Which road leads to the Father?

(Lk 11:29-32)

Jesus comes up against unbelief. It comes from various blinders and parties taken, or (especially in the disciples) arises from carelessness.

The Lord turns away from those who test him and those who reject what is God-given, claiming to fix how he should act.

The Son of Man respects each person who follows him, but makes it clear that decisions and even before that, lack of acute perception prevent the encounter and redemption of life.

In this perspective, believers do not live to "prove". Christ himself does not wait for us in subliminal and miraculous manifestations, but on the shore of an earthly spirituality.

Value does not need applause (a double-edged sword) - the mask of the artificial proposal, and inauthentic life.

Humanising correspondence does not grow with the multiplication of dizzying signals.

God does not coerce the unconvinced, nor does He overpower them with trials; thus He gains a heritage of Love in growth.

His authentic Church, without clamour or persuasive stance - seemingly insignificant - is all gathered in intimate unity with its Firstborn: native, portentous and regenerative power - solid and real.

The Queen of Noon sought captivating solutions to enigmatic curiosities, but she could know them within her soul and in life.

Incarnation: there are no other valid signs than the events and new relationships - with oneself and others - which bring forth the very and unprecedented Person of the Risen One [the one without wrappings].

The Eternal is no longer the pure transcendence of the Jews, nor the summit of wisdom of the ancient world.

The sign of the Most High is the story of Jesus alive in us. It opens the exciting road that leads to the Father.

We trust in Christ, so no spiritual drugs that delude us of happiness.

This is the meaning of the new Creation: in the surrender to the Spirit - but all concrete (not mannered) and proceeding dragging the alternative reality.

His Person is a unique signal, which dissolves the many ersatz religion of fears, fetters, established roles.

Tares that would like to imprison him in 'ally' doer of seductive and immediately resolving miracles.

Some into a simple temple purifier or a white mill character - and so are we, if we allow ourselves to be manipulated.

In fact, the religious leaders Jesus is addressing are those back in his communities!

These were Judaizers who wanted to frame the Messiah in the scheme of normal expectations to which they had always been accustomed.

Or they already had it and were fed up with it....

In these 'veterans' there was no sign of conversion to the idea of the Son of God as Servant, trusting in dreams without prestige.

In them? No trace of any new idea - nor any change of pace that would mark the demise of the blatant, dehumanising, and even sacred society - of the outside.

The popular leaders sometimes miss the meaning of the only living Sign: Jesus the Food of Life.

Because of them, not the distant ones, the Lord "groans in the spirit" [cf. Mk 8:12 Greek text] - even today, saddened by so much blindness.

Life is indeed precluded to those who cannot shift their gaze.

Immediately afterwards Lk (12,1) in fact refers to the danger of the dominant ideology that made the leaders themselves lose their objective perception of events.

A 'leaven' that was coarse but rooted in the painful experience of the people; that stimulated puffery even in the disciples, contaminating them.

To the first of the class it might have seemed that Jesus was a leader like Moses, for he had just fed the starving people in the desert [cf. Mt 15:32-39; Mk 8:1-9].

But the rejection is sharp: especially Mk (8:12) makes it sharp by emphasising the Master's sense of suffering.

Therefore, as also in Mt and Lk in the episode precisely of Jonah - his radical, peremptory denial.

To save the needy people there is no other way but to start from within.

Then proceeding towards a fullness of being that spreads out, approves us, and allows us to break our lives in favour of our brothers.

There is no escape.

Only communion with the concealed source of one's eminent Self and respectful and active dialogue with others saves one from a closed group mentality.

In this way, no club is allowed - claiming monopolistic exclusivity over God and souls (Lk 9:49-50) with an explicit claim to discipline the multitudes.

The community of the Risen One abhors the competitive conception of religious life itself, if it is a sacred reflection of the imperial world and of a society that cramps and embitter the existence of the little ones.

It would be a sick life in the pursuit of even apparent prestige.

Conversely, in fraternal realities "the smallest of all, he is great" (Lk 9:48). 

Therefore, it is imperative to prevent a pyramid mentality and discard mentality from creeping into the faithful.

A spirit of competition that then inexorably ends up seeking refuge in hypocritical miraculism, a substitute for a life of Faith.

The Master does the same to educate Church members who remain [some still do] affected by a sense of superiority towards crowds and outsiders.

A feeling of chosen and privileged people (Lk 9:54-55) that was infiltrating even the primitive communities.

To those who do not want to open their eyes except to have their senses captured by phenomena all to be discerned - because in spite of the official creed they profess, they remain tied to an ideology of power - the Lord never reserves impressive confirmations coming "from heaven" (Lk 11:16) that would be the paradoxical validation.

The only sign is and will be his living Church: the "victory" of the Risen One, pulsating in all those who take him seriously.

Without fixed hierarchies - under the infallible guidance of the Calling and the Word - the children know how to reinterpret, even in an unprecedented way.

Such is the prodigy, embodied in the thousand events of history, of personal and community life; in the impossible recoveries, recoveries and revaluations.

