READING OF THE DAY First reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah Is 60:1-6
Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you. See, darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds cover the peoples; but upon you the LORD shines, and over you appears his glory. Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance. Raise your eyes and look about; they all gather and come to you: your sons come from afar, and your daughters in the arms of their nurses.
Then you shall be radiant at what you see, your heart shall throb and overflow, for the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you, the wealth of nations shall be brought to you. Caravans of camels shall fill you, dromedaries from Midian and Ephah; all from Sheba shall come bearing gold and frankincense, and proclaiming the praises of the LORD.
PSALM 147 Extol the Lord, Jerusalem; praise your God, Zion. He strengthens the bars of your gates and blesses your people within you. He grants peace to your borders and satisfies you with the finest of wheat.
He sends his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly. He spreads the snow like wool and scatters the frost like ashes. He hurls down his hail like pebbles. Who can withstand his icy blast? He sends his word and melts them; he stirs up his breezes, and the waters flow.
He has revealed his word to Jacob, his laws and decrees to Israel. He has done this for no other nation; they do not know his laws.
Second reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6
Brothers and sisters: You have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for your benefit, namely, that the mystery was made known to me by revelation. It was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY From the Gospel according to Matthew Mt 2:1-12
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it has been written through the prophet: And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; since from you shall come a ruler, who is to shepherd my people Israel.” Then Herod called the magi secretly and ascertained from them the time of the star’s appearance. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word, that I too may go and do him homage.” After their audience with the king they set out. And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way. WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER It is the invitation of the Holy Mother Church to welcome this Word of salvation, this mystery of light. If we welcome him, if we welcome Jesus, we will grow in the knowledge and the love of the Lord, we will learn to be merciful like him. (Angelus, 3 January 2016)
FAUSTI - “Having been born”: the God-who-saves is already there. Matthew describes how to find "where" he is born, so that His Christmas is also mine. It is the city of David. Luke also tells how, due to the census, he was born in Bethlehem. “In the days of King Herod” Herod is the great, despotic and dissolute king. He is the "king of Judea", of the land he owns; it is not the "of the Jews", of the people who live there. Their king is Christ, who frees! In this tale the magi are seen in positive terms. They are not "magicians", but wise men who follow the directions of the star. Looking at the stars, marveling at the immensity of the sky and trying to understand it, scrutinizing its rhythm and harmony is the beginning of human knowledge. The sky regulates the earth: it marks the succession of seasons, months, days and hours, determines its work and rest, sowing and harvests, separating and meeting again, mourning and celebrating. Measuring time is the first science of man, aware that the time available to him is limited. The magi are not satisfied with observing the stars as they appear, persist and disappear: for them science is not only the observation of what is there, but also asking what it means. Where was the Lord born, whom I must and wish to find now? Wisdom, a reflection of the uncreated light, guides the Magi to Jerusalem: there is the center of the people depositary of the promise and of the Scripture. Reason, in seeking salvation, opens up to revelation where it is given. It is in Israel that Christ is found, for everyone and forever. Losing this root is losing the fruit. The first temptation is to open up to God, but denying "the history" in which he reveals himself and acts, reducing everything to ideology and symbol, without its content. This is what the various ancient and recent Enlightenment and moralisms do, such as the New Age. Whoever does not recognize Jesus "in the flesh" does not have the Spirit of God (1 Jn4,2); he is simply deceived. To detach oneself from Israel, old and new, from Mary and from the Church, is to lose "the Gospel": the Flesh of God-with-us. As in Judea, so in every corner of the earth, there are two opposite ways of being king: one powerful, which oppresses, the other humble, which saves. The two stand together like darkness and light. The magi are looking for the king of the Jews, not the king of judaea. What king and what man, what God and what salvation do we seek? At the time of Jesus there was a conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn, the star of the Sabbath, the feast of the Jews. Halley's comet also appeared. Whatever the sign, it is a "theological star". If science measures what is visible, wisdom seeks its invisible truth, and is not satisfied until it reaches the point of opening itself to the ultimate meaning: "every undead thought flourishes in transcendence" (Adorno). The star, light in the night, is human reason which, never satisfied with what it knows and open to what it ignores, guides man towards an ever greater truth. Wisdom also leads the pagans in their exodus, like "starlight in the night" (Wis 10:17). It is not enough to see. We must move and undertake a challenging research path, without ever trading the truth for our certainties. Those who, like Herod and the scribes, stay in the palace of their own interests or in the city of their persuasions - even just ones! - do not encounter the truth. Indeed, it destroys it, wherever it is. The arrival of the Magi in Jerusalem recalls IS 60,1-5. “To adore him”: to adore is the desire that moves every path from the beginning, the end of every understanding and doing. To adore is to bring-to-the-mouth, to kiss, in communion of love and breath. What the magi do here, the apostles will do in the end:
