Antonio Villarino

A comment on John 2, 13-25:

Third Sunday of Lent, March 8th 2015
This third Sunday of Lent, and the other two that follow we leave out Mark and take up the gospel of John, which separating itself from the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark and Luke) present Jesus in Jerusalem right from chapter two, that we are reading today. Meditating on this reading I share here points:

1) To purify religion
The Temple of Jerusalem –and the City itself- were among the most sacred things for Jesus, a devout Jew, and his disciples. The Temple and the City were somehow like a “sacrament” of the marvellous God’s presence in the life of Israel and its inhabitants. From childhood, Jesus visited and loved them from all his heart, because in those holy places he could see the “imprints” of God’s passing in his people’s history. In the Temple he could find his the two great loves: his Father and his People. So he can say truly with the psalmist: “Zeal for your house will consume me”. And it is precisely this zeal that is causing in him such a rebellion against the state of corruption that religious leaders and merchants had introduced into its rites. Jesus plans to purify the Temple, knowing that God cannot be “trapped” in any institution, even the most sacred one. In fact, later on in the same gospel of John, Jesus will tell the Samaritan woman: “The hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father… The true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth”.
Religious people can be tempted to manipulate or treat superficially holy rites and places. Certainly, we need rites and holy places to pray and celebrate, but, be careful, but don’t try to put them at the service of your interests, individual or collective ones. The disciples of Jesus must always be careful not to follow into the trap of abusing the treasure we have received, rather we must try to purify continuously our religious practices.

2) The sign of the body
When Jews asked him what kind of signs he was doing to justify the deep purification he was proposing, Jesus answered that the sign was his own body, which was to become the true “temple”, the place where God and humanity met “in spirt and truth”. The disciples’ faith has its centre, not in in a geographical place, but in the body of Jesus, o body that went through an extreme suffering and, at the end, experienced the triumph of God.
If in communion with the body of Christ, also our body (concrete expression of our spirit) becomes a place for meeting God: a body able to work, to suffer and to love in a concrete and tangible manner; a body that can go on its knees to adore; a body that bends itself to wash the feet of our neighbour; a body that serves the Poor and the needy; a body that sees, listens and embraces the suffering bodies of many suffering children of God. As Pope Francis says, the sick and the poor are the body of Christ. To serve them is equal to adore God. To abuse them is a blasphemy.

3) A weak faith
John tells us that, when people saw the signs Jesus was doing, many believed, but Jesus did not trust them. In the gospels we can see how much opposition and betrayal Jesus has to cope with, to the point that He ended up practically lonely and abandoned by everyone. Certainly, in the life of Jesus there were moments of enthusiasm, when people were following Him, thinking that He could be a king or a chief useful for their economic, political or religious interests. But Jesus did not allowed himself to be deceived by this superficial enthusiasm that could lead him astray from the mission the Father has entrusted to him. Jesus remained always confident, with the feet on the ground, free, open and faithful to the death, in spite of the inconsistency of those around him.
The temptation of an easy and superficial enthusiasm can affect us also, as individuals or as groups. Each one of us, our own community or the Church as a whole, can be satisfied with a superficial religiosity or even try to try methodological tricks to attract followers, even if they are not very serious ones… This is not the Jesus’ way. He is not too much worried about those who abandon easily nor does he confuse the superficial applause with an authentic faith; he knows, however, how to recognize a sincere faith, “incarnated” in the body of people’s suffering; a faith that transforms a life given out in adoration and service to the “body of Christ”, present alike in the Eucharist and in the Poor.
We pray that the Spirit of Jesus opens us to this sincere, concrete and consistent faith, in spite of our doubts and weaknesses.
F. Antonio Villarino
Roma

