Saturday May 29, 2021 - Eighth week in Ordinary Time - May the word of Christ dwell in you in all its richness, and through it offer your thanksgiving to God the Father - Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 11, 27-33
Following the expulsion of the merchants to the Temple that we heard in yesterday's Gospel, the chief priests and scribes were disturbed, because they did not believe in Jesus as the Messiah or in his works. They do not look positively on the identity of Jesus and they always seek to blame him and say, "By what authority are you doing this? And who gave you the authority to do it?" Jesus knew their hearts well. They do not want to receive the truth from Jesus, nor did Jesus want to give them a direct answer to their request; in his turn, he also asked them the question: "Did the baptism of John come from heaven or from men?" In fact, it was not to really know the truth that they did all this, but above all to trick Jesus with his response and thus accuse him.
When we look at our world today, we notice that life is full of lies, deceptions and traps. The dignity that God gave to man loses its value. We see everywhere the lack of the search for the truth that builds a renewed and orderly society, often we look for little animals to test and accuse others. God desires to show in our hearts and in our life the way of truth, but we are not available to welcome him, because the knowledge of the truth disturbs our personal desire, our wealth, and even our will.
God wants us to live our faith day by day; a faith maintained in the relationship with him through prayer. It is faith that makes prayer fruitful and it is daily prayer that makes faith stronger. With faith, we will not be like those chief priests and scribes who finally did not have an answer to Jesus' question. When we have great faith based on prayer, we become totally focused in Christ and we will be able to answer him where John's baptism came from: from heaven or from men. It is faith that helps us to be able to say that the authority of Jesus comes from heaven and his power comes from God the Father, therefore he comes from himself also, for he is the second person of the Trinity.