Herod and all Jerusalem listen to the question and the search of the peoples who turn to them. The general disturbance is the surprise of those who have to decide which king they want: whether Herod, equal to what everyone has, or what God promised. The political authority summons the religious and intellectual authorities to find out "where" this king was born. They have the right answer. They move their eyes to the scriptures, but these do not move their feet to the Lord. They know the truth, but they stay away from it. How often does knowledge serve to defend oneself from what one knows! They should "go out" to meet the Lord. Whoever does not go out to meet him, with his knowledge becomes an accomplice of the one who kills. "You are not the smallest" The smallest, the least, is the criterion of God's choice, opposite to that of Herod and of every man. God chooses Israel as His people because it is the smallest of the peoples. So he chooses David as king, the youngest of his brothers (1Sam 16:11). God chooses the things that are not "to reduce to nothing what they are" (1 Cor 1:28). for this none of the powerful and the wise of this world can recognize him. To find "where" the Lord is, one must look in the direction in which He is. And He, the "least of the brothers", is among the little ones. Reason makes us look for the Savior, revelation tells us where to find him: the first says that he exists, the second who he is, giving the first new criteria of evaluation, the same as those of God. For this reason the star disappears in Jerusalem - the reason for a while darkens before the revelation, like the stars before the sun - but then reappears with more precise indications. “Herod, secretly called the Magi, inquired ...” The king of Judea is an enemy of the king of the Jews. He uses for his plans both the "indifferent" science of the scribes and the "committed" wisdom of the magi. Evil is used for everything, especially good! He can always consider the “indifferent” at his service, and make the “committed” his most dangerous allies, because they are unaware. A knowledge that does not love is always "antichrist", but even an unwise love becomes an instrument of Satan (Peter 16, 21-23). In any case, the Lord remains the only Lord in history and in the end everything carries out His plan of love (Rom 8,28-Ac 4,27 - Ap 17,17). Herod makes his emissaries of the magi, in good faith. He wants to involve them in his plots, without them noticing. Jesus is the King of the Jews, the Christ, Light of the Gentiles, born for all in Bethlem of Judea. The light of reason and revelation leads humanity to him, which finds its life in him.
---->“They rejoiced much with great joy” God is Love; there is joy in His perfume, a sign of presence. Where He is, there is joy; sadness is a sign of His absence. It is communicated to whoever loves, to whoever discovers the treasure (13,44), to whoever meets the Living One (28,8). the joy of the heart indicates "where" the One you are looking for is: it is within you. Here you finally "enter the house", and find the king. The baby is worth seeing. Where is the Child, if not in the heart of those who love him, listen to him and rejoice in him? The outward journey stops; with adoration the inner one begins. Three times it is said to “adore” The Child you find him if you enter the “house”, and he is always together with His Mother. You will find the Son in Israel, in Mary, in the Church, in the brothers, in yourself, if you love and listen to him !. The treasure in Matthew is the heart of man. Where your treasure is, there is your heart. The magi open their hearts and offer what it contains. Gold, visible wealth, represents what one has; incense, invisible like God, represents what one desires; myrrh, an ointment that heals wounds and protects from corruption, represents what one is. The kingship, the divinity, the mortality proper to the creature, all that man has, but above all what he desires and what he lacks, is his treasure. He opens his possessions, his desires and his hardships to God. And God enters his treasure. This is "where" the Son is generated by the Father. By giving what they are, the magi receive Him who is, and they themselves become like Him. God is born in man, and man in God. Here the journey takes place. Even the Magi, like Joseph, receive God's message in a dream. God's dream influences history more than the power of any powerful, and it makes fun of it. They go back to where they started. But "in another way". No longer that of one who seeks one who does not know, but that of one who has found the One who seeks. In fact, they are no longer the same as before, they found "where" the king was born. The "where" of God is the heart of man, and the "where" of man the heart of God. They withdrew from "anchorites", says the Greek text, to their own land. They now have with them a new heaven and a new earth, seed that they will carry wherever they go. (FAUSTI)
READING OF THE DAY
RispondiEliminaFirst reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah
Is 60:1-6
Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come,
the glory of the Lord shines upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth,
and thick clouds cover the peoples;
but upon you the LORD shines,
and over you appears his glory.
Nations shall walk by your light,
and kings by your shining radiance.
Raise your eyes and look about;
they all gather and come to you:
your sons come from afar,
and your daughters in the arms of their nurses.
