(Mk 10:2-16)

Legalistic conception and hardness of heart

(Mk 10:1-12)

The controversy with the fanatics of the law highlights the need for a new messianic community, which goes beyond the exclusively legalistic moral conception.

The theme chosen by the Pharisees lent itself to putting Jesus in difficulty regarding the ideal of love.

The marriage law required the wife to become the property of her husband.

So in any case the divorce redounded to the detriment of the woman, always seen as an inferior being.

In the society of the time, male domination and marginalization of the weak were established situations.

To protect the freedom of women (Dt 24:1-4), the law required that the tired husband [even for a nonsense or whim] still wrote a divorce "letter" that sanctioned her free.

Unlike Roman society, the wife didn’t have the same right: a social plague, which obscured her dignity.

In practice she was like an object, and a slave even in her own home.

But in creating the human being, this was not the intent of the Creator. Thus Jesus takes away the privileges - even domestic ones - asking for maximum equality of rights and duties.

He knew that the apostles themselves preferred not to marry than to renounce the exclusivity of command (Mt 19:10: «If the situation of a man with a woman is like this, it’s not worth getting married»).

The Master does not allow the dominion of the strong over the weak, therefore the man must lose hegemony over the woman.

The new law is love, and love doesn’t allow possessions, emotional exploitation, fixed chains of command.

Both marriage and celibacy are choices that recognize the value of the Person.

Awe-inspiring options for God's Kingdom - not in the service of any compromise, supremacy, or other pretentious interests.

The divine plan for humanity is transparent, broad and generous. The marriage union itself is called to express the goal of a Fullness.

The stronger does not buy the weaker in ownership, but both enrich each other - with loyalty and even in differences, seen as advanced points of a proposal for growth and expansion.

Christ demands a new approach to ethics. This goes beyond the regulations, which they try to adapt to the order.

Therefore, the Lord's teaching here appeals to the divine creative Act which has engraved a capacity for gift and growth in person's nature - and it can’t be regulated by contract clauses, nor subjected to conditioning and subjection.

The step of the Faith builds people and communities, completing them without too many accelerations, or forced restrictions. For a Love that originates us without rest.

The Family thus becomes a ‘small domestic Church’ because it’s both autonomous and comprehensive; no more nomenclatures, compromises, masks, gags or straitjackets.

Then the complementarity experienced in an authentic way - without exteriority - can go beyond the case studies of the legal systems.

In this way it has good personal and social outcomes, evoking the very Presence of God in the world.

Let the freewheeling excluded come to Me

The renunciation of pride - and the ‘nose’ without citizenship

(Mk 10:13-16)

«Because in the synodal process, our listening must take into account the sensus fidei, but it must not neglect all those “intuitions” found where we would least expect them, “freewheeling”, but no less important for that reason. The Holy Spirit in his freedom knows no boundaries or tests of admission. If the parish is to be a home to everyone in the neighbourhood, and not a kind of exclusive club, please, let’s keep the doors and windows open […] Don’t be disheartened; be prepared for surprises» (Pope Francis).

Jesus identifies with the weak (v.16). And in certain terms He even intends to propose them to veteran followers!

This is precisely to indicate the type of believer he dreams they will become (v.15): persons who recognize the desires of others as legitimate, and doesn’t make too many fuss if see themself diminished in social consideration.

Not infrequently church leaders felt expert and self-sufficient from the very beginning...

Conversely, they must be ready in Christ Jesus to be ‘born’ again and again, otherwise their eye will remain in a caricatured and blocked vision of the Kingdom.

The "little one", on the other hand, has not mental reserves - as well as fewer ballast: he throws himself in a genuine and enthusiastic way toward the exploits of the Faith’s adventure.

The Lord doesn’t refuse to «touch» directly (v.13) those who are considered impure, women, little ones or their mothers: a disgrace according to the ritual norms of the time.

Women and children - together with pagans - were considered unreliable and impure by nature, indeed contaminants.

The Master has no fear of transgressing ancient religious law, or of being evaluated as infected himself!

Christ embraces, blesses, puts his hand on the small servants - as if to recognize and truly consecrate them: He is reflected in them as if were one of them.

It means that the concern of the disciples mustn’t be that of “re-education” common to all various more or less mystery creeds of the time.

Indeed, the most eloquent sign of the Kingdom of God on earth is precisely the welcoming spirit of the marginalized: those who do not even know what it means to claim rights only for themselves.

The quality of Life in the Spirit is measured by the ability to recover the opposite sides in each believer who has the desire to walk towards his own completeness.

Thus, in the Community this dynamic of recovery increases and overtakes thanks to the ‘integration’ that becomes a fruitful conviviality of differences.

Welcoming, hosting the weak, distant, small and excluded is personal and common enrichment - an eloquent sign of the same life and divine character in us and in the Church.

Not a winning institution, but servant of humanity in need of everything.

And it’s precisely the ‘little’ ones in Christ who become teachers of adults.

This the angelic modesty and evangelical ‘littleness’ that makes us emancipated and immediately up to par; but above all Blessed, happy to be «minors» even ill-considered.

[27th Sunday in O.T.  (B)   October 6, 2024]

Mt 19:3-12 (cf. Gen 2:18-24)

We are familiar with the fluctuations of our emotionality: the person who now makes me lose my head, in a week's time will perhaps strike a nerve. Every morning we get up in a different mood; after a while the psyche gives opposite signals, then returns to its previous positions.

Obviously the invisible thread of the relationship cannot succeed happily and firmly if the assumptions are only seductive: it will end in an escalation of apathy or arguments.

The Word of God proposes a very wise discernment for engaged couples: the new birth.

A girl will leave her father if in the flamboyant relationship she discovers a prospect of improved security, and even greater fatherhood or protection possibilities; a young man will leave his mother if in the torch of the new relationship he sees a principle of welcome, listening and understanding unknown or superior to his own mother.

