A reading from the Prophet Isaiah Is 40:1-5. 9-11. «Comfort, comfort my people says the Lord.»

Psalm 84: «Show us your mercy, O Lord, and give us your salvation».

 

Second Letter of the Apostle St. Peter 3, 8-14.

Mark 1:1-8: A voice cries out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord,

 

During this Second Sunday of Advent Isaiah concretizes the mission of every prophet saying: «Comfort, comfort my people, says the Lord, speak to the heart of man». And from the first reading he presents John in an intrinsic way; he will define him as the voice crying in the wilderness, as the herald, the messenger. But at the same time he will reveal his dual mission: At first, we see him as a prophet who emerges in the complicated historical scenario to give us hope, and later as a prophet who demands a change of attitude. However, what is most important is the definition that the prophet and later the evangelist will provide of him, explaining the reason for his special presence at this time: «A voice crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths».

The entrance of the forerunner, of the Messiah on the stage of history is the theme of today’s Gospel, Luke leads us through a very clear itinerary in which he will present us the figure of John the Baptist from three direct references:

A look at the historical framework in which John began his ministry (3,1-2a).

The Gospel is clear, the work of John and Jesus takes place in a concrete historical context, where the figures of the rulers stand out. To this dominant power structure of the time a messenger is sent, that is why the intention of this second Sunday of Advent is to warn that God speaks through his forerunner who brings a double announcement, as we have already said.  God enters history, he takes our side in the common circumstances of human life. The characters mentioned are directly or indirectly linked to the ministry of John and Jesus; their relationship with the authorities will be conflicting. A necessary but risky confrontation is John’s assignment.

We all know the cruel outcome of John’s mission and yet, the Gospel does not promote a negative attitude towards the power that silences the prophets with violent methods. The mention of these characters who wield destructive power seeks to convey good news: we are not completely surrendered to the historical powers, since the last word on the destiny of the world belongs to God, the Lord of history. With the coming of Jesus, whose path John the Baptist prepares, God breaks the iron cycle and the immovable course of the historical forces that oppress human beings by monopolizing everything, as we will see in more detail on the Third Sunday of Advent. Therefore, Jesus and the last of the prophets enter the scene closely linked to this story.

The presentation of the prophet’s vocation (3:2)

John is the voice crying out in the desert and it is worth pausing to take up this symbolism: The «desert» takes us back to the origins of the people of Israel in the exodus and even brings us back to the beginnings of history itself. The desert evokes aridity, solitude, anonymity, fear, insufficiency, lack of hope. In it we brush against death. The desert is the place where if you cry out, no one hears you; where if you fade away exhausted on the sand, there is no one to stand beside you.

What does it mean then to listen to the voice of God in the desert, to proclaim it also in the desert? It means that we must hear the inaudible and proclaim the unspeakable, overcoming all the impediments that would frustrate our mission and silence our proclamation.

And finally, a summary of the essence of John’s prophetic mission (3:3-6).

Our times are not different from John’s, we continue to have a deep need for conversion, and conversion means going back to retrace our false steps and affirm our footprints on the right path. John prepared the way of the Lord, more with his life than with his words, striving never to fall into the attitude of self-reference and giving Jesus his rightful place, first in his own life and then in history. To prepare the way is to leave everything ready for those who, along the same path, will arrive at the expected destination, and this should make us reflect: how are we traveling this path, which is life itself? Will our steps serve as a reference for others to reach a single destination, which is love, or, on the contrary, will our steps make them walk along confused and mistaken paths? Do we know how to discern which path to follow, or are we groping our way through life? God does not postpone his promises, as we heard in the second reading, he came to our land, to our history, to our family. How deep is our certainty and under what daily presences do we recognize God with us?

Let us be grateful for these presences and let us validate them in our own history. Maranatha!

S. Sandra Milena Velásquez B, tc

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Lectio Divina, First Sunday of Advent.

Isaiah 63:16b-17.19b; 64:2b-7: Oh! that you would rend the heavens and come down!

Psalm 79: O God, restore us; let your face shine upon us and save us.