The authentic Messiah bestows no cosmic display.

No festival that compels spectators to bow their heads in the presence of such shocking glory and dignity - as if he were a heavenly dictator.

And no shortcut lightning.

Over the centuries, the Churches have often fallen into this 'apologetic' temptation, all internal to devotions of arid impulse: to look for marvellous signs and flaunt them to silence opponents.

Stratagems for a trivial attempt to shut the mouths of those who ask not for experiences of parapsychology, but rather for testimonies with little withering and without trickery or contrivance: of concrete disalienation.

Not bad, this liberation activity of ours in favour of the last, and one that holds fast; not clinging to the idea of a ruffian with triumphalist or consolatory aspects.

We prefer the wave of Mystery.

We yearn to be guided by an unknown energy, which has a non-artificial goal in store - led by the eminent but intimate and hidden Friend. Exclusive in us.

We will be one humanity in the Master, on the Right Path and belonging to us. Even along paths that are interrupted and incomplete, even of bewilderment.

In commentary on the Tao Tê Ching (i) Master Ho-shang Kung writes:

"The eternal Name wants to be like the infant that has not yet spoken, like the chick that has not yet hatched.

The bright pearl is inside the oyster, the beautiful gem is in the middle of the rock: however resplendent it may be on the inside, on the outside it is foolish and insipid'.

All of this is perhaps rated 'unconsciousness' and 'inconclusiveness'... but it bears what we are - expressing another way of seeing the world.

Within ourselves and within the Call of the Gospels we have a fresh power, approving the path different from the immediately normal and the glaringly obvious.

A Call that is enchantment, delight and splendour, because it activates us by questioning.

A Word that does not reason according to patterns.

A heartfelt plea, which is not impressed by exceptional things, by plays that suffocate the soul in search of meaning and authenticity.

Genuine Wonder, an indomitable impulse nested in the dimension of human fullness, and that does not give up: it wants to express itself in its transparency and become reality.

A kind of intimate Infante: it moves in a way that is judged 'abstruse', but puts things right, inside and out.

The free and life-giving testimony, attentive and always personally ingenious, will be innate and unprecedented, biting, inventive without shrewdness, unpredictable and not at all conformist.

It will unleash and unceasingly re-energise a convinced, singular, incisive experience of Faith - despite the fact that it may appear losing and unsuccessful, unhonourable and senseless.

Far more than miracles, the pleas of our essence and reality will make us recognise the call and action of God in people and in the fabric of history.

Invitations that can germinate other astonishments and prodigies of divine-human goodness, than paroxysmal visions seasoned with neurosis and empty sentimentality or magic.

The only sign of salvation is Christ in us - without seams or grand hysterical gestures.

He is the image and likeness of the new humanity; the manifestation of God's power on earth.

For authentic conversion: nothing external.

To internalise and live the message:

Of what kind is your search for evidence?

How does your sign making believe differ from gimmicks, acts of force, or what others would have you spread?

2) The book of Jonah announces to us the event of Jesus Christ - Jonah is a foreshadowing of the coming of Jesus. The Lord himself tells us this in the Gospel quite clearly.

Asked by the Jews to give them a sign that would openly reveal him as the Messiah, he replies, according to Matthew: "No sign will be given to this generation except the sign of Jonah the prophet. For as Jonah remained three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, so shall the Son of Man remain three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:39f).

Luke's version of Jesus' words is simpler: "This generation [...] seeks a sign but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah was a sign for those of Nineveh, so also the Son of Man will be a sign for this generation' (Lk 11:29f). We see two elements in both texts: the Son of Man himself, Christ, God's envoy, is the sign. The paschal mystery points to Jesus as the Son of man, he is the sign in and through the paschal mystery.

In the Old Testament account this very mystery of Jesus shines through quite clearly.

The first chapter of the book of Jonah speaks of a threefold descent of the prophet: he goes down to the port of Jaffa; he goes down into the ship; and in the ship he puts himself in the innermost place. In his case, however, this threefold descent is an attempted escape before God. Jesus is the one who descends out of love, not in order to flee, but to reach the Nineveh of the world: he descends from his divinity into the poverty of the flesh, of being a creature with all its miseries and sufferings; he descends into the simplicity of the carpenter's son, and he descends into the night of the cross, and finally even into the night of the Sheòl, the world of the dead. In doing so, he precedes us on the way of descent, away from our false kingly glory; the way of penitence, which is the way to our own truth: the way of conversion, the way that leads us away from Adam's pride, from wanting to be God, towards the humility of Jesus who is God and for us strips himself of his glory (Phil 2:1-10). Like Jonah, Jesus sleeps in the boat while the storm rages. In a certain sense in the experience of the cross he allows himself to be thrown into the sea and thus calms the storm. The rabbis have interpreted Jonah's word "Throw me into the sea" as a self-offering of the prophet who wanted to save Israel with this: he was afraid of the conversion of the pagans and of Israel's rejection of the faith, and for this reason - so they say - he wanted to let himself be thrown into the sea. The prophet saves in that he puts himself in the place of others. The sacrifice saves. This rabbinic exegesis became truth in Jesus.