New Genesis: this is the unrenounceable vocational perspective, the only one capable of integrating the fatigue of putting oneself on the line and welcoming the idea in two of being able to also step out of one's own positions - even those at the beginning of the relationship.

In falling in love we allow ourselves to be activated and traversed by a mysterious Force that [even beyond the charm of the partner] wants to lead us to a sort of unleashing of hidden energies, in the incessant search for identity-character.

Love originates us, it leads us along a path not without interruptions, which incessantly force us back to the Beginning; to re-choose the values on which we have gambled. Hence, to be born and to begin anew, unexpectedly becoming more and more 'young'.

That flaming torch will make us make extraordinary encounters, first of all in the meaningful direction of the regenerated intimate; thus there will be no more need to capture the spouse, to keep him or her still or close to him or her.

It is the sacred desire that creates us; then - at Two - it becomes even more effectively the substance of what each one is called to be - through steps of happiness that prepare a new origination, a distinct outline and destiny.

All this so that from wave to wave, from birth to birth, and under the stimulus of continuous Dialogue, our essence is fulfilled, allowing the profound Calling by Name to flourish.

Natural complementarity can wear away with age, fatigue, frustrations. On the other hand, a reflection of absolute Love, which postpones and gives vertigo [because it places us in plots outside of time] is a spectacle that shakes, moves and conquers.

Irradiating God who creates (within us and in relationship), reflecting a great unceasing Origin within human unity, makes us be together - in two but with ourselves present, and be-With our Root.

An innate Source that does not express itself in straitjackets or in an identification: it gives meaning and breath even to the secondary, the repetitive and everyday that undermines - and seems to want us to fade into disenchantment.

If the idea of the Principle is always at home, it will no longer be necessary for the bark of everyday life to change, nor for too many situations to change: it is that glimpse of Eternity that makes one re-born into the (personal but complete) human project of Genesis.

It is a Presence... and a Source that generates, and the Life Horizon of the One who puts Himself into things... that changes so much of our little things.

The Action of the One who gives birth to the ancient and new radiance of the soul makes us grow and be born again, to be both with ourselves and more firmly together.

The Family becomes a small 'domestic church' from which 'the new citizens of human society are born' (Lumen Gentium no.11).

It thus manifests and unfolds the icon of a God who does not express Himself rigidly, but in creating.

Thanks to Parents who are able to second the "vocation proper to each one", in the new beginnings and in the rush of successive sprouts and buds each sapling "will leave his father and mother".

To internalise and live the message:

What more has the church experience given you in understanding the man-woman relationship? What about communion and autonomy?

Legalistic conception and hardness of heart

(Mt 19:3-12)

The polemic with the fanatics of the law emphasises the need for a new messianic community, which overcomes the exclusively legalistic moral conception.

The theme chosen by the Pharisees lent itself to challenging Jesus on the ideal of love.

The marriage law of the time required the wife to make herself the husband's property.

So in any case, divorce reverberated against the woman, always seen as an inferior being.

In the society of the time, macho domination and marginalisation of the weak were established situations.

In order to protect the woman's own freedom (Deut 24:1-4), the law required that the fed-up husband [even for a trifle or whim] should write a divorce 'letter' anyway, sanctioning her freedom.Unlike Roman society, the wife did not have the same right: a social plague, which obscured her dignity. In practice, she was like an object and a slave even in her own home.

But in creating the human being, this was not the Creator's intent. So Jesus removed privileges - even domestic privileges - demanding maximum equality of rights and duties.

He knew that the apostles themselves preferred not to marry than to renounce the exclusivity of leadership, even if only to scapegoat: "If the man's situation with the woman is like this, it is not good to marry" (Mt 19:10).

The Master does not allow the dominion of the strong over the weak; therefore man must lose his hegemony over woman.

The new law is love, and love does not allow possessions, emotional exploitation, fixed chains of command.

Both marriage and celibacy are choices that recognise the value of the Person. Awe-inspiring options for the sake of the Kingdom of God - not in the service of any compromise, supremacy, or other vested interests.

The divine plan for humanity is transparent, broad and generous. The marriage union itself - without being bound by domination or sector - is called to express the goal of fullness.

The stronger does not buy the weaker in property, but [shading from those rigid positions, without hypocrisy and field compromises] both enrich each other - with fairness and even in the divergences, taken as advanced points of a proposal of growth and expansion.

Christ demands a new approach to ethics [once 'jurisdiction-based'], now marked by primary values. This is beyond regulations, which seek to adapt to order... perhaps curbing our parodies, or mediocrity.

Thus, Christ's teaching here appeals to the divine creative Act, which in the nature of a person has engrained a capacity for gift and growth - and which cannot be regulated by contract clauses, nor subjected to conditioning and subjection.

The seed of love must be entrusted to the earth, even muddy soil; aware of one's own weakness and the power of other providential forces.

Even with steep or uncertain ground, if one does not rush into artificial prejudices (or lamentations of ingratitude) the very interweaving of the roots will genuinely produce its flowering.

In such a spontaneous, non-subordinate energetic current, a different self-denial will be built - where the given fact from being regular becomes an overcoming that unleashes other virtues or views.

Here, the step of Faith builds persons and communities, completing them (without too much acceleration, or imperial restrictions). For a Love that unceasingly originates us.

The Family thus becomes a 'little domestic Church' because it is both autonomous and inclusive; without nomenclature, compromises, masks, gags or straitjackets.

Then complementarity lived authentically - without externalities - can go beyond the casuistry of ordinances: it has good personal and social outcomes, evoking the very Presence of God in the world.

Let the excluded come to Me

The Renunciation of Pride and Fear without Citizenship

(Mk 10:13-16)

After the surprising advice on equality in the relationship between man and woman, Jesus ups the ante by proclaiming not only the dignity of relationships between adults and children, but also between community veterans and incipients.

