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Escritura:
Zacarías 9, 9-10; Romanos 8, 9.11-13;
Mateo 11, 25-30 |
EVANGELIO
En aquel tiempo,
Jesús exclamó: Te doy gracias, Padre, Señor de cielo y tierra, porque
has escondido estas cosas a los sabios y entendidos y las has revelado a
la gente sencilla. Sí, Padre, así te ha parecido mejor.
Todo me lo ha
entregado mi Padre, y nadie conoce al Hijo más que el Padre, y nadie
conoce al Padre sino el Hijo y aquel a quien el Hijo se lo quiera
revelar.
Venid a mí todos los
que estáis cansados y agobiados, y yo os aliviaré. Cargad con mi yugo y
aprended de mí, que soy manso y humilde de corazón, y encontraréis
vuestro descanso. Porque mi yugo es llevadero y mi carga ligera.
HOMILÍA 1
Un día, un joven
lleno de vigor y entusiasmo presumía en la plaza del pueblo de tener el
corazón más sano y hermoso de todos.
La gente se
arremolinó y confirmaron que su corazón era perfecto, no tenía ni
manchas ni rasguños y latía con la precisión de un reloj.
De pronto, un anciano se presentó también
en la plaza gritando que su corazón era más hermoso que el del joven.
La gente lo examinó y vio que tenía muchas
cicatrices, que le faltaban trocitos y tenía grandes huecos.
El joven le dijo: "Déjate de bromas. Mi
corazón es más perfecto. El suyo, anciano, es un montón de cicatrices,
heridas y dolores."
Es cierto, dijo el anciano, pero mira cada
cicatriz es una persona amada. Arranqué trocitos de mi corazón para
dárselos a las personas amadas. Otras veces, entregué un trozo de mi
corazón a personas que no me ofrecían nada. Esos son los huecos que ves.
Dar amor es arriesgar y esas heridas me recuerdan que sigo amando.
¿Comprendes ahora por qué mi corazón es más
hermoso?
El joven permaneció en silencio, arrancó un
trocito de su corazón y se lo ofreció al anciano. Éste lo recibió y lo
colocó en su corazón y le dio un trozo del suyo al joven.
El joven miró a su corazón que ya no era
perfecto, pero lucía más hermoso que antes porque el amor del anciano
fluía en su corazón.
Jesús nos dice hoy que el es "manso y
humilde de corazón".Y nos
invita a examinar su corazón en el que cabemos
todos.
¿Si usted tuviera que ofrecer una casa al
evangelio de Jesús dónde lo alojaría? ¿En su cabeza o en su corazón?
El corazón, no la cabeza, es la única casa
donde el evangelio de Jesús puede albergarse.
Los sabios e inteligentes tienen cabeza,
los humildes y sencillos tienen un gran corazón.
"Te doy gracias, Padre"…
Jesús ofrece descanso a nuestros corazones
siempre inquietos, siempre buscando, siempre deseando nuevas aventuras.
El cuerpo después de un día de trabajo,
después de un largo paseo lo único que necesita es una silla. Para el
corazón no hay silla, pero el Señor es la silla para un corazón que
necesita descanso, fuerza y sabiduría.
"Vengan a mí los cansados", invitación de
Jesús para todos los días, pero invitación urgente y necesaria para los
domingos.
El domingo es el día en que los cristianos
hacemos santo el tiempo, disfrutamos de la creación de Dios y adoramos a
Dios Padre y Creador.
Así como durante las vacaciones los niños
olvidan libros y maestros y los mayores descansan debajo de la mata…el
domingo olvidamos las luchas del trabajo y nos centramos en el Señor que
nos habla al corazón.
El domingo escuchamos la invitación a ir al
Señor y a seguirle. Y recibimos el encargo de anunciar a los hermanos
que nadie está excluido del amor y de la gracia de Dios.
Y, a veces, le decimos a Dios: Mira la
violencia en el mundo, en mi barrio, en la iglesia. Haz algo.
Quisiéramos un Dios que baje a cerrar las pompas de agua, a barrer la
basura de las calles, a eliminar los vendedores de drogas…Pero parece
que Dios no hace nada. Tiene otro trabajo y nos dice simplemente: "toma
mi yugo".
El yugo hace el trabajo más fácil, más
rápido y más eficiente.
El yugo de Jesús es suave.
¿Cómo puede ser suave, preguntan algunos,
con tantas normas a cumplir?
Sí, el yugo del cristiano tiene sus
limitaciones, pero Jesús es mi compañero, unido a Él puedo llevar el
peso de mi vida, Jesús tira conmigo y nunca estoy solo con mis
problemas.
Y si no puedes, confíale tu debilidad,
pídele ayuda, ora y celebra la eucaristía unido al yugo de la comunidad.
Maestro, ¿cuál es la tarea más difícil de
la vida?
No tener ninguna carga que llevar.
HOMILÍA 2
“I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones”.
If you had to offer a home to the gospel, what room would you give it? A room in your head or in your heart?
The temptation of the wise and the learned is to think: a room in my head, I only trust in my wisdom, everything else is off limits.
I, who am one of those little ones, I offer the gospel my heart because the essential things of life can only be seen with the heart.
When we come to church, this place becomes our rest area. We turn off everything and turn on our hearts.