1 Corinthians 1:3-9: We await the coming of Jesus Christ.

Mark 13:33-37: Stay awake while the master of the house comes.

Today we begin a new liturgical year and with it we renew our enthusiasm and hope.

What better word can define Advent than hope?

Who has not felt that the liturgy of Advent is a renewing air that fills our hearts with joy and consolation?

In the liturgy of this First Sunday of Advent we begin by placing ourselves near the end of the book of Isaiah, which is a collection of oracles of various prophets throughout the history of Israel. The passage we read today belongs to the «Third Isaiah» (Is 56-66), who lived in a difficult time of reconstruction after the exile, which is reflected in his words full of intense emotions, even weeping.

Isaiah expresses in the first reading a cry of expectation, a longing, a deep and heartfelt desire from the depths of his heart. Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down!

He represents the deepest longing of the people of Israel, to be inhabited by the Messiah, but also the voice of the prophet is revealing and questions the double standards of a people that waits and, while doing so, does not prepare the way for his arrival; contaminated by injustice, a sin totally despicable in the eyes of Yahweh, because it goes against the principles of the people, of the covenant at Sinai, of the promise to be the people of God, it goes against the covenant, not only agreed with him, but even more so among themselves.

This eschatological tinge of the first reading puts us on alert, especially if we recognize that we are that same people of his, the people of the covenant, and that we often avoid our choices of conscience by desiring his presence in our lives and transgressing the commitment to unity and justice that we have promised.

The last words of the prophet Isaiah update the first pages of Genesis. They highlight the figure of God as Father, Creator and Restorer of life: «You, Lord, are our Father»…. «You, Lord, continue to be our Father». This image renews hope: God’s coming also requires a willingness to approach him. Prayer that acknowledges pain, seeks forgiveness and sings of hope is the way to meet him. It arises from the heart with the certainty that God cares deeply about our situation and will come to us, as he has in the past. This passage has New Testament implications.

The birth of Jesus at Christmas fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy: the heavens open and, in Jesus, God meets humanity. He will come again at the end of time, as Jesus lets his followers know in the Gospel parable.

The psalmist intervenes crying out for restoration and humbly invokes God saying: «O God, restore us, let your face shine upon us and save us.

The second reading from the first letter of the Corinthians reminds us that God is faithful and that in calling us to communion with his Son he wants us to be blameless in love, assuring us that we do not lack any gift to achieve that communion. As Benedict XVI told us in his encyclical God is Love, «Love can be commanded because it has first been given.» (14)

 Finally, Mark in the Gospel reminds us that preparing for the coming of the Lord requires an enduring attitude of vigilance because we do not know the day or the hour.

The verb «watch» appears in the parable for a total of four repetitions of this term. But what exactly does Jesus’ command to «watch» imply? The Greek term «gregoreo» primarily means «to be awake». However, this does not mean that the disciples cannot sleep (physically it would be impossible), in this context, the disciples must be alert and attentive to recognize the coming of the Lord at an uncertain time.

There is a call to be attentive to something deeper. Not being asleep can be expressed in this way: we must be vigilant in the darkness of history, with our whole existence concentrated on following Jesus if we wish to witness the coming of the Kingdom, for we may run the risk of forgetting him and his teachings, since he is not present in a visible way. The «watchful» servants are those who are always ready to receive him and respond.

May the Lord find us awake and directing the portion he has entrusted to us with love, dignity and justice. May our works more than our words heal all the signs of pain, contradiction and injustice in our world, those that we ourselves have provoked and those that, although we have not provoked, we can restore. Let us not forget that like Francis of Assisi and Luis Amigó, aware of their mission, we are called to be operative, proactive and driven, and above all to listen to the voice of the Lord who, through the power of his spirit, inspires each of our words and actions.

Let us celebrate the hope that fills us with certainty and drives us forward! Advent invites us to renew our confidence in the salvation that is to come, to free ourselves from disenchantment and to wait joyfully for the coming of the Lord. Through prayerful listening to the Word, let our prayer lead us to cry out, «Come, Lord Jesus!»

S. Sandra Milena Velásquez Bedoya

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