[Pope Benedict Card. Ratzinger, Lectio in s. Maria in Traspontina, 24 January 2003; in "30Giorni" February 2003]

4. In fact, Jesus invites us to discern the words and deeds which bear witness to the imminent coming of the Father’s kingdom. Indeed, he indicates and concentrates all the signs in the enigmatic “sign of Jonah”. By doing so, he overturns the worldly logic aimed at seeking signs that would confirm the human desire for self-affirmation and power. As the Apostle Paul emphasizes: “Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Cor 1:22-23).

As the first-born among many brethren (cf. Rom 8:29), Christ was the first to overcome in himself the diabolic “temptation” to use worldly means to achieve the coming of God’s kingdom. This happened from the time of the messianic testing in the desert to the sarcastic challenge flung at him as he hung upon the cross: “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Mt 27:40). In the crucified Jesus a kind of transformation and concentration of the signs occurs: he himself is the “sign of God”, especially in the mystery of his Death and Resurrection. To discern the signs of his presence in history, it is necessary to free oneself from every worldly pretense and to welcome the Spirit who “searches everything, even the depths of God” (1 Cor 2:10).

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 23 September 1998]

Here is the syndrome of Jonah, which "strikes those who do not have the zeal for the conversion of the people, they seek a holiness - allow me the word - a holiness of dyeing, that is, all beautiful, all well done but without the zeal that leads us to preach the Lord". The Pope recalled that the Lord "before this generation, sick with the Jonah syndrome, promises the sign of Jonah". He added: "In the other version, that of Matthew, it says: but Jonah was in the whale three nights and three days... The reference is to Jesus in the tomb, to his death and resurrection. And this is the sign that Jesus promises: against hypocrisy, against this attitude of perfect religiosity, against this attitude of a group of Pharisees'.

To make the concept clearer, the bishop of Rome referred to another parable from the Gospel "that represents well what Jesus wants to say. It is the parable of the Pharisee and the publican praying in the temple (Luke 14:10-14). The Pharisee is so sure before the altar that he says: I thank you God that I am not like all these people from Nineveh, nor like the one who is there! And the one who was there was the publican, who only said: Lord have mercy on me who am a sinner".

The sign that Jesus promises "is his forgiveness," Pope Francis pointed out, "through his death and resurrection. The sign that Jesus promises is his mercy, the one that God had already been asking for some time: mercy I want and not sacrifices". So "the true sign of Jonah is the one that gives us the confidence of being saved by the blood of Christ. There are many Christians who think they are saved only by what they do, by their works. Works are necessary, but they are a consequence, a response to that merciful love that saves us. Works alone, without this merciful love, are not enough.

So "the Jonah syndrome affects those who trust only in their personal righteousness, in their works". And when Jesus says "this wicked generation", he is referring to "all those who have Jonah's syndrome in them". But there is more: "Jonah's syndrome," said the Pope, "leads us to hypocrisy, to that sufficiency that we believe we achieve because we are clean, perfect Christians, because we do these works we keep the commandments, everything. A big disease, the Jonah syndrome!". Whereas "the sign of Jonah" is "the mercy of God in Jesus Christ who died and rose again for us, for our salvation".

"There are two words in the first reading," he added, "that connect with this. Paul says of himself that he is an apostle, not because he has studied, but he is an apostle by calling. And to Christians he says: you are called by Jesus Christ. The sign of Jonah calls us'. Today's liturgy, the Pontiff concluded, helps us to understand and make a choice: "Do we want to follow the syndrome of Jonah or the sign of Jonah?"

[Pope Francis, St. Martha, in L'Osservatore Romano 15.10.13]

God bless us and may the Virgin protect us.

Here is the commentary for the Ash Wednesday readings

5 March 2025  (year C)

The liturgy of Ash Wednesday, which opens Lent, was once marked by the beginning of public penance today and the start of the last stretch of the formation of catechumens, who prepared to receive baptism at the Easter Vigil. Symbolising the call to prayer and conversion of heart, which proclaims the texts of Holy Scripture, is the rite of ashes, a sign of penance and conversion.  It is an 'austere symbol' with which we begin the spiritual journey of Lent, recognising that our body, formed from dust, will return to dust, and therefore we are invited to make our existence a sacrifice God in union with the death of Christ Jesus. What illuminates Ash Wednesday and the whole of Lent is the event of the Resurrection of Jesus, which we will celebrate with renewed hope in this Jubilee year. Ash Wednesday is a day of penance, fasting and almsgiving, which is to be understood as sharing what we are and what we possess with our brothers and sisters for the glory of God. This requires the courage to give up something that costs us in order to live Lent as a time of true inner purification. 