For the incipients, the Kingdom of God was their thing and their work. It did not come to humanity as a Gift - first and foremost to be received - but (according to the pattern) it had to be attained by corresponding observances and merits.

In the Gospel passage Christ does not speak of irresponsible childishness - a criterion unfortunately abused in asceticism (and one that makes one lacking)

No one can occupy the Lord's role on earth, simply because He remains Present and Coming; not manipulative.

If we become simple and childlike, we are so only before God: no institution can be a substitute for Jesus.

In the past, a humanly evasive Christology has unfortunately matched triumphalist ecclesiology.

In front of it - especially in provincial or mission territories - people considered puerile could sometimes fulfil it with uncritical fideism. At most, utter a few babblings (mystical or formulaic).

At the time of Jesus, failure to observe the rules of purity excluded from worship and social life both infants and those considered unfaithful or mixed, despite the fact that they gave clear evidence of solid charity.

The Greek term used - paidìon-paidìa diminutive of pàis - indicated an age between 8-12 years, typical of shop assistants and servants who in the home had to take orders from others (even strangers).

The Master took these children as an example of helpfulness, primarily for his zealous Apostles.

The latter in fact did not immediately and spontaneously enter into the way of God's family... as a true believer would into that of the Father.Only those who have the openness of children can welcome salvation, because they feel small, remain receptive, humbly know how to start again and even from below.

Jesus identifies Himself with the infirm (v.16). And in no uncertain terms he even intends to propose them to the veteran followers!

This is precisely to indicate the kind of believer he dreams of them becoming (v.15): the person who recognises the legitimate desires of others, and does not make too much fuss if he sees himself diminished in social consideration.

Church leaders not infrequently already in the early days felt themselves to be experts and self-sufficient....

Conversely, they must be ready in Christ Jesus to be born again and again, otherwise their eye will remain diseased with a caricatured and blocked vision of the Kingdom.

Those who do not trust the Father's plan will not proceed with spontaneity and generosity: they will only move forward if reassured upstream, playing a stagnant character, or a well-reciprocated task.

The small and insufficient one, on the other hand, has far fewer mental reservations - as well as fewer practical ballasts: he throws himself genuinely and enthusiastically into the enterprises of the adventure of Faith.

All this while for the 'chosen ones' (even of the official Church) the 'uncertain ones' do not count or represent anything - if not a frame sometimes useful to make numbers, but often also annoying.

Before the far-flung could approach actual inward acceptance (or mere consideration), the Judaizers wanted to subject those who approached the threshold of the churches to a lengthy and artificial verification.

This involved a kind of discipline of the arcane (typical of the various devotions) and a nerve-wracking rigmarole of code and casuistry corrections - all to be verified over time.

Jesus, on the other hand, has no qualms about directly 'touching' (v.13) those considered unclean, women, little boys or their mothers: an obscenity according to the ritual norms of the time.

Women and children - along with pagans - were considered untrustworthy and impure beings by nature, indeed defiling.

The Master has no fear of transgressing the religious law, or of being evaluated as infected Himself!

The Kingdom does not belong to the sterilised who haunt the lives of others with precepts of legal impurity; futile, external, hypocritical, senseless minutiae.

Christ embraces, blesses, lays his hand on the servants - as if to recognise them and truly consecrate them - taking into himself the unpromoted of the 'synagogues' of the time: he mirrors himself in them as if he were one of them.

It means that the disciples' concern must not be that of traditional re-education, common to all the various more or less mysterious creeds of the time.

On the contrary, the most eloquent sign of the Kingdom of God on earth is precisely the welcoming spirit of the marginalised: those who do not even know what it means to claim rights only for themselves.

Incidentally - as we well experience simply by observing our own realities - the discarded are not infrequently better introduced into the practice of even summary charity than those in roles of disembodied prestige.

Pretensions and mere sophistry degrade the concreteness of discipleship. They exclude the specific value of the new Kingdom, to the point of transforming and corrupting it - turning it upside down into caricature.

The quality of Life in the Spirit is measured by the capacity to recover the opposite sides in each believer who has the desire to walk towards his or her own completeness.

Thus, in Community this dynamic of recovery increases and recovers thanks to the integration that becomes fruitful conviviality of differences.

Welcoming, accommodating the weak, the distant, the small and the excluded is personal and communal enrichment - an eloquent sign of the same life and divine character in us and in the Church. Not a winning institution, but a servant of humanity in need of everything.

And it is precisely the little ones - totally deprived of the spirit of self-sufficiency - who in Christ become professors of the adults, that is to say, of the life-long leaders, chiefs, veterans and super-Apostles.

This is the angelic modesty and evangelical littleness that makes us emancipated and immediately equal; but above all happy, content to be minors (even misunderstood).

In short, the Kingdom is not an environment for self-sufficient adults.

To internalise and live the message:

What have you learnt from the distant ones and their call? And is your community ready for welcome, for hospitality?

Or does it consider itself self-sufficient, and is it only a big player in alms-giving - turning others into objects of paternalism?

The Feeling without citizenship

In the synodal journey, listening must take into account the sensus fidei, but it must not overlook all those 'presentiments' embodied where we would not expect it: there may be a 'sniff without citizenship', but it is no less effective. The Holy Spirit in his freedom knows no boundaries, nor does he allow himself to be limited by affiliations. If the parish is the home of everyone in the neighbourhood, not an exclusive club, I recommend: leave the doors and windows open, do not limit yourself to considering only those who attend or think like you - that will be 3, 4 or 5%, no more. Allow everyone to come in... Allow yourself to go out and let yourself be questioned, let their questions be your questions, allow yourself to walk together: the Spirit will lead you, trust the Spirit. Do not be afraid to enter into dialogue and allow yourselves to be moved by the dialogue: it is the dialogue of salvation.