A commentary on Mc 9, 2-8: Second Sunday of Lent, March 1st 2015

In this second Sunday of Lent, we continue reading Mark, but jumping from chapter one to chapter nine, in which Jesus appears nearing Jerusalem, where he is going to have a deadly conflict with the authorities. As always, this texts offers us many point of meditation. I take just three of them:
1) To assume the cross: How difficult it is!
A few verses before this text we read today, Jesus, whom Peter has recognized as “the Christ”, begins to tell the disciples that he is going “to suffer a lot”. The disciples refuse to enter into this perspective: It cannot be that the Messiah has to be killed, and furthermore they are not ready for that; rather, they are thinking of becoming the “chiefs” of the new kingdom Jesus is proclaiming.
Jesus’s reaction is straight: he calls Peter “Satan”, because he represents the temptation of disobedience to the Father, the same temptation Adam had, as well as Israel in the wilderness. Bearing that in mind, we can understand better the scene that Mark is narrating in today’s gospel: Jesus takes by hand his intimate ones and goes with them to the mountain.
I think that we, as the disciples, have great difficulty in accepting the way of the cross, the suffering that goes with our faith-vocation, de failure…That of Jesus, in first place, but specially our own. None of us wishes to suffer, even for a good cause. We think that suffering is “a punishment form God” and we react against it. But it is in those moments, when we do not understand what is happening to us and do not feel like going to church, that we most need to be taken by hand and pray that God reveals to us his nearness and the meaning of what we are experiencing.

2) The Mountain: Divine perspective
Jesus takes his intimate ones to the mountain, they alone. There the disciples have a very especial experience, in which I would like to underline these elements:
-The mountain: Place of God’s revelation in almost all religions. It implies going away from every day’s routine, to get in touch with a non-manipulated nature; a place that helps human beings to go beyond themselves and a self-controlled society; a place where it is possible to open oneself to new realities, including the divine mystery…
-Intimacy: Jesus tries to share with his disciples the most intimate side of his personality, his life and mission. On the mountain he goes beyond the topics and superficialities… Jesus gives out the deepest side of himself: “You are my friends… Whatever I hear from my Father, I tell you”.
-No publicity: Jesus does not want any publicity or communication outside the group. Even, later, he will command them not to tell anybody what they have experienced. There are experiences that one has to keep for himself or, at the most, for the very friends. Those experiences are not to be exposed on TV or even in churches. “Go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who sees you in the secret of your heart”. Certainly: there are moments for witnessing and communicating, but there are also moments to be completely alone in the face of God “alone”.

3) “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him”
The evangelist narrates a marvellous scene, difficult to understand in its details from our today’s culture, but the global sense is quite clear:
-The disciples come to see Jesus in a new dimension, beyond their experience of him as a man from Nazareth and a wonderful preacher. It is the same experience that Sat Paul narrates in the letter to the Galatians: “The Father has revealed his Son in me”. It is the paschal experience that helped the disciples to understand the way of the cross and the real meaning of Jesus’ personality and mission. It is the experience we have when we “feel” Jesus alive and present in our lives.
-Moses and Elijah talk to Jesus: New and Old Testaments are part of the same story, the same salvation plan. To understand Jesus you have to read the Old Testament and to fully understand the Old Testament you have to listen to Jesus.
-“How good to remain here”: Once and again, the disciples of Jesus, of all ages, experience that the nearness of Jesus warms their hearts. This happened to the ones going to Emmaus, happened to Paul, to many saints and also to us in many occasions. To meet the Lord, on “the mountain”, produces in us a sense of fulfilment and direction, of having somebody always on our side.
-“This is my beloved Son. Listen to him”. The disciples understood that in his friend and Teacher, God was revealing himself in a clear and unique way. We all search for God and for meaning (for a definitive love) blindly and among doubts. Some search in the teaching of, let’s say, Buda; others in new theories (New Age); others still in pleasure, or pride, or success… The disciples had the experience that in Jesus they could see the face of the Father and the best guide for his own life. We are on the steps of those disciples and pray that the Spirit is renewing in us that experience, for our own sake and for the sake of others to whom we are called to be witnesses and missionaries.
Fr. Antonio Villarino
Rome

