The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor

1 SEPTEMBER (Lk 4,16-30)

Every man whether he is powerful, big, rich, a doctor, teacher, professor, or weak, young, poor, uneducated, forever a student and miserable; he always writes by himself the program to achieve for him and for others. At best, he might get help from experienced people in this or that other branch of the economic, social, religious, moral and political life or otherwise. However, Jesus is different than any other man. He does not write any programs. It has already been written in eternity. The Holy Spirit writes it upon dictation of the Father. The same Spirit of the Lord rests upon Jesus Christ and day by day reads, interprets it for him and gives him the power in order to realize it in its entirety.

Even if the program of Lord Jesus is written in Heaven, we need to make it happen day after day in the reality of everyday life. This work can only be done if the Spirit of the Lord is one with Christ Jesus. Otherwise the script is so vague, so synthetic as to make impossible any concrete application. Instead, the Spirit of the Lord moves Jesus, who knows all the time what to say and what to do, but also where to say and where to operate. In the desert, the Spirit of the Lord gives Jesus the exact words of response to the devil who tempted him. In the synagogue of Nazareth, always the Spirit gives Lord Jesus the passage from which to start for the proclamation of his mission. It is the Spirit that suggests Lord Jesus the right words to utter. He is always the one that offers the perfect exegesis and hermeneutics of every passage of the Sacred Text. Without the Spirit of the Lord, we read but we do not understood. We give to the letter of Scripture some meanings that have never been in the mind of the Lord.

Today, this risk is highly prevalent in our Church. There are many who walk without the Spirit of the Lord and give the Word of God highly abstruse meanings, making impromptu performances that are neither in heaven nor on earth. It is easy then to know who is in the Spirit of the Lord from those who on the contrary are not. It suffices to look at how one behaves with the Word of God. Who is not in the Spirit will always give to the divine word contents of the earth. His explanation is a concentration of errors, falsities, lies, strange philosophies, abstruse, useless and incomprehensible theories. But with the light of the Holy Spirit that enlightens the mind, heart and that poses on the lips the right and holy word, everything becomes easier.

He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They also asked, “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” He said to them, “Surely you will quote me this proverb, ‘Physician, cure yourself,’ and say, ‘Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.'” And he said, “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

Even if no one opens to faith, never does Jesus say a useless word. It always produces some fruits of salvation in the hearts. Placed in a man’s innermost, today maybe it does not produce. Tomorrow it might bring forth fruits of eternal life. The disciple of Jesus is a true sower. He is always seeding. Then the Lord will be the one to collect all fruit.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us sowers of the Word.