Gospel (Lk 11,47-54) - At that time, the Lord said: «Woe to you, who build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. Thus you testify and approve the works of your fathers: they killed them and you build. For this reason the wisdom of God said: "I will send them prophets and apostles and they will kill them and persecute them", so that this generation will be asked to account for the blood of all the prophets, shed since the beginning of the world: from the blood of Abel to to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held accountable. Woe to you, doctors of the Law, who have taken away the key to knowledge; you did not enter, and you prevented those who wanted to enter." When he left there, the scribes and Pharisees began to treat him in a hostile manner and to make him speak on many topics, setting traps for him, to surprise him in some word that came from his own mouth.

The commentary on the Gospel by Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia

These severe words addressed to the scribes and Pharisees must be read and meditated with great attention. The evangelical word asks everyone to be responsible for others and especially for the poor. It is the duty of every believer to love others with responsibility and attention. And it is also a right, first and foremost of the poor, to be loved and defended. In short, there is a "generational" co-responsibility: no one can say they are extraneous to what happens in the time in which they live. We too are therefore co-responsible, obviously each in our own way, for those around us. There is a mutual responsibility between the brothers and sisters of the Christian community. It could be said that in the community everyone is part of both the flock and the shepherds. In this sense we overcome that clerical climate according to which the responsibility of the community belongs solely to the clergy. No, the family of God is precisely a family and each one is the guardian of the other. Cain's response is certainly not within a family spirit: "Am I my brother's keeper?" (Gen 4:9). And we must all be attentive to those "prophets", to the people sent by God who from time to time are sent to shake our sometimes sleeping consciences. We will be asked to account for what we have done with the prophecy present in Scripture and the prophets that the Lord continues to send into the world. We could risk an even greater guilt than that of the scribes and Pharisees: how many prophets and martyrs in the last century and even in more recent times have testified to the primacy of God until death! We have received many testimonies, we have had many gifts, we have had brothers and sisters who were loving and good to us. They opened the way to the Gospel of love for us. The Lord asks us not to remain stuck in concentration on ourselves, but to let ourselves be guided on the path of changing our hearts.