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Word of the day

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Date22/03/2018

Reading of the day

GN 17:3-9

When Abram prostrated himself, God spoke to him:
"My covenant with you is this:
you are to become the father of a host of nations.
No longer shall you be called Abram;
your name shall be Abraham,
for I am making you the father of a host of nations.
I will render you exceedingly fertile;
I will make nations of you;
kings shall stem from you.
I will maintain my covenant with you
and your descendants after you
throughout the ages as an everlasting pact,
to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
I will give to you
and to your descendants after you
the land in which you are now staying,
the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession;
and I will be their God."

God also said to Abraham:
"On your part, you and your descendants after you
must keep my covenant throughout the ages."

Gospel of the day

JN 8:51-59

Jesus said to the Jews:
"Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever keeps my word will never see death." 
So the Jews said to him,
"Now we are sure that you are possessed.
Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say,
'Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.'
Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? 
Or the prophets, who died?
Who do you make yourself out to be?" 
Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing;
but it is my Father who glorifies me,
of whom you say, 'He is our God.'
You do not know him, but I know him.
And if I should say that I do not know him,
I would be like you a liar.
But I do know him and I keep his word. 
Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day;
he saw it and was glad." 
So the Jews said to him,
"You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?"
Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you,
before Abraham came to be, I AM."
So they picked up stones to throw at him;
but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area.

Words of the Holy Father

A closed way of thinking that is not open (…) to the possibility that there is something else, to the possibility that God might speak to us and tell us what the journey is like, and how he journeyed with the prophets. These people had not listened to the prophets, and they were not listening to Jesus. Yet theirs went beyond simple stubbornness. No, it was more! It was the idolatry of their own thought. I see it this way, this is how it must be and there is no other way!. (…) There was no possibility for dialogue, for opening oneself to the newness that God heralded through the prophets. (…) closed the door to God’s promise. The phenomenon of uniform thought has caused misfortune throughout human history. Over the course of the last century we all saw how the dictatorship of uniform thought ended up killing many, many people”. Those who were responsible for such atrocities were of the mind: it is impossible to think otherwise, one has to think like this (…). Today, too, a dictatorship of uniform thought exists and this dictatorship is the same as the one established by the people: who “take up rocks to stone the freedom of nations, the freedom of the people, freedom of conscience, the people’s relationship with God. And today Jesus is crucified once again”. (Santa Marta, April 10, 2014)