Saturday of the Twenty-FifthWeek in Ordinary Time
The prophecy of the passion
While they were all amazed at his every deed, he said to his disciples, “Pay attention to what I am telling you. The Son of Man is to be handed over to men.” But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was hidden from them so that they should not understand it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying. Lk 9,43b-45
Today, suddenly, we are joined by this prophecy of the passion, which we prefer to call “passion and resurrection”, to be faithful to the gospel message which includes the pain of the passion in the triumph of the resurrection of Jesus. These are both part of a unique and indivisible truth. If we consider the passion without the resurrection, we come to a desperate and sad religiousness, if we consider only the resurrection, we come to a religiousness foolishly enthusiastic and triumphant. These are two opposite errors, which would prevent to capture the integral value of the faith. The disciples, however, are not yet in position to run neither one or the other of these risks, because they completely reject this message of Jesus. Their inability to understand does not result from a bad will, nor by the rejection of the project of the Master, but it is precisely this revelation which, although being clearly expressed, is strategically too tight for the disciples. We are, in fact, at the heart of the faith and of the realization of the promise of God, which the man can only feel as a deep and vague desire, but he can only understand it when he sees it created by God himself and illuminated by the light of the Holy Spirit. This saving strategy of God will begin to be understood only after the resurrection and it will become clear only after the Pentecost. The disciples, really, will come to understand it by steps, as the healing of the blind man of Bethsaida, who first saw the men such as walking trees and then as they really are. In the today’s gospel passage this page is completely dark for the disciples and it is a little unclear for us, because, although we know the epilogue and the truth of the faith, at this time of the liturgical year this page of the gospel comes to us suddenly as a glow in the night. However, it will be well to welcome it as a grace of God, because we need, to not get lost in the paths of the personal Bible meditations, that the road which brings home is reminded to us, from time to time