A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew (4:12-17)
Now when Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, He departed to Galilee. And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:
The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles: The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned."
From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
Reflection
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, peace and good!
Last Thursday we celebrated the Holy Theophany of Our God, Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
On that day, the Saviour willingly plunged into the waters of the Jordan River before Saint John the Baptist, who at that time was baptizing the poor sinners through a baptism of penance, sanctified those same waters with his glorious presence and cleansed them, taking upon himself all the sins that were deposited there.
Coming out of the water, the sky opened, and the Lord Almighty said: "This is my Son, the beloved: listen to him!". Here is the Holy Theophany: the Manifestation from above. And the Holy Spirit, under the guise of a dove, descended from heaven, resting on his shoulders to seal this union.
What great joy we experienced that day!
An enthusiasm that is then continued with the Great Blessing of the waters and remains even now!
In fact, the Holy Church of God today offers us the Gospel passage concerning the beginning of Jesus' public activity.
Beloved brothers, you must know that the Gospel of Matthew was written in the second half of the first century to animate the small and fragile communities of converted Jews who lived in the region of Galilee and Syria. They suffered persecution and threats from their Jewish brothers for accepting Jesus as the Messiah and for welcoming the pagans. To strengthen them in faith, the Gospel of Matthew insists that Jesus is really the Messiah and that the salvation that Jesus comes to bring is not only for the Jews, but for all of humanity.
In the text of today’s Gospel, it shows that the light that shines in the "Galilee of the Gentiles" also shines outside the frontier of Israel, in the Decapolis and beyond the Jordan (Mt 4:12-25). Later, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will say that the vocation of the Christian community is to be "salt of the earth and light of the world" (Mt 5:13-14) and to love enemies (Mt 5:43-48). Jesus is the Servant of God who announces the right to nations (Mt 12:18). Helped by the Canaanite woman, Jesus himself crossed the boundaries of the race (Mt 15:21-28). He also overcomes the laws of purity that prevented the opening of the Gospel to the pagans (Mt 15:1-20). And finally, when Jesus sends his disciples to all nations, the universality of salvation is even clearer (Mt 28:19-20).
In today’s passage we see Jesus, who came to know of his cousin’s arrest, heading towards the land of his roots: Galilee.
But why does he choose Galilee and not Judea or Jerusalem as the place to begin his ministry of Salvation?
Because Galilee is not in the center, but on the outskirts of the land of Israel. The border area, therefore, inhabited by a mixture of orthodox Jews and idolatrous pagans.
He knows this town well, Matteo, he lived there and his tax counter, along the way, was known by all (even if looked at with contempt, given the job!).
We are in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, a place inhabited by the homonymous two tribes of Israel among the first to fall in 733 B.C. into enemy hands, a frontier territory, guarded with suspicion by the pure of Jerusalem, a place where beliefs and rites, cultures and languages were mixed.
Remember it, brothers and sisters, the Lord did not take our human condition to call to himself the righteous, those who strictly respect the Law and every precept. But on the contrary, He incarnated to call the least, the marginalized, the dying, the "rejects of society": sinners. And in his infinite goodness, he makes us the gift of a good of immense value: Salvation in Him.
This salvation would have had no beneficial effect on any of us if He had not incarnated and remained only the "VERBUM", the "WORD".
And for this reason, he sets out to proclaim the Kingdom where no one is waiting for it, nor wants it. Thus, the Gospel is spread in the most ordinary places, among the most common trades and finds echo and response in the daily lives of people.
And so, it can-must become the Christian life, ready and able to leave the churches to give God back to the people and to share with them the journey.
Jesus still today continues to call us so that, through him, we obtain salvation.
God is tired of being venerated in the tabernacles and of not being able to enter our daily lives, tired of being pulled into the dance in the "sacred" moments and being expelled from the places of the economy, politics, fun.
On this subject the words of Saint John Chrysostom resound powerful and strong: "Do you want to honor the body of Christ? Do not allow it to be the object of contempt in its members, that is, in the poor. Do not honor Christ here in church with silk cloth, while outside you neglect him when he suffers. He who said: "This is my Body", also said: "You saw me hungry, and you did not feed me".
However, beloved brothers and sisters, to welcome the mystery of salvation, we must also open ourselves to conversion.
To be converted we must turn and look. But to whom? To the Son of God! Recognizing our mistakes, all our mistakes, giving up all our certainties, our superfluous things and running like Peter and Andrew to let ourselves be embraced by the One who through his passion, death and resurrection gives us the Redemption.
Dear brothers and sisters, still today the Lord Almighty spurs us to conversion. But not to a fictitious conversion, fake and fallacious where there is no grace and much less the presence of the Holy Spirit. But to the conversion of the heart. To conversion, the true one, that transforms us from within.
Dear brothers and sisters, at the end of the Christmas season, I invite you to pray earnestly to St Gregory of Nyssa, who is celebrating his liturgical feast tomorrow.
He is one of the most important Fathers of the Church of the East. He was responsible for the first treatise on Christian perfection, the «De virginitate». Born around 335, unlike his brother Basil, future bishop of Caesarea, he initially chose not monastic life but studies of philosophy and rhetoric. It was only after teaching for years that he joined Basil in Annesi, on the banks of the Iris, where he had retired together with Gregory of Nazianzus. And when Basil was elected to the archiepiscopal see of Caesarea, he wanted his two companions as bishops in Nissa and Sasima. In his episcopal see Gregory had to face many difficulties: accusations made by the Arians led him in 376 to exile, but when it was discovered that they were false he was reinstated in the see. In 381 the fathers who participated with him in the Council of Constantinople I called it the «column of orthodoxy». He died around 395.
Pray to him, together with the Most Blessed Virgin Mary Mother of God, so that, at every moment of your life, you may always and in any case get converted to let yourselves be transformed by the Merciful Love of Our Lord Jesus Christ and thus be his true Apostles in this world, that year after year, is going to ruin.
May the Lord bless you!
"Searching is not wanting one thing and finding another,
but the gain of research is the search itself."
ST GREGORY OF NYSSA
Archdeacon, Michele Alberto Del Duca
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