As we  gather today inthe magnificent Basilica die Santa Maria Maggiore, let us take a moment to appreciate the beauty  that surrounds us. This sacred  space, with its stunning mosaics and towering columns, is not merely a tesatamentto human artistry but a reflection of  our faith and devotion. In the heart of this basilica, we are reminded of the importance of Mary, the Mother of God,who stands as our  intercessor and quide. Just as this basilica was built to honor her, let  us  honor  her in our lives by followiing  her example of faith, of faith, obedience, and love.

Mary*s  life a journey of trust in God’s plan, even when faced with uncertainty. We ,too, are called to trust in the Lord, especially in times of doubt and and fear. Like Mary,let us say  yes  to God’s will, enbracing the path He lays before us, no  matter how challenging it may seem. As we reflect on the  mosaiics that depict the  story  of  salvation, let us remember that we are part of this divine narrative. Each of  us  has a unique role  to play in God’s plan. Our lives, like  the intracate designs of these tiles, contribute to the larger picture of His grace and love. In the comming  week, I encourage you to find ways to embody the spirit of this  scred  place. Reacg out to those in  nessd, offer words of comfort, and let your actions  reflect the lobe of Christ. As  we leave this beautiful basilica, may  we carry the  light of faith into  our  communities sharing  the  joy that  comes from knowing our  Sarvior. Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for  the gift Your Mother, Mary. Help  us  to follow  her example and to trust in Your  divine  plan for our lives. May this  basilica inspire us to live out our faith boldly  and to love  one another as You have  loved us.

You are a priest forever › Heb 5, 6. The writer Antonio Sicari writes in the book Portraits of Saints, that the life of the holy parish priest is full of innocence and wonders, until one is tempted to tell it like a fairy tale. And the tale would read like this: „ Once upon a time, a Christian-based village boy named John lived in France, who loved solitude and God from his earliest childhood. And since the lords in Paris caused a revolution and prevented people from praying, the child and his parents went to mass in the corner of a granary. Priests hid in those days, and when they were caught, their heads were shaved. That is why John dreamed of becoming a priest. Although he could pray, he lacked education. He guarded sheep and worked in the fields.

The entered the seminar very late and failed all exams. But professions were very rare at the time, so they finally let him graduate. He was appointed parish priest in Arsa and remained there until his death. He was a parish priest in the most remote village in France. However, he was a parish priest through and through and this does not happen often. He was so much so that the most remote village of France could be proud of the most important parish priest of France. All of France went on a journey to see him. He took all who came to him, and if he had not died, he would have converted all of France. He healed souls and bodies. He read in his hearts like from a book. The devil tempted him, but even so he could not prevent himself from becoming a holy man. He became a canon, then a knight of the Road Legion, then a saint. But as long as he lived, he never understood why. And that was the most beautiful proof that he really deserved fame. In paradise, where the true value of the people will be revealed, the events of the 19th century are called the century of the parish priest of Ars, but France has no idea.

In this narrative we feel the hand of the artist, who, in a few short strokes, managed to draw almost the entire profile of the saint, the patron saint of priests. But suddenly the author stops and realizes that in reality behind this innocence lies a deep authentic drama of a person who faithfully served God and his neighbors. His perfect devotion to vocation is an encouragement and an invitation to us, because the Church is not made up of people who are better than others, but of people who want to become better than they are.

Every first Friday of the month is dedicated to the most holy heart of Jesus. This respect has been held for centuries. If we wanted to find a beginning, we would have to look back to the early Christian age. But the most tremendous respect was held in the 17th century, when St. Margaret Mary Alacoque received a revelation from the Lord Jesus. Among other things, he requested a memorable holiday in which people would worship the „Divine Heart of Jesus“. We celebrate this holiday on the Friday after the octave of the feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord. In addition, we commemorate every first Friday of the month, especially.

 Why do we worship the heart??? Because the heart in the biblical view represents the center of the PERSON of man. The heart forms an essential characteristic of a person. Even today, when we want to say that someone is good, we use the expression: „ has a good and noble heart.“

 The reverence of the Heart of Jesus is not the reverence of a carnal heart separated from his person, but in it the whole human and divine person of the Son of God is worshiped. However, Christ’s eternal and immense love is mainly worshiped. The love that is given to us is given to us to be given further through us. In the litanies to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we also have an invocation: „Heart of Jesus, burning hearth of love“. Here we see that there is no mention of a flame, but a focus of love, from which love for us radiates to penetrate even into our hearts.