Tired of carrying the loads of life we listen to Jesus’ invitations.
“Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest”.
The promise that God will give us rest reminds me the parable about the two pairs of footprints in the sand walking side by side. Suddenly there is only one pair of footprints.
And God said to me that is when I picked you up and carried you.
God lifts us up and carries us when the burdens of our lives are too heavy.
What wears you down? Your family, your work, the people around you, the priest in front of you, your church…? Yes, I know, everything and the above.
You know that in the Old Testament, the day of the Atonement they sent a red cow into the desert and it carried away the sins of the people. That was a simple and perfect solution.
We have something more perfect and efficient, Jesus, the lamb of God, carries away your sins and mine.
“Take my yoke which is easy and light”.
In Jesus’ time the Pharisees were making Religion very complicated and difficult. They had 613 rules and regulations, 613 don’t do this, don’t do that. That kind of religion was a heavy yoke around people’s necks. It was worse than slavery.
The yoke of Jesus is not a new doctrine or new morals, it is a new reality, a new being, a new power which can transform our lives.
Here is the good news. Praise God. Jesus’ religion is simple and positive. Love God, love your neighbor, be kind and believe. Jesus’ religion is a perfect fitting yoke.
“Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart”.
The Christian faith is a response to Christ as a living, loving person, not just a set of principles or a creed we have to embrace. The person of Christ and his work can be summarized in one word: love.
Jesus is our Savior not because of the cross, not because he shed his blood. God does not need his blood to save us. He needs his love.
Jesus is our Savior because of his love. Only love works wonders, heals, forgives and gives life.
Only Jesus is powerful enough to save us all. Love is symbolized by the heart, like the famous and now universal logo of New York, I (a heart)….NY.
Jesus love is everlasting.
Let me tell you something, my personal confession, as times goes on I believe in fewer and fewer doctrines, but the few ones I believe in, I believe them with all my heart. Faith is much deeper than beliefs. “We can believe something to be true without making much difference to us, but we place our faith in something that is vital for the way we live”.
God loves me so much that he is the only one that does not scare me. You do scare me.
My body, when I am tired needs only a chair, but my heart which is never tired of searching new adventures does not need a chair, to find peace, hope and joy it only needs only the Lord.
Tomorrow, Independence Day, reminds me that we are not independent, we are interindependent. We need each other. Not even God is independent. He needs us and we need him.
Have a blessed Day.
HOMILÍA 3
McMillen tells the story of a young woman who wanted to go to college,
but her heart sank when she read one of the questions on the application:
Are you a leader?
Being honest, she answered: No, and returned the application expecting
the worst. To her surprise, she received this letter from the college:
Dear Applicant, a study of the application forms reveals that this year
our college will have 1,452 new leaders. We are accepting you because we
feel it is imperative that they have at least one follower.
Today it is our turn to answer this same question: Are you a leader? I
hope you are honest and say: No. Jesus, our true leader, needs at least
one follower.
Jesus did not land on our planet earth as a world leader, as a brave
general or as a bright philosopher, so he spent most of his life living
in an unknown village, ignored by everybody. Only at the end of his life
as “all things had been handed over to Him by his Father” He began to
preach about his Father’s love, and to proclaim the kingdom of heaven as
something real and present in the world.
God does not need 1,452 leaders, he needs just one follower and Jesus
became that faithful and obedient follower.
God is the leader and Jesus is his messenger before he became the
message for all of us.
The leaders of his time, the scribes and the Pharisees were more
important than God. Men always tend to seat on God’s throne.
The Pharisees were making religion very complicated and difficult. Their
religion consisted of don’t do this and don’t do that. To be religious
in those days it was more a curse than a blessing. To be religious is
more demanding than obeying a thousand rules.
Religion had become a burden, like a yoke on the people’s shoulders.
They were leaders of death.
God who is merciful and forgiving, God who wants to be near us sent
Jesus, his son, to give us not a new religion, but a new being.
“Come to me, all of you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens
and I will give you rest”.
The burden he wants to take from our shoulders is the burden of religion,
of bad religion. The yoke of the law, the 613 commandments of the Old
Testament.
We are not Atlas, the god of the Greek mythology forced to carry the
world on his shoulders.
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me”.
Jesus religion is simple and positive. Jesus came to remind us that only
God saves, only Jesus` love on the cross saved us from our sins and open
for us the gates of heaven.
Yokes are made for two oxen, for two people in love. No love, any yoke
becomes a burden, real hell, a lethal injection gone wrong.
When Jesus says “my yoke”, what he means is that while we will be on one
side of the yoke, he will be on the other side bearing the greater part
of the load.
To take his yoke upon us is to be his followers, his disciples.
“In his book, “Pilgrim’s Progress”, John Bunyan tells the story of a
Christian on a journey, carrying a large bundle on his shoulders. He
arrives at a place somewhat elevated above the surrounding area. On that
hill there stands a cross, and below the hill there is a grave. As the
man comes to the top of the hill with his heavy burden, the load is
suddenly released from his shoulders. It drops to the ground, rolls down
the hill, and disappears into the empty grave. That is a picture of what
Christ has done for us. We labor along, carrying a heavy load. The cross
appears before our eyes. We lay our heavy load down there, ant it is
rolled away”.
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