Then you shall be radiant at what you see,
your heart shall throb and overflow,
for the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you,
the wealth of nations shall be brought to you.
Caravans of camels shall fill you,
dromedaries from Midian and Ephah;
all from Sheba shall come
bearing gold and frankincense,
and proclaiming the praises of the LORD.
PSALM 147
Extol the Lord, Jerusalem;
praise your God, Zion.
He strengthens the bars of your gates
and blesses your people within you.
He grants peace to your borders
and satisfies you with the finest of wheat.
He sends his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
He spreads the snow like wool
and scatters the frost like ashes.
He hurls down his hail like pebbles.
Who can withstand his icy blast?
He sends his word and melts them;
he stirs up his breezes, and the waters flow.
He has revealed his word to Jacob,
his laws and decrees to Israel.
He has done this for no other nation;
they do not know his laws.
Second reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians
Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6
Brothers and sisters:
You have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace
that was given to me for your benefit,
namely, that the mystery was made known to me by revelation.
It was not made known to people in other generations
as it has now been revealed
to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit:
that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body,
and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY
From the Gospel according to Matthew
Mt 2:1-12
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea,
in the days of King Herod,
behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,
“Where is the newborn king of the Jews?
We saw his star at its rising
and have come to do him homage.”
When King Herod heard this,
he was greatly troubled,
and all Jerusalem with him.
Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people,
He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea,
for thus it has been written through the prophet:
And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
since from you shall come a ruler,
who is to shepherd my people Israel.”
Then Herod called the magi secretly
and ascertained from them the time of the star’s appearance.
He sent them to Bethlehem and said,
“Go and search diligently for the child.
When you have found him, bring me word,
that I too may go and do him homage.”
After their audience with the king they set out.
And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them,
until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed at seeing the star,
and on entering the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures
and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,
they departed for their country by another way.
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
It is the invitation of the Holy Mother Church to welcome this Word of salvation, this mystery of light. If we welcome him, if we welcome Jesus, we will grow in the knowledge and the love of the Lord, we will learn to be merciful like him. (Angelus, 3 January 2016)
FAUSTI - “Having been born”: the God-who-saves is already there. Matthew describes how to find "where" he is born, so that His Christmas is also mine. It is the city of David. Luke also tells how, due to the census, he was born in Bethlehem. “In the days of King Herod” Herod is the great, despotic and dissolute king. He is the "king of Judea", of the land he owns; it is not the "of the Jews", of the people who live there. Their king is Christ, who frees!
RispondiEliminaIn this tale the magi are seen in positive terms. They are not "magicians", but wise men who follow the directions of the star. Looking at the stars, marveling at the immensity of the sky and trying to understand it, scrutinizing its rhythm and harmony is the beginning of human knowledge. The sky regulates the earth: it marks the succession of seasons, months, days and hours, determines its work and rest, sowing and harvests, separating and meeting again, mourning and celebrating.
Measuring time is the first science of man, aware that the time available to him is limited.
The magi are not satisfied with observing the stars as they appear, persist and disappear: for them science is not only the observation of what is there, but also asking what it means.
Where was the Lord born, whom I must and wish to find now? Wisdom, a reflection of the uncreated light, guides the Magi to Jerusalem: there is the center of the people depositary of the promise and of the Scripture.
Reason, in seeking salvation, opens up to revelation where it is given.
It is in Israel that Christ is found, for everyone and forever. Losing this root is losing the fruit.
The first temptation is to open up to God, but denying "the history" in which he reveals himself and acts, reducing everything to ideology and symbol, without its content. This is what the various ancient and recent Enlightenment and moralisms do, such as the New Age. Whoever does not recognize Jesus "in the flesh" does not have the Spirit of God (1 Jn4,2); he is simply deceived. To detach oneself from Israel, old and new, from Mary and from the Church, is to lose "the Gospel": the Flesh of God-with-us.
As in Judea, so in every corner of the earth, there are two opposite ways of being king: one powerful, which oppresses, the other humble, which saves. The two stand together like darkness and light. The magi are looking for the king of the Jews, not the king of judaea. What king and what man, what God and what salvation do we seek?
At the time of Jesus there was a conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn, the star of the Sabbath, the feast of the Jews. Halley's comet also appeared. Whatever the sign, it is a "theological star".
If science measures what is visible, wisdom seeks its invisible truth, and is not satisfied until it reaches the point of opening itself to the ultimate meaning: "every undead thought flourishes in transcendence" (Adorno). The star, light in the night, is human reason which, never satisfied with what it knows and open to what it ignores, guides man towards an ever greater truth.
Wisdom also leads the pagans in their exodus, like "starlight in the night" (Wis 10:17).