 Today’s people are often characterized as being who is thirsty for love. French priest Guy Gilbert says: If a person looks tough and dull, if he opposes and rebels, if he is aggressive, it is because he feels ‘weakly loved.“  Our task is to receive and give God’s love, originating from Jesus’ heart. („Come to me all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will strengthen you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am quiet and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your soul. My yoke is pleasant and my burden is light.“Mt 11,28-30)

 Jean Ladame says: „If Christians will have an open heart and understanding for the needs of others, if they are not afraid of otherness ( skin color, culture, religion) if they cry with those who cry, rejoicing with those who rejoice to be able to obey, help, sympathize with their brothers and cooperate in everyday life, then they will become a question mark for many, because people will ask: „Where they take that attention to every person, that presence in every suffering, to alleviate it, in every injustice, to face it with courage, in every difficulty, to share it.“

 If we even partially succeed, we will be able to say not so much in words as in deeds: „ Through God’s love, God’s grace, Divine heart I am what I am.“ 

But by God’s grace I am what I am, and his grace was not in vain in me. After all, I worked more than all of them, actually not even me, but God’s grace with me (1Cor. 15,10).

… Today has a liturgical memory of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Among other things, he said to his followers: „ Trust God as if everything depends only on him, and work as if everything depends on you.“ What exactly does that mean? How does God’s grace work in concrete life? What should we do and how?

In my youth, I was fascinated precisely because of how real, natural human nature was. It’s not a magic thing, a magic formula, I pray and I have. True faith is more distant from all „spiritualists “ than atheism. God respects all the laws of nature, the universe, and the universe of our soul. And when it changes the world and ourselves, it utilizes existing resources and people to teach us, or to discover new realities through our own experiences. His grace is invisibly present, although we must do our part of the work independently. And then, when we look back at our work and deeds, we see whether God’s blessing was with us or not.

When trials and difficulties arise, we quickly realize that, despite our best efforts, we are insufficient for everything alone, and our strength is dwindling. And then it’s time to engage trust in God, who has power over everything – both over our weaknesses and over the laws of nature. The living belief that he is always and everywhere with me, that he created me and wants me to live, is that vessel for pumping living water. The Gospel is a source like God, who became man, thinks about us. And the prayer that draws us into this living relationship feeds the living faith in us. That summer is perfect for remembering that trusting God as Saint Ignatius did by depending on Him as everything depended on Him, and then working as if everything depended on us, is a good guide to living a truly faithful life. 

JESUS, he cannot pass by the village where his friends live without coming to visit them. The spontaneity with which the evangelist Luke describes this scene emphasizes the deep trust that existed between the Lord and the three siblings from Bethany: Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. He didn’t have to announce his arrival; he didn’t even need to bring a gift. He knew that he was always welcome and that his friends enjoyed his presence and the opportunity to show him their love. The Gospel states that Martha welcomed Jesus when he arrived at the house. It is easy to imagine the emotions that filled her when she saw the Master coming. However, a certain nervousness was added to this joy. As a good hostess, she wants her boyfriend’s stay to be as pleasant as possible, so she gets to work quickly. While he speaks, Marta adheres to the habits of each hostess: she prepares water to cleanse her hands and provides oil to anoint her head… At the same time, she takes care of it so that meals come at the right time and nothing is missing. In this way, he shows his love for the Lord.

But maybe the work is starting to pile up more than she expected. Her mood gradually deteriorates. While he continues to serve, he thinks within himself. She is desperate because she can’t keep up, and quickly concludes that if Sister Maria had helped her, everything would have changed. However, Mary sits at the feet of the Lord. Therefore, given her sister’s apparent passivity, Martha stands before Jesus: „Lord, don’t you care that the sister lets me serve herself? Tell her to help me!“ (Lk 10, 40). Marta could hide her agitation and uneasiness; she could discreetly approach her sister so that no one would notice and ask her for help. Instead, she decided to turn to Master openly and feels „even justified in criticizing Jesus“. However, this is also a sign of closeness with the Lord, because there is no need to mask one’s thoughts in front of a good friend. We can ask Saint Martha to help us have the same intimacy with Jesus, to show ourselves as we are when talking to him, even if it sometimes means that the Master will show us a better way to organize our lives.