Do not be disenchanted, be prepared for surprises. There is an episode in the book of Numbers (ch. 22) that tells of a donkey who will become a prophetess of God. The Jews are concluding the long journey that will lead them to the promised land. Their passage frightens King Balak of Moab, who relies on the powers of the magician Balaam to stop the people, hoping to avoid a war. The magician, in his believing way, asks God what to do. God tells him not to humour the king, but he insists, so he relents and mounts a donkey to fulfil the command he has received. But the donkey changes course because it sees an angel with an unsheathed sword standing there to represent God's opposition. Balaam pulls her, beating her, without succeeding in getting her back on the path. Until the donkey starts talking, initiating a dialogue that will open the magician's eyes, transforming his mission of curse and death into a mission of blessing and life.

This story teaches us to trust that the Spirit will always make its voice heard. Even a donkey can become the voice of God, opening our eyes and converting our wrong directions. If a donkey can do it, how much more so can a baptised person, a priest, a bishop, a pope. It is enough to entrust ourselves to the Holy Spirit who uses all creatures to speak to us: he only asks us to clean our ears to hear properly.

(Pope Francis, Speech 18 September 2021)

Cf 19(s) ok; 27 B (2)

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

This Sunday, the Gospel presents to us Jesus' words on marriage. He answered those who asked him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife, as provided by a decree in Mosaic law (cf. Dt 24: 1), that this was a concession made to Moses because of man's "hardness of heart", whereas the truth about marriage dated back to "the beginning of creation" when, as is written of God in the Book of Genesis, "male and female he created them; for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one" (Mk 10: 6-7; cf. Gn 1: 27; 2: 24). 

And Jesus added: "So they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder" (Mk 10: 8-9). This is God's original plan, as the Second Vatican Council also recalled in the Constitution Gaudium et Spes: "The intimate partnership of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws:  it is rooted in the contract of its partners... God himself is the author of marriage" (n. 48). 

My thoughts now go to all Christian spouses: I thank the Lord with them for the gift of the Sacrament of Marriage, and I urge them to remain faithful to their vocation in every season of life, "in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health", as they promised in the sacramental rite. 

Conscious of the grace they have received, may Christian husbands and wives build a family open to life and capable of facing united the many complex challenges of our time. 

Today, there is a special need for their witness. There is a need for families that do not let themselves be swept away by modern cultural currents inspired by hedonism and relativism, and which are ready instead to carry out their mission in the Church and in society with generous dedication. 

In the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, the Servant of God John Paul II wrote that "the sacrament of marriage makes Christian couples and parents witnesses of Christ "to the end of the earth', missionaries, in the true and proper sense, of love and life" (cf. n. 54). Their mission is directed both to inside the family - especially in reciprocal service and the education of the children - and to outside it. Indeed, the domestic community is called to be a sign of God's love for all. 

The Christian family can only fulfil this mission if it is supported by divine grace. It is therefore necessary for Christian couples to pray tirelessly and to persevere in their daily efforts to maintain the commitments they assumed on their wedding day. 

I invoke upon all families, especially those in difficulty, the motherly protection of Our Lady and of her husband Joseph. Mary, Queen of the family, pray for us!

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 8 October 2006]

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

1. Today, too, I would like to continue my reflection on marriage, the family and natural law. At the basis of the family is the love between a man and a woman: a love understood as a gift of self, mutual and profound, expressed also in sexual, conjugal union.

The Church is sometimes reproached for making sex a 'taboo'. The truth is quite different! Throughout history, in contrast to Manichaean tendencies, Christian thought has developed a harmonious and positive vision of the human being, recognising the significant and valuable role that masculinity and femininity play in human life.

After all, the biblical message is unequivocal: 'God created man in his own image . Male and female he created them' (Gen 1:27). Carved into this statement is the dignity of every man and woman, in their equality of nature, but also in their sexual diversity. It is a fact that profoundly touches the constitution of the human being. "From sex, in fact, the human person derives the characteristics that on a biological, psychological and spiritual level make him or her man or woman" (Congr. pro Doctrina Fidei, Persona humana, 1).

I reiterated this recently in my Letter to Families: "Man is created 'from the beginning' as male and female: the life of the human community - of small communities as well as of the whole of society - bears the mark of this original duality. From it derive the 'masculinity' and 'femininity' of individuals, just as from it every community draws its own characteristic richness in the mutual completion of persons" (John Paul II, Letter to Families, n. 6).

2. Sexuality thus belongs to the Creator's original design, and the Church cannot help but hold it in high esteem. At the same time, neither can she fail to ask everyone to respect it in its profound nature.

As a dimension inscribed in the totality of the person, sexuality constitutes a 'language' at the service of love, and therefore cannot be experienced as pure instinctuality. It must be governed by man as an intelligent and free being.

This does not mean, however, that it can be manipulated at will. In fact, it possesses its own typical psychological and biological structure, aimed both at communion between man and woman and at the birth of new persons. Respecting this structure and this inseparable connection is not 'biologism' or 'moralism', it is attention to the truth of being a man, of being a person. It is by virtue of this truth, perceptible even in the light of reason, that so-called 'free love', homosexuality and contraception are morally unacceptable. These are behaviours that distort the profound meaning of sexuality, preventing it from being at the service of the person, communion and life.

3. May the Blessed Virgin, model of femininity, tenderness and self-mastery, help the men and women of our time not to trivialise sex, in the name of a false modernity. May young people, women and families look to her. May Mary, most chaste Mother, enlighten the representatives of nations so that at the next meeting in Cairo they may take decisions inspired by authentic human values, which are the basis of the desired civilisation of love.