A commentary on Mc 1, 12-15: Firs Sunday of Lent, February 22nd 2015

The continuous reading of Mark’s first chapter, that we have been doing during the last four Sundays, has now been interrupted due to the beginning of Lent time, which in the Roman liturgy is a special time with its own readings’ system. Anyhow, in this first Sunday of Lent we remain still with this same first chapter of Mark, reading four verses of a great intensity. For my part, I Just recall here three brief reflections:

1) Wilderness: “talking is not the same as actually doing”
After being baptized by John and receiving the Father’s great declaration – “This is my beloved son”– Jesus goes to the wilderness “driven” by the Spirit. Why? Because between the word (vocation/declaration) “you are my beloved Son” and the fact (real, concrete life), there is a way to follow with faith and perseverance, discipline and work, clearness of mind and strength of will; a hard battle against the spirit of evil that surrounds us everywhere, pacifying the “wild beasts”, overcoming difficulties, doubts and temptations. Wilderness, as we know, represents in Jew history a place where to learn how to leave behind slavery times and attitudes, how to purify from infidelity, how to grow up as a people free and faithful.
Surely, we have also our own wilderness experiences. Which are the difficulties and tests we are going through in this time in our life? Which are our temptations? It is quite probable that we, as Israel and Jesus himself, see that our dream of living a truly Son’s life is still far away from reality; we are far from living a live that corresponds to the teachings of Jesus and our deep desire to live in truth and love, justice and generosity, peace and service. All of us have the experience that between our “word” (meaning good wishes) and our “facts” (good works) there’s still so much way to follow. Lent time is a good opportunity to re-affirm ourselves in this fight to make facts correspond to desires, to renew our hope and our decision to go own in the way of discipleship, that is proposed to us by Jesus.

2) Take the opportunity
Jesus comes out of the wilderness as a winner, confirmed in his vocation as a Son and sure that He is living a special moment in history, for himself and for the world. Jesus has experienced the loving nearness of the Father, not only in times of happiness and blessing, but also in times of difficulty, testing, temptation and spiritual fight. With that experience he comes out to mingle with people and convey a clear message: “The kingdom of God is near”, take the opportunity.
When we say that the Kingdom of God, what do we understand? Where’s the kingdom of God? Is it in the temple, in the working place, in the street, where? Certainly, It’s not a geographical place. The Kingdom of God –that is, his loving presence- is in us and around us, in the temple, in the family, in hospital, in the playing ground… Everywhere. Have you seen it? Look well. If y you have not seen it, it means that you have to wash your eyes, to clean your ears, to open your heart… Alas in this the Len time can help: a time for reading the Bible, to put order in our lives, to be generous in helping other… a time to open our spiritual eyes and see what maybe we are not seeing at this moment, due to the dust of fatigue, routine, repeated failures, wounded pride…

3) To change direction
Jesus invites the people of Palestine to believe in the presence of God among them and, as consequence, to change life, to abandon their condition of “slaves”, to assume their being children of the Father and to live up to that reality.
As a matter of fact, what is preventing us from seeing-hearing-touching the Kingdom of God in us and among us is our the attitude of Eve and Adam, when, having fallen in the trap of Satan, they dreamt that they could be “equals to God”, hiding behind “the fig leave” themselves and their naked arrogance, instead of acknowledging their error, to ask for forgiveness and to renew their friendship with the Creator. To believe is to come out of oneself and open our reality to the Other, the source of our life.
Len time is a good time, an opportunity to change our way, to leave behind our stupid wounded pride, that keeps us apart from our neighbour and the best part of our inner selves; an occasion to renew our faith that the Father’s Love is greater than our sins and errors and that in that Love we can renew ourselves, start again our journey toward the goal of a more serene and pacified life, transparent, generous, humble but confident… a life of God’s children on the way to a goal that is awaiting us besides the wilderness.
This is what we celebrate in the Eucharist, remembering the One that came out of the wilderness as winner and announcing that God wins also in each one of us and in our world, if only we believe and change our life to live accordingly.
Fr. Antonio Villarino
Rome

A commentary on  a Mc 1, 21-28 (Sunday, February First 2015)

The Fourth Sunday’s reading from the Gospel of Mark is the first part of the so called “Capernaum day”, after the imprisonment of the Baptist and the calling of the first disciples. In my reflexion I will follow three points: the place where Jesus was, the special value of his word, his fight against the “unclean spirit”.