It is not enough to see. We must move and undertake a challenging research path, without ever trading the truth for our certainties. Those who, like Herod and the scribes, stay in the palace of their own interests or in the city of their persuasions - even just ones! - do not encounter the truth. Indeed, it destroys it, wherever it is. The arrival of the Magi in Jerusalem recalls IS 60,1-5.
“To adore him”: to adore is the desire that moves every path from the beginning, the end of every understanding and doing. To adore is to bring-to-the-mouth, to kiss, in communion of love and breath.
What the magi do here, the apostles will do in the end:
Herod and all Jerusalem listen to the question and the search of the peoples who turn to them. The general disturbance is the surprise of those who have to decide which king they want: whether Herod, equal to what everyone has, or what God promised.
RispondiEliminaThe political authority summons the religious and intellectual authorities to find out "where" this king was born.
They have the right answer. They move their eyes to the scriptures, but these do not move their feet to the Lord. They know the truth, but they stay away from it. How often does knowledge serve to defend oneself from what one knows! They should "go out" to meet the Lord. Whoever does not go out to meet him, with his knowledge becomes an accomplice of the one who kills.
"You are not the smallest" The smallest, the least, is the criterion of God's choice, opposite to that of Herod and of every man. God chooses Israel as His people because it is the smallest of the peoples.
So he chooses David as king, the youngest of his brothers (1Sam 16:11). God chooses the things that are not "to reduce to nothing what they are" (1 Cor 1:28). for this none of the powerful and the wise of this world can recognize him.
To find "where" the Lord is, one must look in the direction in which He is. And He, the "least of the brothers", is among the little ones. Reason makes us look for the Savior, revelation tells us where to find him: the first says that he exists, the second who he is, giving the first new criteria of evaluation, the same as those of God.
For this reason the star disappears in Jerusalem - the reason for a while darkens before the revelation, like the stars before the sun - but then reappears with more precise indications.
“Herod, secretly called the Magi, inquired ...” The king of Judea is an enemy of the king of the Jews. He uses for his plans both the "indifferent" science of the scribes and the "committed" wisdom of the magi. Evil is used for everything, especially good!
He can always consider the “indifferent” at his service, and make the “committed” his most dangerous allies, because they are unaware. A knowledge that does not love is always "antichrist", but even an unwise love becomes an instrument of Satan (Peter 16, 21-23). In any case, the Lord remains the only Lord in history and in the end everything carries out His plan of love (Rom 8,28-Ac 4,27 - Ap 17,17).
Herod makes his emissaries of the magi, in good faith. He wants to involve them in his plots, without them noticing.
Jesus is the King of the Jews, the Christ, Light of the Gentiles, born for all in Bethlem of Judea. The light of reason and revelation leads humanity to him, which finds its life in him.
---->“They rejoiced much with great joy” God is Love; there is joy in His perfume, a sign of presence. Where He is, there is joy; sadness is a sign of His absence.
RispondiEliminaIt is communicated to whoever loves, to whoever discovers the treasure (13,44), to whoever meets the Living One (28,8). the joy of the heart indicates "where" the One you are looking for is: it is within you. Here you finally "enter the house", and find the king. The baby is worth seeing.
Where is the Child, if not in the heart of those who love him, listen to him and rejoice in him? The outward journey stops; with adoration the inner one begins. Three times it is said to “adore”
The Child you find him if you enter the “house”, and he is always together with His Mother.
You will find the Son in Israel, in Mary, in the Church, in the brothers, in yourself, if you love and listen to him !.
The treasure in Matthew is the heart of man. Where your treasure is, there is your heart.
The magi open their hearts and offer what it contains.
Gold, visible wealth, represents what one has; incense, invisible like God, represents what one desires; myrrh, an ointment that heals wounds and protects from corruption, represents what one is.
The kingship, the divinity, the mortality proper to the creature, all that man has, but above all what he desires and what he lacks, is his treasure. He opens his possessions, his desires and his hardships to God. And God enters his treasure.
This is "where" the Son is generated by the Father.
By giving what they are, the magi receive Him who is, and they themselves become like Him.
God is born in man, and man in God. Here the journey takes place.
Even the Magi, like Joseph, receive God's message in a dream. God's dream influences history more than the power of any powerful, and it makes fun of it.
They go back to where they started. But "in another way".
No longer that of one who seeks one who does not know, but that of one who has found the One who seeks.
In fact, they are no longer the same as before, they found "where" the king was born.
The "where" of God is the heart of man, and the "where" of man the heart of God.
They withdrew from "anchorites", says the Greek text, to their own land.
They now have with them a new heaven and a new earth, seed that they will carry wherever they go. (FAUSTI)