Homily | 9 September 2025

GOSPEL REFLECTION Luke 6:12-19
Tuesday, September 9

Thanks be to God for this opportunity to share with you, brothers, thanks be to God for these five years of priestly ministry that allows me to celebrate.

Today's Gospel invites us. We know that the mountain, throughout history, has been seen as a meeting place between the divine and the human. It is at the summit where the air is purest, the noise of the world is muffled, and the perspective changes. This action invites us to reflect on the need to find our own spaces of silence and prayer, away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. When decisions become urgent and complex, prayer must become increasingly longer and more intense.

In this General Chapter, decisions have been and will be made that we hope will be the fruit of prayer and reflection for the good of our Order. In the same way, the major superiors of the different circumscriptions gather together to refresh their spirits so that in all the work they perform, they may always be accompanied and guided by the Holy Spirit. Prayer was an inseparable companion of Jesus. Throughout the Gospel, we see him praying, especially in the most decisive moments of his life: before Baptism, when he performed various miracles, at the Last Supper, in the Garden of Olives, on the Cross. Likewise, all our major decisions should arise after an encounter with God in prayer.

And how do we know if the answer truly comes from God? When God enlightens a soul through the action of the Holy Spirit, he sends certain signs: profound inner peace, joy, and love—what we call the "fruits of the Spirit."

One of the hallmarks of Christianity is that God wants all people to be saved. He personally calls each of us. This is why the Gospel records the specific names of each of the Twelve chosen by Christ, not because they were holy and perfect, but because, despite their shortcomings, they were chosen because he loved them and wanted and wants to have a concrete and personal relationship with them. The disciple follows the master; we too are called to have that same personal relationship that the disciples had with Jesus.

Christianity implies incarnation, it implies dealing one-on-one, it implies looking into the eyes, allowing ourselves to be looked at by God and trying to respond to Him. That is why Christianity cannot be understood without the proper and necessary response of each of us to that act of love, to that love first placed by God, who is the one who initiates it.

One cannot believe in God, in the revealed God, and not pretend to have a personal, one-on-one relationship with Him. That is why so often we are tempted to forget God. We must truly ask ourselves: is my faith based on Christianity? Because if God calls me by my first and last name, if God asks me to follow Him, how can I forget Him all week, often leaving Him behind, and turning to Him only when I am in need? God calls you by your first and last name. God wants to have a personal relationship with us, but often we have time for everyone except Him. There's room in the day for everything except the time God wants us to dedicate to Him. Our relationship with God is that of a disciple who follows the master, or, on the contrary, a relationship marked by self-interest.

We heard in the first reading from Saint Paul to the Corinthians, how he recounts a series of sins. He says that those who commit them, if they do not repent of them, will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Each of us also has our falls, our miseries, and weaknesses. The important thing is that we place our hope in God; that as many times as we fall, we rise again. We cannot help but feel anger at something that has been done to us, rage at an injustice. The Kingdom of Heaven will belong to those who feel and fight to refuse to consent. If they do consent, they will rise again, place their hope in Christ, humbly ask for forgiveness, and begin again. God calls us despite our misery. Peter and the rest of the disciples also had misery, but they followed the Lord, abandoning everything. Let us abandon all our misery, our selfishness, everything that prevents the Lord from working. Let us abandon everything and place ourselves in the Lord's hands. May God help us.