Explication
Every day
Biblical commentaries
This speech by Jesus to the Twelve before their departure on the mission is paradoxical. A double thread seems to weave this speech, one rougher and the other softer. In the same verses, Jesus announces that he did not come to bring peace, but the sword, that he who does not love him more than his own is not worthy of him. But a few verses later, Jesus mentions the reward of the one who offers his disciples a simple glass of cool water. Everything seems excessive: one verse seems unattainable and the other so easily accessible.
The amazing recommendations in this talk are about one thing: asking for grace! Go to the highest level of love, not to put it in competition with our other legitimate affections but to let it permeate all love, even in our simplest gestures. “So that the love with which you loved me may be in them. » (Jn 17, 26) Face our divisions, our helplessness, our vulnerabilities. Let yourself be loved in order to love above all else.
If we must purify lepers, raise the dead and proclaim that the Kingdom of God is near, it is with the heart of the poor, which needs to receive everything, grace like a simple glass of cold water. Christ himself once asked this of a Samaritan woman…
Other readings: Is 1, 10-17; Psa 49
