Do not worry about your life

2 Cor 12,1-10; Ps 33; Mt 6,24-34
22 JUNE

God did not create man by placing him in a wild, scorching desert, devoid of any form of life. He created and placed him in a garden of delights. In it there was every plant from which he drew every fruit to feed the life of his body. But in the garden there was also the tree of death. Never should man have had to feed on it.

At the time when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens – while as yet there was no field shrub on earth and no grass of the field had sprouted, for the Lord God had sent no rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the soil, but a stream was welling up out of the earth and was watering all the surface of the ground – the Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being. Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and he placed there the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made various trees grow that were delightful to look at and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. A river rises in Eden to water the garden; beyond there it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is the Pishon; it is the one that winds through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is excellent; bdellium and lapis lazuli are also there. The name of the second river is the Gihon; it is the one that winds all through the land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it is the one that flows east of Asshur. The fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it. The Lord God gave man this order: “You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die” (Gen 2,4-17).

After sin, God created for man another garden in which to draw every fruit of life. This garden in which to live is the Ten Commandments, his Statutes and his Laws. If man dwells in the garden of God, he receives every life. He comes out of it, he enters the desert of death, of desolation, poverty and hunger. Not only does he come out, he also transforms the earth into a land of misery and death for others.

When I brought you into the garden land to eat its goodly fruits, You entered and defiled my land, you made my heritage loathsome. Two evils have my people done: they have forsaken me, the source of living waters; They have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water (Cf. Jer 2,1-37).

Today the new garden of life is the Gospel. One enters it, the Father provides for every need, according to his divine and eternal wisdom. You come out, you live in the manner of the younger son of the parable of Jesus: you are forced to graze pigs. These feed on carobs in abundance. We die of hunger. There is no life out of the house of the Gospel. What is our folly? We wish to give life to the world, serving them the waste of carobs, rather than pointing the way to the garden of life.

“No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat (or drink), or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom (of God) and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.

The Word of Jesus is eternal truth. In the garden of his Gospel there is life in abundance.

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