*First Reading from the Book of the Prophet Joel (Gl 2:12-18) 

Return to the Lord with all your heart! This is the invitation that the prophet Joel issues to us today. His book is very short (it contains a total of seventy-three verses divided into four chapters) and is set around the year 600 BC, i.e. just before the exile in Babylon. There are three constantly intertwining themes: the prospect of terrible scourges, heartfelt appeals to fasting and conversion, and the proclamation of God's salvation. Today it is the second theme that the liturgy proposes to us at the beginning of Lent. The solemn call to conversion urges us to take seriously what follows, namely the invitation: 'Return to me', and the people respond and plead: 'Forgive, Lord, your people and do not expose your inheritance to the mockery and derision of the nations. The prophets always teach not to be satisfied with outward manifestations and Joel also does not fail to emphasise this: 'Tear your hearts and not your garments and return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful'.  This is what Isaiah says: 'Though you multiply your prayers, I do not listen: your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, purify yourselves. Turn away from my eyes your evil deeds, cease to do evil. Learn to do good, seek justice..." (Is 1:14-17). And Psalm 50/51 comments 'The sacrifice that pleases God is a contrite spirit; a sorrowful and humiliated heart, O God, you do not despise it'. The prophet Ezekiel helps us to understand what the psalmist means: that we must break our hearts of stone so that the heart of flesh may emerge, and the prophet Joel follows this line when he calls for tearing hearts and not garments in order to escape a deserved punishment. For he writes: "who knows that God will not change and repent and leave behind him a blessing?" And he concludes by announcing that forgiveness has already been granted. The liturgical translation says: "The Lord shows jealousy for his land" having had pity on his people, but God's mercy is destined for all men, and this is precisely the message we find in the book of Jonah very similar to that of Joel. In fact, Jonah narrates the conversion of Nineveh, the pagan city that had gone a day's journey proclaiming: 'Forty days more and Nineveh will be destroyed', and the inhabitants immediately believed in God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed themselves in sackcloth, great and small. Even the king of Nineveh laid down his royal mantle, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down on the ashes, and then proclaimed a state of alertness and had everyone in Nineveh cover themselves with sackcloth and call upon God mightily. God saw their conversion and lifted the chastisement he had threatened to inflict (Gen 3:4-10). The secret is that God is overflowing with zeal and love, as Joel reminds us, for all men, and St Paul will say: 'God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us' (Rom 5:8).

*Responsorial Psalm (50 (51).  Forgive us, Lord: we have sinned

Let us also join the people of Israel gathered in the Temple of Jerusalem for a great penitential celebration. They know that they are full of sins, but they know from experience that God's mercy is inexhaustible and so they ask for forgiveness with the certainty of being heard. This was precisely King David's discovery after he sinned with Bathsheba, wife of an officer, Uriah, who was at war at the time. Bathsheba let David know that she was pregnant by him, and David arranged for her betrayed husband to die in battle so that he could take the woman and the child she was carrying for himself for good. The prophet Nathan did not immediately try to make David admit his sin, but first reminded him of God's many gifts and announced forgiveness before David even had time to confess his guilt (cf. 2 Samuel 12). In addition to all the gifts and privileges that God had bestowed upon him, he also added that the Lord was ready to grant him whatever he wished. Throughout history, Israel had occasion to record that God is indeed "the merciful and gracious Lord, slow to anger, rich in faithfulness and loyalty", as he had revealed to Moses in the wilderness (Ex 34:6). The prophets also reiterated this message, and the verses of Psalm 50/51 are full of it. Isaiah, for example, says: "I, I alone blot out your sins for my own sake, and I remember your sins no more" (Isaiah 43:25). The announcement of God's free forgiveness always surprises us: it almost seems too good to be true. For some, it may even seem unfair: if everything is forgivable, why strive to live well? But this means forgetting that we all, without exception, need God's mercy and he surprises us, because, as Isaiah says, God's thoughts are not our thoughts. And it is precisely in forgiveness that God surprises us the most. Let us think of the Gospel parable of the labourers of the last hour: "Can I not do with my things what I will? Or are you jealous because I am good?" (cf. Mt 20:15), to that of the prodigal son (Lk 15): when the ungrateful son returns to his father, animated by motives that are anything but noble, Jesus puts a phrase from Psalm 50 on his lips: "Against you, against you alone have I sinned". And with this single phrase, the broken bond is reconnected. Faced with the ever new proclamation of God's mercy, the people of Israel, who in the Psalms speak for us all, recognise themselves as sinners. Its repentance is not detailed, it never is in the penitential Psalms, but expresses everything in a simple plea: 'Have mercy on me, O God, in your love; in your great mercy blot out my iniquity. Wash me all from my guilt, from my sin make me pure". And God, who is all mercy, attracted by man's misery, waits for nothing more than this humble confession of our poverty. And it is useful to remember that 'mercy' has the same root as 'almsgiving' and this reminds us that we are beggars of love and forgiveness before God. What to do then: give thanks and forgive. Give thanks for the forgiveness that God continually offers us. In every penitential celebration, the most important prayer is the recognition of God's gifts and forgiveness. First of all, we must contemplate God himself, and only then can we acknowledge ourselves as sinners. The Rite of Reconciliation clearly states that we confess God's love along with our sin, and praise will spring spontaneously from our lips: "Lord, open my lips and my mouth will proclaim your praise" (this is the phrase that opens the Liturgy of the Hours, every morning and is taken from Psalm 50/51) in which we are reminded that praise and gratitude will only arise in us if God opens our hearts and lips. And the second step that God expects of us and constitutes the ascetic programme of our whole life is the commitment to forgive in our turn, without delay or conditions. 

