vangelo del giorno

Who do the crowds say that I am?

Ag 1,15b-2,9; Ps 42; Lk 9,18-22
27 SEPTEMBER

The crowds will always have a summary, superficial knowledge of Christ Jesus, composed of some truth and a lot of falsehood, few sound principles and many false ones. The knowledge of the crowd is subject to every influence. It is sufficient that a false prophet shouts something and the multitude is orientated differently from what it thought a moment before. In addition, a hammering propaganda suffices and truths once considered immutable become falsehoods to be thrown to the winds or be brought to the Gehenna dump. Today, Christian crowds have lost the most precious thing of Christ Jesus: the truth of his Word, the wisdom of his Gospel, the intelligence of his Cross, the knowledge of his gift of grace, the power and strength of his resurrection. As if this were not enough, they renounced the uniqueness of his Mediation, the necessity of his Church, the indispensable transformation of nature that takes place in the sacraments, the hierarchical structure and every supernatural element of being disciples of the Lord. But the crowd is like that. It must always be propped up. Satan knows the structure of crowds and knows how to maneuver them at will, for the purposes of perdition and not of salvation. We know how they are capable of sudden change of orientation. The day of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem they were all cheering the king who comes for the salvation of his people. A few days later everyone was shouting “Let him be crucified”. This is the consistency of the crowd. Let him know whoever bases his hopes on it that, like it hosannas, so it also crucifies. But the false prophets know how to manipulate it and they do it well. Working with falsehood is infinitely different than working with the truth. Jesus always works for the truth with the truth of his Father. He does not seek consensus. He can’t look for it. Consent is renunciation to the truth of salvation.

Through Peter, the Apostles know who Jesus is: the Christ of God. They know that Jesus is the Christ of the Lord, but they do not know who the true Christ of God is. Unfortunately this also happens. We know who God, Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Church, the Sacraments, Eternal Life, Paradise, the Gospel and Scripture, are. Unfortunately today we have lost the truth of God, of Christ Jesus, of the Holy Spirit, of the Church, of the Sacraments of Eternal Life, of Paradise, of the Gospel and of Scripture. We are also losing the truth of man and nature, of the present and the future, of the body and the spirit. We have also lost the truth of the soul. It is urgent to return to the truth. Life is truth. Without truth everything is drawn into death. But whoever must bring everything back to the truth is precisely the Apostle of Christ Jesus. If He loses the truth, the whole world loses the truth. Jesus says that if salt loses its flavour, it serves no other purpose than to be thrown and trampled by men. If the minister of light becomes darkness, it will be great darkness.

Once when Jesus was praying in solitude, and the disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” They said in reply, “John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, ‘One of the ancient prophets has arisen.'” Then he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said in reply, “The Messiah of God.” He rebuked them and directed them not to tell this to anyone. He said, “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.”

Jesus knows the Christ of God in fullness of truth. The truth is not the one contained in his heart, but that which the Father, in the Holy Spirit, handed over to the prophetic Scriptures. Whoever wants to know Christ must always be in spiritual communion with Christ. He obeys his Word and dwells in his Gospel, the Holy Spirit comes, takes possession of our heart and in it day after day he puts the truth of Christ Jesus, in which every truth is contained. If there is detachment from the Word, there is separation from Jesus, the Spirit cannot guide us from truth to truth, falsehood envelops our heart and we will speak of Christ without the truth of Christ. Without the truth of Christ every other truth will be transformed into falsehood. The process of transformation is inevitable. If the Christian wants to know the truth of Christ, he must live in the Gospel.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints arrange that the truth of Christ shines in the hearts for the Christian.