[Pope John Paul II, Angelus 26 June 1994]

This Sunday’s Gospel reading (cf. Mk 10:2-16) offers us Jesus’ words on marriage. The passage opens with the provocation of the Pharisees who ask Jesus if it is “lawful for a man to divorce his wife”, as the Law of Moses provides (cf. vv. 2-4). Jesus firstly, with the wisdom and authority that come to him from the Father, puts the Mosaic prescription into perspective, saying: “For your hardness of heart he” — that is, the ancient legislator — “wrote you this commandment” (v. 5). Thus it is a concession that is needed to mend the flaws created by our selfishness, but it does not correspond to the Creator’s original intention.

And here, Jesus again takes up the Book of Genesis: “from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female’. ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one’” (vv. 6-8). And he concludes: “What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (v. 9). In the Creator’s original plan, it is not that a man marries a woman and, if things do not go well, he repudiates her. No. Rather, the man and the woman are called to recognize each other, to complete each other, to help each other in marriage.

This teaching of Jesus is very clear and defends the dignity of marriage as a union of love which implies fidelity. What allows the spouses to remain united in marriage is a love of mutual giving supported by Christ’s grace. However, if in the spouses, individual interests, one’s own satisfaction prevails, then their union cannot endure.

And the Gospel passage itself reminds us, with great realism, that man and woman, called to experience a relationship of love, may regretfully behave in a way that places it in crisis. Jesus does not admit all that can lead to the failure of the relationship. He does so in order to confirm God’s plan, in which the power and beauty of the human relationship emerge. The Church, on the one hand, does not tire of confirming the beauty of the family as it was consigned to us by Scripture and by Tradition; at the same time, she strives to make her maternal closeness tangibly felt by those who experience relationships that are broken or that continue in a difficult and trying way. 

God’s way of acting with his unfaithful people — that is, with us — teaches us that wounded love can be healed by God through mercy and forgiveness. For this reason in these situations, the Church is not asked to express immediately and only condemnation. On the contrary, before so many painful marital failures, she feels called to show love, charity and mercy, in order to lead wounded and lost hearts back to God.

Let us invoke the Virgin Mary, that she help married couples to always live and renew their union, beginning with God’s original Gift.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 7 October 2018]

Scientists and Lowlies: abstract world and incarnation

(Lk 10:17-24)

Unlike the fruitless action of the Apostles [Lk 9 passim], the return of the new evangelizers is full of joy and results (vv. 17-20). Why?

The leaders looked at religiosity with purposes of interest. Theology professors were used to evaluating every comma starting from their own knowledge, ridiculous but opinionated - unrelated to events.

What remains tied to customs and usual protagonists doesn’t make us dream, it’s not amazing appearance and testimony of Elsewhere; takes away expressive richness from the Announcement and life.

The Lord rejoices in his own experience, which brings a non-epidermal joy and a teaching from the Spirit - about those who are well disposed, and able to understand the depths of the Kingdom, in common things.

In short, after a first moment of enthusiastic crowds, the Christ deepens the issues and finds himself all against, except God and the leasts: the weightlesses, but with a great desire to start from scratch.

Glimpse of the Mystery that lifts history - without making it a possession.

At first even Jesus was amazed by the refusal of those who considered themselves already satisfied and no longer expected anything that could overcome habits.

Then He understands, praises and blesses the Father's plan: the authentic Person is born from below, and possesses «the sense of neighborhood» (FT n.152).

The Creator is Relationship simple: He demystifies the idol of greatness.

The Eternal is not the master of creation: He is Refreshment that reassures us, because makes us feel complete and lovable; He looks for us, pays attention to the language of the heart.

He’s the Tutor of the world, even of the uneducated - of the «infants»  (v.21) spontaneously empty of arrogant spirit, that is, of those who do not remain closed in their sufficient belonging.

Thus the Father-Son relationship is communicated to the poor of God: those who are endowed with the attitude of Family members (v.22).

Insignificant and invisible without great external capacities, but who abandon themselves to the proposals of the provident life that Comes, like babies in the arms of their parents.

With a pietas’ Spirit that favors those who allow themselves to be filled with innate wisdom. The only reality that corresponds to us and doesn’t present the "account": it doesn’t proceed along the paths of functional thinking, of calculating initiative.

Sapience that transmits freshness in the willingness to personally receive welcome restore the Truth as a Gift, and the spontaneous enthusiasm itself, capable of realizing it.

A simple blessing prayer, for the simple - this one from Jesus (v.21) - which makes us grow in esteem, fits perfectly with our experience, and gets along well with ourselves.

It does not presuppose the energy of 'models', nor the aggressive power of “bigwigs”.

In the perspective of the Peace-Happiness [Shalom] to be announced, what had always seemed imperfections and defects become preparatory energies, which complete and fulfill us also spiritually.

And instead of only living with the “big” and external, one must live in communion even with the 'small' of oneself, or there is no amiability, no authentic life.

To internalize and live the message:

How do you feel when you hear yourself say: «You don't count»?  Does it remain a humiliating contempt or do you consider it a great received Light, as Jesus did?

[Saturday 26th wk. in O.T.  October 5, 2024]

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

The Evangelists Matthew and Luke (cf. Mt 11:25-30 and Lk 10:21-22) have handed down to us a “jewel” of Jesus’ prayer that is often called the Cry of Exultation or the Cry of Messianic Exultation. It is a prayer of thanksgiving and praise, as we have heard. In the original Greek of the Gospels the word with which this jubilation begins and which expresses Jesus’ attitude in addressing the Father is exomologoumai, which is often translated with “I praise” (cf. Mt 11:25 and Lk 10:21). However, in the New Testament writings this term indicates mainly two things: the first is “to confess” fully — for example, John the Baptist asked those who went to him to be baptized to recognize their every sin (cf. Mt 3:6); the second thing is “to be in agreement”. Therefore, the words with which Jesus begins his prayer contain his full recognition of the Father’s action and at the same time, his being in total, conscious and joyful agreement with this way of acting, with the Father’s plan. The “Cry of Exultation” is the apex of a journey of prayer in which Jesus’ profound and close communion with the life of the Father in the Holy Spirit clearly emerges and his divine sonship is revealed.

