The Kingdom of God is not a Utopía, it is a Relationship
Introduction
Today we celebrate in our Church the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time; on this Sunday as Catholics we celebrate the day of the Word of God, that is, as the Lord speaks to us through the Sacred Scripture and exhorts us to a Christian life enlightened by His Word.
First reading: From the prophecy of Jonah 3:1-5. 10
Second reading: From the first letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians 7:29-31.
Gospel: according to St. Mark 1:14-20
In the first reading of the prophecy of Jonah, God sends his prophet to the city of Nineveh to invite it to conversion, likewise God continues to send prophets in the midst of his people, the Church, to encourage them to change from a concrete lifestyle. The first great prophet in our midst is undoubtedly the Holy Scriptures, where we find daily spiritual nourishment and admonition to find true happiness. Nineveh needed Jonah for God to speak to him, we need our brothers for God to speak to our hearts. Let us look at our lives, as did the people of Nineveh and take the first step in accepting that we will always have to change something in our lives, let us open ourselves to be attentive to change.
In the Second Reading We are in front of an eschatological text typical of the first Christian communities, however, still remains the affirmation and faith as it allows us to trust in the eternal, because everything is ephemeral and has the limitation of time, it is therefore urgent that we seek a lifestyle of total surrender to the Lord from the vocation to which we have been called, because all of them lead us to God.
In Mark’s Gospel, the public life of Jesus is presented and with it the resounding preaching that he makes about the Kingdom of God, ratifying not only the essential but also what it implies to assume and live the Kingdom of God. Different interpretations are made of the Kingdom, however, I want to focus on what it implies to live the Kingdom of God. It is exactly a relationship. Jesus, in the midst of his discourses, wanted nothing more than for humanity to learn to love, this implies knowing how to relate and even learning to discover in the other the divine presence of God, this is the Kingdom, a permanent relationship with the other. In the second part of the text Jesus’ forceful call to go and look for new souls and unite them to the truth of the Kingdom is presented, for he says «Come after me and I will make you fishers of men». It is an expression that comes loaded with commitment, it implies walking towards a goal, directing the gaze only to Him. As the virgin and martyr says, if you say «Yes» to his «Follow me», then we are his and the way is free for his divine life to pass to us (Edith Stein).
Fruit: Ask the Lord to give you the grace to long for the eternal, to follow what is true, to bear witness and especially to be an builder of the Kingdom from your being a Christian.
S. Johanna Andrea Cifuentes Gómez, tc