Sirach 35:1-12 / Mark 10:28-31

Today we take a break from Ordinary Time, which will return after the Solemnity of Pentecost in the month of June. The reason is the beginning of Lent Season tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, a day of obligatory fasting and abstinence from meat.

Today the evangelist Mark tells us about the hundredfold promise that Jesus made to His disciples.

Peter reminded Jesus that he and the disciples had given up everything and followed Him. And Jesus promised that whoever had done this, for His sake and for the sake of the Gospel, would receive a hundred times more in the present age—house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, lands, with persecutions—and, in the age to come, eternal life.

Jesus concluded by saying that many that were first would be last. And the last would be first.

In a mysterious but real way, God's providence, through the members of the Church, takes care of the material and emotional needs of those who serve Him. He is the Good Shepherd and His sheep lack nothing. Of course, things do not fall ready-made from the sky like rain, without the active collaboration of human beings. It is necessary to uncross our arms and act. The members of the Church must decisively support those who serve them, giving the material and emotional support they need regularly, according to their own resources.

The promise of a hundredfold should motivate and comfort the hearts of young men and women who feel God's call to leave everything and follow Him, as the apostles did.

Today the book of Sirach speaks to us of offerings, oblations, tithes and donations, which should be presented to God with generosity and joy, with a heart free from evil and injustice. These were precepts of the Law (of Moses). And God, Who always repays, would give back sevenfold.

Of course, the number is symbolic, and its function is merely to indicate that God gives back generously to those who are generous, and that greed leads to deprivation.

And let us never demand anything from God, because He always gives us more than we ask for and deserve, since we are sinners. God does not tolerate bargaining.

Local: Springfield, MA, EUA

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