Jesus addresses God by calling him “Father”. This word expresses Jesus’ awareness and certainty of being “the Son” in intimate and constant communion with him, and this is the central focus and source of every one of Jesus’ prayers. We see it clearly in the last part of the hymn which illuminates the entire text. Jesus said: “All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Lk 10:22). Jesus was therefore affirming that only “the Son” truly knows the Father. 

All the knowledge that people have of each other — we all experience this in our human relationships — entails involvement, a certain inner bond between the one who knows and the one who is known, at a more or less profound level: we cannot know anyone without a communion of being. In the Cry of Exultation — as in all his prayers — Jesus shows that true knowledge of God presupposes communion with him. Only by being in communion with the other can I begin to know him; and so it is with God: only if I am in true contact, if I am in communion with him, can I also know him. True knowledge, therefore, is reserved to the “Son”, the Only Begotten One who is in the bosom of the Father since eternity (cf. Jn 1:18), in perfect unity with him. The Son alone truly knows God, since he is in an intimate communion of being; only the Son can truly reveal who God is.

The name “Father” is followed by a second title, “Lord of heaven and earth”. With these words, Jesus sums up faith in creation and echoes the first words of Sacred Scripture: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1). 

In praying, he recalls the great biblical narrative of the history of God’s love for man that begins with the act of creation. Jesus fits into this love story, he is its culmination and its fulfilment. Sacred Scripture is illumined through his experience of prayer and lives again in its fullest breadth: the proclamation of the mystery of God and the response of man transformed. Yet, through the expression: “Lord of heaven and earth”, we can also recognize that in Jesus, the Revealer of the Father, the possibility for man to reach God is reopened.

Let us now ask ourselves: to whom does the Son want to reveal God’s mysteries? At the beginning of the Hymn Jesus expresses his joy because the Father’s will is to keep these things hidden from the learned and the wise and to reveal them to little ones (cf. Lk 10:21). Thus in his prayer, Jesus manifests his communion with the Father’s decision to disclose his mysteries to the simple of heart: the Son’s will is one with the Father’s. 

Divine revelation is not brought about in accordance with earthly logic, which holds that cultured and powerful people possess important knowledge and pass it on to simpler people, to little ones. God used a quite different approach: those to whom his communication was addressed were, precisely, “babes”. This is the Father’s will, and the Son shares it with him joyfully. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “His exclamation, ‘Yes, Father!’ expresses the depth of his heart, his adherence to the Father’s ‘good pleasure,’ echoing his mother’s ‘Fiat’ at the time of his conception and prefiguring what he will say to the Father in his agony. The whole prayer of Jesus is contained in this loving adherence of his human heart to the ‘mystery of the will’ of the Father (Eph 1:9)” (n. 2603).

The invocation that we address to God in the “Our Father” derives from this: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”: together with Christ and in Christ we too ask to enter into harmony with the Father’s will, thereby also becoming his children. Thus Jesus, in this “Cry of Exultation”, expresses his will to involve in his own filial knowledge of God all those whom the Father wishes to become sharers in it; and those who welcome this gift are the “little ones”.

But what does “being little” and simple mean? What is the “littleness” that opens man to filial intimacy with God so as to receive his will? What must the fundamental attitude of our prayer be? Let us look at “The Sermon on the Mount”, in which Jesus says: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). It is purity of heart that permits us to recognize the face of God in Jesus Christ; it is having a simple heart like the heart of a child, free from the presumption of those who withdraw into themselves, thinking they have no need of anyone, not even God.

It is also interesting to notice the occasion on which Jesus breaks into this hymn to the Father. In Matthew’s Gospel narrative it is joyful because, in spite of opposition and rejection, there are “little ones” who accept his word and open themselves to the gift of faith in him. The “Cry of Exultation” is in fact preceded by the contrast between the praise of John the Baptist — one of the “little ones” who recognized God’s action in Jesus Christ (cf. Mt 11:2-19) — and the reprimand for the disbelief of the lake cities “where most of his mighty works had been performed” (cf. Mt 11:20-24). 

Hence Matthew saw the Exultation in relation to the words with which Jesus noted the effectiveness of his word and action: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news of the Gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who takes no offence at me” (Mt 11:4-6).

[Pope Benedict, General Audience 7 December 2011]

1. In the previous catechesis, we went over, albeit briefly, the Old Testament testimonies that prepared us to welcome the full revelation, announced by Jesus Christ, of the truth of the mystery of the Fatherhood of God.

Indeed, Christ spoke many times of his Father, presenting his providence and merciful love in various ways.

But his teaching goes further. Let us listen again to the particularly solemn words, recorded by the evangelist Matthew (and paralleled by Luke): 'I bless you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have kept these things hidden from the wise and the clever and revealed them to the simple . . ." and later: "Everything has been given to me by my Father, no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and he to whom the Son wishes to reveal him" (Mt 11:25. 27; cf. Lk 10:2. 11).

So for Jesus, God is not only "the Father of Israel, the Father of men", but "my Father"! "Mine": precisely for this reason the Jews wanted to kill Jesus, because "he called God his Father" (Jn 5:18). "His" in the most literal sense: He whom only the Son knows as Father, and by whom alone he is mutually known. We are now on the same ground from which the prologue of John's Gospel will later arise.

2. My Father' is the Father of Jesus Christ, he who is the origin of his being, of his messianic mission, of his teaching. The evangelist John has abundantly reported the messianic teaching that allows us to fathom in depth the mystery of God the Father and Jesus Christ, his only Son.