*Second Reading from St Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians (5:20-6:2) 

"Be reconciled to God"! Paul speaks of reconciliation well aware of the breaking of the covenant between God and his people. In the Old Testament, the people knew that God is not at odds with mankind, as Psalm 102/103 clearly expresses: 'The Lord is not always quarrelling, he does not retain his wrath forever; he does not treat us according to our sins, he does not repay us according to our faults... As far as the east is from the west, so he turns away from us our faults... He knows of what we are made, he remembers that we are dust.  Similarly, we read in Isaiah: "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, who will have mercy on him, to our God, who forgives abundantly" (Isaiah 55: 7), and in the Book of Wisdom: "You have compassion on all, for you can do all things, and you shut your eyes to the sins of men, waiting for their repentance... Your sovereignty over all makes you forgiving to all" (Wisdom 11: 23; 12: 16). David had this experience when he slew Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, and God sent him the prophet Nathan who, in essence, said to him: All that you have, I have given you; and if it were not yet enough, I would be ready to give you again all that you desire. God was not even unaware that Solomon had obtained the throne by eliminating his rivals, yet he heard his prayer at Gibeon and granted his requests far beyond what the young king had dared to ask for (1 Kings 3). But there is more: God's very Name, 'Merciful', means that he loves us the more miserable we are. Therefore, God is not in dispute with man. Yet Paul speaks of reconciliation, because from the beginning of the world (Paul says 'from Adam', but it is the same thing), it is man who is in conflict with God. The Genesis account (Gen 2-3) attributes the origin of this accusation against God to the serpent because he is jealous of man and does not want his good: "God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen 3:4) The Bible implies that this suspicion is not natural in man - it is the voice of the serpent, and therefore can be cured. This is precisely what St Paul says: 'Brothers, we, in the name of Christ, are ambassadors: through us it is God himself who exhorts. We beseech you in the name of Christ: be reconciled to God'. And what has God done to remove this distrust from our hearts? The apostle continues: "He who knew no sin, God made sin for our sake" (2 Cor 5:21). Jesus did not know sin; on the contrary, as we read in the letter to the Philippians, Jesus made himself obedient (Phil 2:8), and always remained confident, even in suffering and death. That is why he teaches men this trust and reveals that Di is all love and forgiveness: he is Mercy. By an unbelievable paradox, because of this revelation Jesus was considered a blasphemer, treated as a sinner and executed as a cursed man (cf. Deut 21:23). The hatred and blindness of men came upon him and the Father let it happen, because this was the only way for us to experience first hand how far "the Lord is jealous for his land and moves with compassion for his people" as the prophet Joel states. Jesus faced the sin of men, violence, hatred, the rejection of a God who is Love, and on the cross he appears how far the horror of human sin reaches and how far the gentleness and forgiveness of God reaches. And it is precisely from this contemplation that our conversion, what Paul calls 'justification', can arise. "They will turn their eyes to him whom they have pierced," we read in the book of the prophet Zechariah (Zech 12:10), taken up by John (Jn 19:37). In the dying Jesus who forgives his executioners, we discover the very face of God ("He who has seen me has seen the Father" Jn 14:9) and, thanks to him, we are reconciled by God. The task of the baptised is to proclaim and bear witness to this love, in the school of Paul who cries out: "We are ambassadors of Christ", a mission that involves each one of us. This short text closes with a quotation from the prophet Isaiah "At the favourable time I have heard you

and on the day of salvation I have succoured you" who spoke to the exiles in Babylon, announcing to them that the hour of salvation had come. While Israel had to announce deliverance, because false images of God imprison the hearts of men, Jesus Christ entrusted his Church with the mission of announcing the remission of sins to the world.

