Word of the day

A reading from the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians
1 COR 5:1-8

Brothers and sisters:
It is widely reported that there is immorality among you,
and immorality of a kind not found even among pagans–
a man living with his father’s wife.
And you are inflated with pride.
Should you not rather have been sorrowful?
The one who did this deed should be expelled from your midst.
I, for my part, although absent in body but present in spirit,
have already, as if present,
pronounced judgment on the one who has committed this deed,
in the name of our Lord Jesus:
when you have gathered together and I am with you in spirit
with the power of the Lord Jesus,
you are to deliver this man to Satan
for the destruction of his flesh,
so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.

Your boasting is not appropriate.
Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all the dough?
Clear out the old yeast, so that you may become a fresh batch of dough,
inasmuch as you are unleavened.
For our Paschal Lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.
Therefore, let us celebrate the feast,
not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

From the Gospel according to Luke
LK 6:6-11

On a certain sabbath Jesus went into the synagogue and taught,
and there was a man there whose right hand was withered.
The scribes and the Pharisees watched him closely
to see if he would cure on the sabbath
so that they might discover a reason to accuse him.
But he realized their intentions
and said to the man with the withered hand,
“Come up and stand before us.”
And he rose and stood there.
Then Jesus said to them,
“I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the sabbath
rather than to do evil,
to save life rather than to destroy it?”
Looking around at them all, he then said to him,
“Stretch out your hand.”
He did so and his hand was restored.
But they became enraged
and discussed together what they might do to Jesus.

Hope is a present, a gift of the Holy Spirit and for this reason Paul would say it never disappoints. But Paul tells us that hope has a name: Hope is Jesus. We can’t say, “I hope in life, I hope in God”, no. If you don’t say, “I hope in Jesus, in Jesus Christ, the living Person, who comes to us in the Eucharist, who is present in His Word,” that is not hope. It is a good feeling, optimism.” Jesus, hope, remakes everything. It is a constant miracle. Not only did He perform miracles of healing, so many things: those were just signs, signals of what He is doing now, in the Church. The miracle of remaking everything: what He does in my life, in your life, in our life. To remake. And that which He remakes is precisely the reason for our hope. It is Christ who remakes all things more wonderfully than in Creation, it is the reason for our hope. And this hope does not disappoint, because He is faithful. He cannot deny Himself. This is the virtue of Hope. (Santa Marta, 9 September 2013)