Working knowing that God is in our house …

JESUS, he doesn’t answer Martina’s frustration with harsh words. He knows her good intentions. Therefore, under the sign of special love, he turns to her with the repetition of her name: „Marta, Marta, you care and worry about many things, and only one thing is needed. Mary chose a better share that will not be taken away from her“ (Lk 10, 41-42). At no point does the Lord blame Marta for not doing what she should. He doesn’t even invite her to sit at his feet like Mary and forget about household duties. How could other guests eat and relax along the way? The change he demanded of her was mainly internal: he invited her to approach her duties differently. Martha did many things, but she forgot the most important thing: Jesus was in her house, and she might not have listened to his words.

Often during the day, we can feel overwhelmed like Marta. We may think that our work or family responsibilities make it impossible to find the time we would like to devote to God. However, Jesus does not encourage us to neglect our duties. Like Martha, he invites us to find the Lord in these activities, to perform every task knowing that the Lord is always in the house of our soul. In this way, work becomes a constant act of love, a continuous one, which goes beyond what we can express with our lips or thoughts. „Words are useless,” says Saint Josemaría, „because language can no longer express itself; reason remains calm. He doesn’t talk anymore, he just watches. The soul goes into singing and sings a new song because it feels and knows that God is constantly looking at it with love“.

Fill our work with love …

Weren’t the very actions that led Martha away from Jesus? The holy desire to offer him a good and renewing welcome eventually turned into tension and anxiety because she could not keep up with everything she set out to do. She lost sight of the goal of all her actions. Perhaps she performed all these details of the service out of inertia, as she would with any other guest. But Jesus encourages her not to forget the essential thing: God was in her house. She did not just fulfill her role as hostess: she allowed the Lord to rest. „ The problem is not always an excess of activity, but rather an activity lived incorrectly, without adequate motivations, without spirituality, which permeates the activity and makes it desirable. It then follows that duties tire us more than is justified, and sometimes we get downright sick from them. It is not a calm effort, but a work full of tension; heavy, unsatisfactory, and ultimately unacceptable.

To all who desire to find God amid the world, the same thing that happened to Martha can happen. We are responsible for numerous tasks that require our attention and ongoing effort. This logically leads to fatigue. However, when we know that all this work is of greater importance than we can understand at first glance, it is less likely that this fatigue will deprive us of peace, because we know that our success is not measurable by human calculations. In a personal dialogue with God, we can rediscover that everything we do is aimed at loving him; that we care about this world because it is his world. In this way, we will be guided not only by inertia or what the circumstances dictate, but also by the desire to discover the hidden God in everything we do. „ Without love, even the most important activities lose value and do not bring joy. Without deep meaning, all our activity will be reduced to fruitless and disorderly activism. And who gives us love and truth if not Jesus Christ?“. And who can we ask to intercede for us in this mission to love God in our daily work, if not the Virgin Mary?

Why did Moses give the Israelites water to drink that contained dust from a crushed golden calf? It wasn’t out of vindictiveness. Rather, he wanted to destroy their sin and lead them to redemption. But how? By giving the Israelites water with gold dust in it to drink, Moses ensured that they would never again worship idols. Using gold dust as an additive to drinking water destroyed the false belief that idols had power.

By giving them this water, Moses also instructed them in an unforgettable way about the consequences of their sin so they could truly repent. We condemn the Israelites for their lack of faith, yet we are no different. Our trust in God also wavers when we encounter difficulties or wait for him to answer our prayers. We, too, apparently turn to our “idols” to fill the void instead of waiting patiently for God.

However, we don’t need to drink water with gold dust to free ourselves! Instead, we can rely on the grace of the Holy Spirit to open our eyes and see the idols that occupy the Lord’s place—property, status, comfort, and pleasure—which can lead us to sin. Let us ask him to show us that these idols have no real power over us. Jesus overcame all sin and gave us the power to overcome the desires of the flesh (see Galatians 5:19-21).

Finally, let us ask the Spirit to lead us to repentance whenever we sin. Through repentance, we experience the Spirit’s power to transform and heal us in ways we could never have done on our own. Brothers and sisters, our God is a God of mercy. Just as he did with the Israelites, he can lead us on the path of forgiveness and redemption whenever we call on Him.