*From the Gospel according to Matthew (6:1-6. 16-18)

Today's Gospel contains two short excerpts from the Sermon on the Mount, which occupies chapters 5-7 of Matthew's Gospel. The whole discourse revolves around a central core that is the Lord's Prayer (Mt 6:9-13), the prayer that gives meaning to everything else. This indicates that the exhortations given here are not mere moral advice, but lead to the heart of faith, and the message is as follows: all our actions must be rooted in the discovery that God is Father. Prayer, almsgiving and fasting are therefore not just religious practices, but paths to bring us closer to God-the-Father: Fasting means learning to shift the centre away from ourselves, and with prayer we centre our lives on God, while almsgiving opens our hearts to our brothers and sisters. Three times Jesus uses expressions that invite us not to be like those who love to show off. Religious practices were certainly of great importance in the Jewish society of the time and the risk was to place too much value on outward displays as some did. Matthew recalls Jesus' rebukes to those who cared more about the length of their fringes than about mercy and faithfulness (Matthew 23:5ff). Here, Jesus invites his disciples to a true inner purification because to be truly righteous one must avoid acting in front of men in order to be admired by them. Righteousness was a fundamental theme for believers and in the Beatitudes, Jesus mentions it twice: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." (Mt 5:6) "Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Mt 5:10) But in biblical language, true justice does not consist in accumulating religious practices, however noble they may be. True righteousness is to be in harmony with God's plan as we already read in Genesis: "Abraham believed the Lord, and therefore the Lord counted him righteous." (Gen 15:6). Therefore, not a righteousness that is self-righteousness, but a deep harmony and agreement with God.  Prayer, fasting, almsgiving become three ways to live justice: In prayer, we allow God to mould us according to his plan: "Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. "And precisely for this reason, Jesus recommends: "When you pray, do not waste words as the pagans do; your Father knows what you need even before you ask him. (Mt 6:7-8) Fasting is along the same lines: it frees us from the illusion of what we believe is essential to be happy, but which often ends up imprisoning us. Jesus himself, fasting in the desert, answered Satan: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." (Mt 4:4) Almsgiving is the fruit of our walk of righteousness, because it makes us merciful. It is no coincidence that the Greek word for almsgiving comes from the same root as eleison ("have mercy") and to give alms means to open one's heart to compassion. Since God loves all his children, there can be no true justice without social justice. And we see this clearly in the Last Judgement: "Come, ye blessed of my Father... For I was hungry and you gave me food... "And at the end: "The righteous shall go to eternal life. (Mt 25:31-46). Ultimately those who flaunt are at odds with true righteousness because they display a subtle form of spiritual selfishness, a way of remaining self-centred. And the real tragedy is that this attitude closes our hearts to the Spirit's sanctifying action.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

Prayer of the sons: performance or Listening?

Mt 6:7-15 (v.13)

«When you pray, do not babble like the pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their wordiness» (Mt 6:7; cf. Lk 11:1).

The God of religions was named with an overabundance of high-sounding honorific epithets, as if he craved ever more numerous ranks of incensers.

The «Father» is not accompanied by prestigious titles. A child doesn’t address the parent as a very high, eternal and omnipotent, but the a reliable family Person who transmits life to him.

And the son doesn’t imagine that he has to offer external cries and acknowledgments: the Father looks at needs, not merits.

«Et ne nos inducas in tentationem»: ancient Prayer of the sons.

«Do not induce us [Lead us not into]» is (in the Latin and Greek sense: «until the end») an ancient Symbol of the ‘reborn in Christ’, in the experience of real life.

In religions there are clearly opposed demons and angels: disordered and dark powers, contrary to the bright and "right" ones.

But by dint of relegating the former, the worst continually resurface, until they win the game and spread.

In the lives of the saints we see these great women and men strangely always under temptation - because they disdain evil, therefore they do not know it.

Gradually, however, the little constant naggings becomes overwhelming crowds.

The persons of Faith do not act according to pre-established and superficial models, not even religious ones; they are aware that they are not heroes or paradigm phenomena.

That's why they rely on. They let intimate problems go by: understood its strength!

This is the meaning of the formula of the Our Father, in its original sense: «and lead us not into [the end of] temptation [trial] (because we know our weakness)».

If, on the other hand, our 'counterpart' becomes a protagonist, a one-sided pivot, a constant afterthought, and a block, we are done for.

Pain, failures, sadness, frustrations, weaknesses, a thousand anxieties, too many falls, accustom us to experience transgressions as part of ourselves: Condition to be evaluated, not "guilt" to be cut horizontally.

In the process of true salvific transmutation, that signal speaks of us: within a deviation or the eccentricity there is a secret or a knowledge to be found, for a ‘new personal birth’.

Looking at the discomforts and oppositions, we realize that these critical sides of being become like a malleable magma, which approaches our healing more quickly. As if through a permanent, radical conversion… because it involves and belongs to us; not in peripheral mode, but basically, of Seed and Nature.

Absorbed patterns and beliefs don’t allow us to understand that the passionate life is composed of opposing states, of competitive energies - which must not be disguised in order to be considered decent people.

Perceiving and integrating such depths, we lay down the idea and atmosphere of impending danger, devoid of further opportunity; only for death.

We become mature, without dissociation or hysterical states resulting from contrived identifications, nor disesteem for an important part of us.

In short, straits and "crosses" have something to tell us.

They shake the soul to the root, sweep away the absorbed masks, ignite the person, and save the life.

In this way, inconveniences and anxieties help us. They hide capabilities and possibilities that we do not yet see.

In the virtue of the shaky yet unique exceptionality for each person, here is the true journey opening up.