The geography of todays’ gospel

We are at Capernaum, a town in northern Galilee, by the Galilean lake, a crossroads between the Palestine, Lebanon and Assyria. Capernaum as other towns of the time and of today, it was a place full of life, with positive and negative elements. Surely there was commerce and richness; political, religious and military leaders; “imperial roads” that connected it to a “globalized world”, etc. But there was also poverty, confusion, corruption, injustices,  poor faith, exploitation of the poor and other evils in private lives and public structures. There was also a synagogue, where some faithful people used to go, even if sometimes with fatigue and boredom.

Capernaum, in fact, may be the image of our own towns and our own culture, where we can find so much life, in its good and bad side alike: richness end poverty, generosity and egoism, confusion and search of truth, corruption and responsibility… And it is in this town and Culture that we, as disciple missionary, are called to be witnesses to the Kingdom announced by Jesus.

Jesus’ relevant word

Jesus used to teach everywhere, including the Synagogue, where many used to go out of faithfulness to tradition, but also with a kind of resignation, to listen to a word that usually would not mean any change in their lives. But that day there was a surprise. That preacher was different, out of his mouth came a word that touched life, that produced admiration, praise and the desire to change.

We may ask ourselves: Why was it like that? Why the word of Jesus was relevant, full of authority?

On my opinion, any word has authority and relevance whenever it is sincere, authentic and related to any concrete dimension of real life. When that happens, the word meets in the hearer an echo that sounds like a personalized truth.

One day, I had the opportunity to listen to Mother Teresa of Calcuta. A multitude of us were listening to her with admiration and a special emotion. What was special in that little, old and, I may say, “ugly” woman? We can say that nothing was special.  She just said, without any oratory tricks, what all of us knew. And yet, we all were touched and moved by the sincerity and authenticity of those simple words, that were just communication of a true experience of life.

That is what, in my opinion, happened with Jesus –and much more. And that is what may happen with our own words, when they transmit our sincere experience of enlightenment, forgiveness, consolation, and courage, discipleship, in a life lived on the steps of Jesus.

With Jesus, also we are called to be in our “Capernaums” of today “tellers” of authentic words of truth, justice, consolation, forgiveness… words of life. In the family, in the working place, in church, on the road, everywhere we are called to disciple-missionaries with words that come out of the authenticity of our lives.

The battle between the “unclean spirits” and the “Holy one of God”

In the Bible, including the gospels, there is much talk about “unclean” and “impure” spirits. It is a language that we do not use any more. But the reality to which those words relate is still very much with us.

With those words we speak of that part of the world, that is enemy to God and to human happiness. That side of the world made of lies, confusion, injustice, chaos, slavery… that prevents us and the humanity as such from growing up as children of the Father, free and freedom makers.

Let us remember, for example, the absurd violence that we have lately in several parts of the world; let us remember the general corruption in politics and religion, the enormous imbalance between poor and rich people, the stupid pride many use to humiliate the simple ones. Let us remember the many  addictions that are becoming a problem for many of us: drugs, alcohol, disorderly sex, exaggerated good consuming…

This world of corruption, injustice, impurity, that is in us and around us, becomes violent and aggressive when it meets with “the Holy one”, when it is confronted by the limpid word of Jesus.

But Jesus is able to win this battle. Not with the arms of the world (richness, pride, lie) but with the only arm of his word an action, “rooted” in the Fathers ’love, in which he becomes a Son, Free and freedom maker.

And we, in as much as we are disciples, united to this Son of God, we become also free and freedom makers, able to fight against the unclean spirits, not with the arms of the world but with the power of God, the power of our humble witness of the marvellous things Jesus Christ is doing in us. There is our strength, the strenght of a missionary church to overcome the evil present in the word.

Fr. Antonio Villarino MCCJ. Rome