Jesus says: "Whoever believes in me does not believe in me, but in him who sent me" (John 12: 44). "I did not speak from me, but the Father who sent me, he himself commanded me what I should say and proclaim" (Jn 12:49). "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son of himself can do nothing except what he sees the Father do; what he does, the Son also does" (Jn 5:19). "For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself" (Jn 5:26). And finally: ". . the Father, who has life, has sent me, and I live for the Father" (Jn 6:57).

The Son lives for the Father first of all because he was begotten by him. There is a very close correlation between fatherhood and sonship precisely because of generation: "You are my Son; today I have begotten you" (Heb 1:5). When at Caesarea Philippi Simon Peter confesses: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God", Jesus answers him: "Blessed are you . . . for neither flesh nor blood has revealed it to you, but my Father . . ." (Mt 16:16-17), for only "the Father knows the Son" just as only the "Son knows the Father" (Mt 11:27). Only the Son makes the Father known: the visible Son makes the invisible Father seen. "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9).

3. A careful reading of the Gospels shows that Jesus lives and works in constant and fundamental reference to the Father. He often addresses him with the word full of filial love: "Abba"; even during the prayer in Gethsemane this same word returns to his lips (cf. Mk 14:36). When the disciples ask him to teach them to pray, he teaches them the "Our Father" (cf. Mt 6:9-13). After the resurrection, at the moment of leaving the earth he seems to refer once again to this prayer, when he says: "I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God" (Jn 20, 17).

Thus through the Son (cf. Heb 1:2), God revealed Himself in the fullness of the mystery of His fatherhood. Only the Son could reveal this fullness of the mystery, because only "the Son knows the Father" (Mt 11:27). "God no one has ever seen him: it is the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, who has revealed him" (Jn 1:18).

4. Who is the Father? In the light of the definitive witness we have received through the Son, Jesus Christ, we have the full knowledge of faith that the Fatherhood of God belongs first of all to the fundamental mystery of God's intimate life, to the Trinitarian mystery. The Father is the one who eternally begets the Word, the Son consubstantial with him. In union with the Son, the Father eternally "breathes forth" the Holy Spirit, who is the love in which the Father and the Son mutually remain united (cf. Jn 14:10).

Thus the Father is in the Trinitarian mystery the "beginning-without-beginning". "The Father by none is made, nor created, nor begotten" (Quicumque symbol). He alone is the beginning of life, which God has in Himself. This life - that is, the very divinity - the Father possesses in absolute communion with the Son and the Holy Spirit, who are consubstantial with him.

Paul, an apostle of the mystery of Christ, falls in adoration and prayer "before the Father from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth takes its name" (Eph 3:15), the beginning and model.For there is "one God the Father of all, who is above all, who acts through all and is present in all" (Eph 4:6).

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 23 October 1985]

Today’s Gospel passage (cf. Lk 10:1-12, 17-20) presents Jesus who sends 72 disciples on mission, in addition to the 12 Apostles. The number 72 likely refers to all the nations. Indeed, in the Book of Genesis 72 different nations are mentioned (cf. 10:1-32). Thus, this conveyance prefigures the Church’s mission to proclaim the Gospel to all peoples. Jesus says to those disciples: “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest!” (Lk 10:2).

This request by Jesus is always valid. We must always pray to the “Lord of the harvest”, namely, God the Father, that he send labourers into his field which is the world. And each of us must do so with an open heart, with a missionary attitude; our prayer must not be limited only to our needs, to our necessities: a prayer is truly Christian if it also has a universal dimension.

In sending out the 72 disciples, Jesus gives them precise instructions which express the characteristics of the mission. The first, as we have already seen, is: pray; the second: go; and then: carry no purse, no bag...; say, ‘Peace be to this house’ ... remain in the same house... do not go from house to house... heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you’”. And if they do not receive you, go out into the streets and take your leave (cf. vv. 2-10). These imperatives show that the mission is based on prayer; that it is itinerant: it is not idle; it is itinerant; that it requires separation and poverty; that it brings peace and healing, signs of the closeness of the Kingdom of God; that it is not proselytism but proclamation and witness; and that it also requires frankness and the evangelical freedom to leave while highlighting the responsibility of having rejected the message of salvation, but without condemnation and cursing. 

If lived in these terms, the mission of the Church will be characterized by joy. And how does this passage end? The 72 “returned with joy” (cf. v. 17). It is not an ephemeral joy, which flows from the success of the mission; on the contrary, it is a joy rooted in the promise that — as Jesus says: “your names are written in heaven” (v. 20). With this expression he means inner joy, and the indestructible joy that is born out of the awareness of being called by God to follow his Son. That is, the joy of being his disciples. Today, for example, each of us, here in the Square, can think of the name we received on the day of Baptism: that name is “written in heaven”, in the heart of God the Father. And it is the joy of his gift that makes a missionary of every disciple, those who walk in the company of the Lord Jesus, who learn from him to unsparingly expend themselves for others, free of oneself and of one’s possessions.

Together let us invoke the maternal protection of Mary Most Holy, that she support the mission of Christ’s disciples in every place; the mission to proclaim to all that God loves us, wants to save us, and calls us to join his Kingdom.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 7 July 2019]

XXV Sunday in Ordinary Time  B  (22 September 2024)