Path of the Father and of the heart, Way that wants to guide us to alternative trajectories, new dimensions of existence.

The difference of the Faith, compared to ancient religiosity [in the sense of the ‘Cross-inside’]?

It’s in the consciousness that only the sick heal, only the incomplete grow.

Only the halting women and men regain expression, evolve. And falling, they snap forward.

[Tuesday 1st wk. in Lent, March 11, 2025]

Sons’ Prayer: performance or Listening?

(Mt 6:7-15)

In the communities of Mt and Lk the "prayer" of the sons - the "Our Father" - does not originate as prayer, but as a formula of acceptance of the Beatitudes (in its scans: invocation to the Father, human situation and advent of the Kingdom, liberation).

In any case, the full difference between religious prayer and expression animated by Faith lies in the distinction between: Performance or Perception.

[As Pope Francis says: "To pray is not to talk to God like a parrot". "Our God does not need sacrifices to win his favour! He needs nothing'].

In religions - in fact - it is the praying subject who 'prays', making requests, expounding himself, praising, and so on.

Still in Thomism, the virtue of religion was considered to be an aspect of the cardinal virtue of Justice. As if to say: man's rightful position before God is that of one who recognises a duty of worship (worship that is directed from him) towards the Creator; and man - the subject of prayer - would fulfil it.

Conversely, the child of God in Christ is a "hearer" of the Logos: he is the one who tends his ear, perceives, welcomes: in short, the authentic Subject who expresses himself is God himself.

He reveals Himself through the Word, in the reality of events, in the folds of universal and personal history, in the particular Calling He grants us, even in intimate images.

They become plastic expressions of Mystery (and personal Vocation) that wave upon wave even guide the soul.

"When you pray, do not babble like the pagans, for they think they are heard because of their wordiness" (Mt 6:7; cf. Lk 11:1).

In the Faith we participate in the authentic prayer of Jesus Himself - Person in us - addressed to the Father, first of all "listening" to His providential proposals: as if united to the Friend and Brother we enter into this Dialogue - full of even figurative suggestions.

But it is the Only-Begotten who prays; we are not the great protagonists. Only in this sense can the act of praying be defined as 'childlike' or 'Christian'.

Our prayer life is not an ascetical exercise - nor a duty, nor a shopping list - because God does not need to be informed about something He had not thought of before.

As the Master says, the Father knows what we need (Mt 6:8). So to turn to Him does not require any effort [ lacerating effort to centre oneself and step outside oneself]. Nor does it force us into too many (or the right) words.

Authentic prayer is not a tracing, nor a leap into outer darkness, but an excavation and sifting, given. It is a plunge into our being, where the intimacy of the Understanding aims to understand the Author's signature at the heart of events; even emotions.

The prayer of the man of Faith does not aim to introduce God's will and the reality of situations into narrow horizons and judgments that are already comprehensible, as if pushing it into unnatural attunements.

Prayer is a perceptive leap without repetitive identities, from one's own Core - which clears away mental toxins; and so it becomes an experience of fullness of being, in search of global and personal meaning.

Nor is the praying man prey to some excited paroxysmal state (ridiculous or soporific): he is welcoming an Action - a Work of paradoxical suspension, on the path to his own Bliss.

Prayer is even a gesture of aesthetic order in Christ. Precisely because it tends to rake our everyday imagery so that it is shaped according to the guiding vision it inhabits. It shifts and almost directs the eye of the soul, and the ecclesial experience.

A virtue-event that gradually chisels that very personal image that brings to awareness a goal or a communal reality of praise, that is, an innate narrative Voice of unknown energies, for important changes.

Step by step, this perception and dialogue that emerges induces one to internalise hidden flashes of the path that belongs to us: a missionary spirit that seeks harmony, the creation of a living environment, and so on. Even destabilising.

Only in this sense is prayer in order to our benefits.

Nor can it be reduced to a group badge, because although we recognise ourselves in some knowledge, each one has its own language of the soul, a relevant history and sensitivity, an unprecedented iconic world (also in terms of micro and macro dreamed relations), as well as an unrepeatable task of salvation.

For this reason too - albeit in terms of the community of reference - the Symbol of the reborn in Christ turning to the Father has come down to us in different versions: Mt, Lk, Didaché ['Teaching' perhaps contemporary with the last New Testament writings, a kind of early Catechism]. 

To introduce us to specific considerations, it is appropriate to ask: why did Jesus not attend places of worship to recite traditional formulas, but to teach?

And never does it appear that the apostles pray with Him: it seems that they only wanted a formula to distinguish themselves from other rabbinical schools (cf. Lk 11:1).

The Lord only holds fast to the mentality and style of life: He proceeds on fundamental options - and insists on the perception of welcoming, rather than on our saying and organising (little imbued with grounded eternity).

Father

The God of religions was named with an overabundance of high-sounding honorary epithets, as if he craved ever-growing ranks of incense-givers.

