Tradition places the transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor, a mountain that rises, isolated, in the middle of the fertile plain of Esdraelon. Covered with holm oak, carobs, and pine trees since ancient times, it was called the holy mountain and on top, cults to the pagan gods were offered. Today the place invites meditation and prayer. There it is natural to raise our gaze to the sky and our thought to God.
The symbolism of the "five loaves" and the "two fish" will be evident to those who know the language of the Bible and remember the words of Moses: "Man lives not on bread alone, but that all that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Deut 8:3). Here is the bread of the Lord: his word, his teaching; the "five" books of the Pentateuch, the Torah, are the bread of life.
The Word of God clearly illuminates the itinerary of James (and of the other Apostles) which goes from an initial ambition for power, censured by Christ, to a form of service which leads him precisely to confront those powers to which he aspired, and which arrives at the giving of his own life as a witness to the Gospel.
Today we interrupt the reading of the Gospel according to Mark that has accompanied us since the beginning of the liturgical year. For five Sundays, we will meditate on chapter 6 of the Gospel according to John. Before commenting on today's passage, I would like to preface it with some observations that will help us to approach the text correctly because it is easy to run the risk of misinterpreting it and therefore lose the message that the evangelist wants to communicate.
"To rest for a while." The objective is rest; it is not a recommendation to take a few days of rest and then resume our work with more frenzy. No, the objective of this rest is to regain inner peace, the tranquility of mind, the serenity of heart, to find ourselves. If you are agitated by family problems or troubled by a bad love relationship, stop, look for these moments in which you are alone with Christ, with his Gospel, to know what he thinks of those problems, of your anguish.
Having nothing was not, of course, the essence of his poverty: on the contrary, the conviction that he already possessed everything – everything, that is, that mattered, was the key to his freely chosen poverty. His poverty, in other words consisted in letting go of everything that blurred or distracted from what mattered most. Francis was outwardly poor because he was inwardly rich.
The passage opens with the sending of the twelve on a mission (v. 7). Everyone is sent, no one excluded; this indicates that the proclamation of the Gospel is not a task reserved for a few members of the community. The disciple who does not feel the need to share with others the gift he has received is probably not yet convinced that, by discovering Christ, he or she has found the most precious of treasures.
Those who hold power oppose anything that subverts the balance of society or the institution; they achieve their objective when they make people understand that there is an equation between what is usually thought and the Gospel message, between the principles dictated by current morality and the values preached by Christ, between the beatitudes of the world and those of the mountain.
From today's Gospel passage, as in many other texts of the New Testament (Mt 10:2; Lk 22:32, Jn 21:15-17), it is clear that Peter is entrusted with a particular task in the church. It is he who always appears first, is called to feed the lambs and the sheep and sustains his brothers and sisters in the faith. The exercise of this ministry is to be matched all the time with the gospel so that the bishop of Rome really is for all—according to the wonderful definition of Irenaeus of Lyons (II century)—“he who presides over charity”.
Among all ancient peoples, the conviction of the existence of an afterlife prevailed and, among the Greeks, the immortality of the soul. Inexplicably, this did not happen among the Jews who, since they were born as a people in Egypt, allowed more than a thousand years to pass before they began to believe in a life beyond death. They proclaimed the Lord "God of life" (Num 27:16), but always with an earthly perspective.
The cult of the Virgin Mary began to rise and develop in Jerusalem in the V century. A century earlier, in the IV century, the cult of John the Baptist was so widespread as to be considered universal. The people paid tribute with an extraordinary veneration to this saint. He is the most represented in the art of all ages; there is no altarpiece, no group of saints in which he does not appear.
What word is a Christian entitled to who experiences personal and family dramas in chains? Epidemics, earthquakes, tornadoes that hit parts of the world already ravaged by hunger and poverty pose serious questions to the believer. Wars, violence, injustices, betrayals, it is true, must be attributed to man, but because man is so bad, could not God make him better?
The truth is another: today we are paying the consequences of an evangelization and a catechesis that—without wanting to attribute blame to the willing preachers and catechists of the past—was disconnected from the Word of God. The future is in our hands. The Church has become aware of the treasure that the Master has given her: the Word, the seed that waits to be sown in the world in abundance, so that faith may flourish again on a new basis and on a sure foundation.
For the Eucharist to be authentic, it must be celebrated by people who have made a conversion, a change, a turning of the scale of values that guides their lives. Second feature: The room is large. Not only in the material aspect. It means that the authentic Eucharist must be celebrated by a welcoming Church, which has a big heart, which is a place of communion.
The “family” of God, the Trinity, is the picture of perfect harmony, full integration, and total realization that occurs in the encounter and dialogue of love. This unity of all in the peace of the Father’s “home” is fully realized when the “saving power” of the Risen One will have reached, through the disciples, every person. However, it must begin now, in this world, because God has already made us partakers of His own Love.
Luke, in the account of the Acts, places the gift of the Spirit at the feast of Pentecost. Why does he place it there? We know that the Spirit was brought into the world by Jesus and was given at the moment of his death on Calvary. The evangelist John says that Jesus, in his last breath, gave up the Spirit. This Spirit is the new nature of the person. This Spirit is no longer an external law, but a new life that the person has received from heaven.
The Gospel passage proposed to us on this feast of the Ascension of Jesus is the last part of the Gospel according to Mark, the last verses. And when you get to the last page of a book it means that the story is over. In this, the Gospel of Mark is no exception; in fact, it tells us how the life of Jesus has ended: not in the darkness of a tomb as those who executed him believed, but in the light of heaven, in the glory of the Father.
The love of which we shall speak in today's gospel is commanded because it does not come from the biological, instinctive nature, it comes from another nature. Today's text comes immediately after what we heard last Sunday; we remember that Jesus spoke to us about the true vine that must bear the fruits that the Father expects.
In the Gospel according to John, Jesus never speaks in parables as he does in the synoptic gospels but uses similes and images to communicate his message. He says, for example, 'I am the true shepherd'; 'I am the light of the world'; 'I am the bread of life' and today we have heard him use the image of the vine: 'I am the true vine.' Today, the vine and the vineyards have only meaning as an economic value; it was not so in Jesus' time.
The best-known image of Jesus is that of the Good Shepherd in the midst of his flock, with the sheep on his shoulders. It is always the most appreciated image by Christians. But note right away that the gospel today does not really speak of the 'Good Shepherd', but of the 'Real, authentic Shepherd'.
