COMMENTARY ON THE LITURGY OF THE THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT
Collect
We beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants, and stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty, to be our defence against all our enemies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Readings
Ef 5:1-14; Lc 11:14-28
Comment
The mutism was a particularly wretched condition in Jewish antiquity because the one who was affected could neither raise his praises to God nor invoke him for help. The protagonist of this page of Luke's Gospel becomes the image of a radical separation from God and a state of profound solitude.
Sometimes suffering is capable of prostrating man to such an extent that even the comfort of prayer is impossible for him. Jesus demonstrates that he is capable of coming to meet us and of overcoming even these kinds of demons.
There is an ongoing battle between the Kingdom of God on the one hand and Satan and his angels on the other. It is not allowed to take positions of neutrality. Not taking sides with Christ means succumbing to the devil. Jesus is the strong man (Lk 11:22), capable of disarming the enemy and driving out demons with the finger of God.
His actions arouse wonder and a voice rises from the crowd. Faced with the woman who blesses the womb that bore him and the breasts that nourished him, Jesus relativizes family ties, placing obedience to God before blood kinship: "Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it" (Lk 11:28); these words sound similar to those reported by another passage in the Gospel of Luke: "My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice" (Lk 8:21).
The family is a reality willed by God from the very beginning of creation, but Jesus teaches us that if our charity is not able to overcome the same family relationships it will not live up to his Gospel. God's word is the model to follow, but it is not a dead letter; he is the Son of the living God (Mt 16:16).
If Jesus were not the incarnate Word we could simply find in him a preacher, a healer, or a political revolutionary. But he can be a true model of life because he is the incarnate Word, the visible and tangible manifestation of God. His humanity is the veil through which the Absolute, by definition separated from everything, makes itself close and knowable; it is the map for our itinerary of sanctification. The Most High God, before whom Moses and Elijah had to cover their faces, reveals himself to humanity in Christ and Paul exhorts us to be his imitators.
Beyond the lists of vices and virtues reported by the Apostle, not very different from those that we can find in the Greek and Hebrew literature of the same era, the real novelty of the Christian message consists in this closeness of God to man. In Christianity, reflection on God and the experience of God are not simply centered on a book, but on the Risen One, who walks with us to the end of time (Mt 28:20).
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
