Since they had not repented

15 JULY (Mt 11,20-24)

Jesus must be accepted as the Sent by the Father to give us the grace and truth of salvation. How do his contemporaries welcome him? Certainly not as their true Saviour and Redeemer from all bondage. They welcome him just as a miracle worker. Jesus is not a miracle worker. He was not sent by God for this. Welcoming him only as a great miracle worker is to denying him, betraying him and disowning him in his truth. He did not come to heal bodies, but to give true healing to the soul and spirit of men. Healing of the soul and the body are not the same thing.

This truth must be applied to every apostle of the Lord, every ordained minister, bishop and presbyter. The ministers of the Lord Jesus must be accepted for the mission that was entrusted to them. They must sanctify the world, freeing it from any influence and structure of sin. What do men want from them: that they place themselves at the service of their body, their humanity disjointed from the soul and spirit. He wants something immediately useful to his body. He does not want whatever concerns his soul. He wants things for time not for eternity. This a denial, betrayal and frustration of the apostolic mission. This way the sacred ministers are debased.

Against the debasement of his mission Jesus arises. He addresses to the cities of the sea of Galilee a severe reminder of truth and justice. They have received many signs of his truth. They stopped at the sign. They left the truth that the sign brings with it. They are responsible before God on the day of judgment. They have not converted. They did not accept Christ in his true gift that is the one of the Word of faith, which opens the doors to the realization of their true humanity. They remained in their old world, in their non-human life, because it was non spiritual, non true and non saint. This is a bad, the worst “use” of Lord Jesus. It is a real false and sinful “use”.

Can we say that today Jesus is pleased with his Church? We have to affirm without any error that he is not happy at all. The reason is of a simplicity that appears immediately to the eyes. She operated the process contrary to that of her Master and Lord. Jesus presents himself to the world full of grace and truth. He donates some signs so that through people believe in Him and let themselves to be filled with his grace and truth. Instead the Church is presenting herself to the world as poor in grace and truth, but with some signs also empty of true meaning and devoid of their truth. To day, the truth of the Church is missing. The charity of her truth is also lacking. It is necessary to remedy to this serious deficiency.

Then he began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And as for you, Capernaum: ‘Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the netherworld.’ For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”

If the Church does not remedy her way of appearing before the world, the world does not get converted, but the whole responsibility is of the Church. In fact, she was not sent into the world to make blank signs, vain ceremonies and to create structures of pure immanence. Neither was she sent to nourish the body of men. Her mission is the salvation of man through the preaching, the proclamation, the remembrance of the Word of Jesus, with signs, wonders, miracles, deep conviction and the presence of the Holy Spirit. If where she operates, passes and comes no faith starts, it is the sign that her work is vain. Of every vain action she is responsible before God. She should have given birth to people of faith and she did not do it. She did not give the world the grace and truth of her Master. She limited herself to make signs with no value of eternal salvation.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us true missionaries of Jesus.