HOMELIES

Today we celebrate a great day of our faith. It is the Epiphany. Jesus Christ, who was born in total discretion, lets himself be discovered by the universe with the visit of the Magi. God did not wait to reveal to humanity the crucial hour of his history. I invite you to discuss with me, on this feast of the Epiphany, the question of time and place.

On this second Sunday of Year C, we are invited to Cana to participate in the Lord's meal during which he takes care to transform the bread into his body and the wine into his blood. With the help of the Virgin Mary, let us enter this Eucharist with a purified heart.

Every time we gather in the Church under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, we manifest with gratitude the faith received in the Church since the day of our Baptism. In the footsteps of our Lord on this solemnity, we celebrate the mystery of his death and resurrection with the help of his Spirit.

On this last day of the year 2024, I come to share with you the joy of our assurance in God who does not abandon us, the strength of perseverance in the face of life's adversities and the happiness of living in thanksgiving.

After listening to these three readings, let us open our hearts to the wonders of the Lord. He who is the God of promises, he fulfills in due time what he has promised and our life takes another turn. These are the three points of our meditation that I develop on this fourth Sunday of Advent.

Since the first Sunday of Advent, the entire Church has adopted an attitude of gentleness tinged with the calm of waiting. This is even noticeable in the liturgy of the Mass, which suspended the singing of Gloria during the time of Advent. Basically, it is not melancholy that is expressed when the Church adopts this attitude. Rather, it is an invitation to all the faithful to deepen their hope in the One who comes to dispel our darkness with the great light. This is why we meditate on his promises by adopting attitudes that reveal that we are not without hope in our existential journey.

We light the second Advent candle because we remain vigilant in the light. Despite the refusal of God observed in everyday life on the part of humans, God does not shirk his promises. The time of Advent invites us on this day to smooth the way for the Savior who comes. Let us ask for his grace during this celebration. At each period of history, God places watchmen to ensure the permanence of his promises. If we reject him, we destroy ourselves; when we destroy ourselves, he restores us if we return to him; when he welcomes us, we receive the mission of announcing his salvation to all. These are the three points that I share with you in this meditation.

Today we have the responsibility to witness the fulfillment of God's promise to the world. The time of Advent, for every Christian, is the time to improve his relationship with God. We do not need to wait for the speech that throws us into anxiety before believing that Christ will return. But each day is a school that teaches us how to wait for our Lord. The feast of Christmas, which the time of Advent directly prepares, is an opening to the return of Christ for definitive redemption.

Meditating on the Gospel, we discover how much Jesus lets himself be touched by the suffering of this blind man named Bartimaeus. Until then, he was a simple beggar who perhaps did not benefit from the crumbs he received. Knowing our world, people have become very greedy that they no longer doubt to swindle even the poor. Everyone cares about their own interest without thinking about the consequences of their actions. This is why, upon learning of Jesus' passage, Bartimaeus exhausts all his energy to make his desolation heard. But who is available to understand his pain?

Christ, before Pilate, calls himself King. He declares it thus because his Royalty is very special. Pilate and the rest of the Jews are incapable of perceiving that he is not there to oust the ephemeral powers of this world. Because there is no common measure between the Royalty that Christ establishes and the royalty of this world. The Royalty of Christ is not a human institution (Lk 18:36; Dn 7:14), while the kings of this world count on men to be elected; the Royalty of Christ does not need propaganda to establish itself, while that of the world passes by advertising itself like a new product on the market (because it must always want to convince beyond its true nature); the Royalty of Christ flatters no one and evolves without complacency, while that of this world has chosen to bow as a way of life even before the forces of darkness (Mt 4:8-9); the Royalty of Christ is at the service of others (especially the most humble), while that of the world often serves its own interests and commands as master (Lk 22:25); the Royalty of Christ has no mandate (Rev 1:6; Ps 93:1), while that of the world must fight to review and review again its mandate...