1. Every page of the gospel, indeed every word of Jesus produces different resonances in the listener because it is not like reading or listening to a piece of news closed in time, but receiving a personalised message that is always new: in short, through the gospel, Jesus speaks in the concrete context in which you find yourself according to the openness and expectation of your heart. Try therefore to ask yourself what the Gospel says to you today (Mk 9:30-37). We have already heard the Apostle Peter being scandalised by the announcement of his Master's death on the cross and receiving a harsh rebuke right after his profession of faith. Peter,' Jesus intimated with authority, 'turn back "Satan", take your place and let me clear up the ideas that do not correspond to God's plans.  Today the same thing happens with all the disciples who on the road to Capernaum argue among themselves about who will be the most important when the Messiah establishes his kingdom. Of course they are a long way from reality if Jesus has to repeat what he had said before. And indeed the evangelist specifies that "he taught his disciples and said to them: the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; but once he is killed, he will rise again after three days". It is worth dwelling on the expression "The Son of Man delivered into the hands of men". The mystery of a God the Son of Man who delivers himself into the hands of man is the heart of all revelation. But where does the expression 'Son of Man' originate? In truth, it is a title with different shades of meaning in the Old and New Testaments. The expression 'Son of Man' appears in the Old Testament, mainly in the book of the prophet Ezekiel and the book of Daniel. In Ezekiel, God addresses the prophet by calling him 'son of man' more than 90 times and the term seems to simply refer to a human being whose frailty and mortality it highlights.  In the book of the prophet Daniel, however, we find the key passage for the messianic meaning of the expression 'Son of Man'. In a vision, the prophet sees "coming with the clouds of heaven one resembling a son of man; he came as far as the Watchman and was presented to him. He was given power, glory, and kingdom; all peoples, nations, and languages served him; his power is an everlasting power, which never fades, and his kingdom is such that it will never be destroyed" (7:13-14). Here, the 'Son of Man' is not just a human being, but a heavenly figure on whom eternal and universal dominion is conferred. Here is the Messiah, the one sent by God to establish his kingdom, advancing on clouds of glory: a description that recalls divinity and final judgement. In the gospels Jesus uses the expression 'Son of Man' attributing it to himself more than 80 times and this title has at least three main meanings. By calling himself the 'Son of Man', he identifies himself as a real human being and is to say that, although the Messiah is the Son of God, he is man and shares our human condition. When he then refers to the prophet Daniel's vision, he wants to indicate his messianic role. For example, the "Son of Man" who comes "with the clouds of heaven" (Mt 24:30), is identified with the glorious and divine figure of Daniel and this title emphasises his definitive appearance as judge and universal ruler. But Christ also uses the term 'Son of Man' to speak of his passion and death, predicting that he will be handed over to men and be killed, but on the third day he will rise again. Thus the connection between the Son of Man and suffering (which was not present in Daniel) is a unique aspect of the way Jesus interprets his mission. Ultimately, the expression "Son of Man" Jesus attributes it to himself, combining the idea of his humanity with his role as the glorious Messiah and his redemptive mission through suffering and passion. In the moments of the passion, the verb "deliver" = to betray is striking: Judas delivers him to the leaders and soldiers (Mk 14:10, 44), the leaders to Pilate (Mk 15:1) and Pilate to the crucifiers (Mk 15:15), but the heart of it all, which constitutes the paradox, is that God himself delivers him and Jesus in turn delivers himself to us. In this handing himself over/giving himself to all, even to those who reject, deny and betray him, the revelation of God as love is shown to be total, unconditional, definitive and forever.

2. Let us return to today's Gospel text where the disciples "did not understand and were afraid to question him". Three of them, Peter James and John, had seen him transfigured, as the evangelist narrates just before at the beginning of this very chapter, and they were already dreaming of entering into glory with the Messiah blazing with light. The other apostles, to the account that the three make of their experience on Tabor, react by competing over "who was the greatest" to occupy the first place in the kingdom that the Messiah is about to establish. Jesus disconcerts them: "If anyone wants to be first, let him be last of all and servant of all" and taking a child he adds: "whoever receives one of these children in my name receives me; and whoever receives me does not receive me, but he who sent me". Just imagine the confusion in the disciples' heads as they fail to reconcile the glory of the messianic triumph with the scandal of the cross, and for the three disciples who witnessed Jesus' transfiguration, this seems even more unacceptable and unlikely.  The splendour of the transfiguration remains in them, their ears have heard that Jesus is the beloved Son, the one who must be heard, how can they admit what he now announces: betrayal and hatred of men, suffering and death on the cross, and this in a certain and ineluctable manner? In the thinking of the apostles as well as their contemporaries, and probably also in us, glory and cross are not a happy pair. There is also a further contradiction: first he says that he will be killed and treated as refuse by men, then that resurrected he will triumph: so not only are glory and the cross inseparable, but to reach glory one must pass through the cross. An unknown 17th century monk and theologian writes: 'Sic decet per crucem ad gloriam, per angusta ad augusta penetrare, et per aspera ad astra' (J. Heidfeld [†1624]).

3. As if this were not enough, Jesus confuses the apostles even more because, first he states that 'if anyone wants to be first, let him be last of all and servant of all', then, taking a child in his arms (only here in Mark's gospel does he make this gesture), he shows as a model to imitate precisely the child, a vulnerable and defenceless human being in need of care. At that moment, the disciples do not die from the desire to be last, and even Jesus' gesture of pointing to the child as a model to be considered puts them in turmoil because they are in the midst of the power rivalry problem of which St James speaks in today's second reading (Jas 3:16-4:3).  In short, it is The World Upside Down: no wonder the disciples struggle to understand this because it also puts us in crisis. Jesus, however, is patient and in truth he does not say that it is a bad thing to aspire to be first, indeed he even offers the means to get there, that is, to make oneself last. And so in this text we go from one marvel to another because the only way to become first is simple for Jesus and is within the reach of anyone: whoever wants to be first should put himself in last place and serve everyone as one would a child. This is not enough: only by doing so does one accept Jesus and add him: also "he who sent me". Our model is therefore Jesus washing the disciples' feet in the cenacle, as recounted in John's gospel, and we let his words resound in our hearts: 'Do you understand what I have done for you? You call me the Master and the Lord, and rightly so, for I am. If therefore I, the Lord and the Master, have washed your feet, you too must wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you" (13:12-15).

  +Giovanni D'Ercole  Good Sunday to you all