The Father is not accompanied by prestigious titles. A son does not address his parent as high, eternal or lofty, but as the one who imparts life to him.

And the son does not imagine that he has to give external shout-outs and accolades - otherwise the superior and master would admonish and chastise: the Parent looks at needs, not merits.

The God of religions governs his subjects by enacting laws, as a sovereign does; the Father transmits his Spirit, his own Life, which elevates and perfects both personal listening skills and the noticing (e.g. of brothers).

The only request is that we extend our missionary resources and feed on the Father-Person who reshapes us on his own virtues, according to what we should be, and could perhaps already have been.

One reality within our reach is the cancellation of material debts that our neighbour has incurred in need.

There is no witness to God-Love that does not pass through a fraternal community, in which we experience the communion of goods.

The security of being right with God is in the joy of living together and sharing.

In religious belief, material blessings are often confused with divine blessings, which accentuates the competitions, artificial primacy and inconveniences of real life.

Conversely, the spirit of the Beatitudes is made manifest in a people where the distinctions between creditors and debtors are abolished.

"Do not induce us": ancient Prayer of the children, in real life

Essence of God is: Love that does not betray or forsake; useless, confusing and blasphemous to ask a Father: 'Do not forsake me' [cf. Greek text]. Although it may be impressive to the outer ear.

The false mysticism of the forsaken Jesus (even by the Father!) does not educate; perhaps it fascinates, certainly confuses - and plagues.

Only the Spirit is guaranteed in prayer: the lucidity to understand the fruitfulness of the Cross, the gain in the loss, the life not in triumph but in death. And the strength to be faithful to one's own Calling, despite persecutions, even "internal" ones.

The community and individual souls, however, ask not to be placed in the extreme conditions of trial, well aware of their own limitation, their personal invincible precariousness, albeit redeemed.

This is the threshold that distinguishes religiosity and Faith: on the one hand, the 'safe' formula of the convinced and strong; on the other, a resigned and expectant prayer: of the unsteady, redeemed by love.

"Non c'indurre" is precisely [in the Latin and Greek sense: "introduce to the end"] an ancient Symbol of those reborn in Christ, in the experience of real life.

In religions there are clearly opposed demons and angels: disordered and dark powers, opposed to the luminous and 'proper' ones.

But by dint of pushing the former back, the worse ones continually resurface, until they win the game and run rampant.

In the lives of the saints, we see these great men strangely always under temptation - because they disdain evil, therefore they do not know it. Gradually, however, the continual nagging becomes uncontainable droves.

The woman and man of Faith do not act according to rushed and superficial pre-established models, not even religious ones; they are aware that they are not heroes or paradigm phenomena.

That is why they trust. They let their intimate problems pass them by: they have understood their power!

This is the meaning of the formula of the Lord's Prayer, in its original sense: 'do not carry us through the trial to the end, for we know our weakness'.

Such attention arises so that sin itself - by dint of denying it, then disguising it - does not paradoxically become the hidden protagonist of our path. The pivot of attention, which unfortunately engulfs thoughts, blocking the internal processes of spontaneous growth, perception of Grace and self-healing [in order to one's own unrepeatable Calling].

This would be the opposite of Redemption and Freedom, hence of Love: it is annihilated where there is a superior above - even God.

On the contrary, it is very fruitful to recover its energy, which has put us in touch with our deepest strata, for new horizons. And to take it on by making it one's own host, in its own right - to (only then) invest it in an unexpected and wise manner. 

If, on the other hand, our 'counterpart' becomes a constant afterthought and block, we are done for.

Sorrows, failures, sadness, frustrations, weaknesses, a thousand anxieties, too many downfalls, accustom us to experiencing evil as part of ourselves: a condition to be evaluated, not a 'fault' to be cut horizontally.

In the process of true salvific transmutation, that signal speaks of us: within a deviation or eccentricity there is a secret or knowledge to be found, to be reborn personally.

By casting our gaze on the discomforts and oppositions, we realise that these critical sides of being become like a malleable magma, which more quickly approaches healing. Like through a conversion, permanent, radical... because it involves and belongs to us; not artificial and peripheral, but fundamental, of Seed and Nature.

Absorbed schemas and convictions do not allow us to understand that passionate life is composed of opposing states, of competitive energies - which we must not disguise in order to be considered decent people.

Perceiving and integrating such depths, we lay down the idea and atmosphere of impending danger, devoid of further opportunities, only for death.

We become mature, without dissociation or hysterical states resulting from contrived identifications, nor disesteem for an important part of us.

In short, narrowness and 'crosses' have something to tell us.

They shake the soul at the root, sweep away the absorbed masks, ignite the person, and save life.

In this way, inconveniences and anxieties help us. They conceal capacities and possibilities that we do not yet see.

In the virtue of the shaky yet unique exceptionality of each person, the true path opens up.

Path of the Father and of the heart, Way that wants to guide us towards alternative trajectories, new dimensions of existence.

The difference of the Faith, compared to ancient religiosity [in the sense of the cross within]?

It is in the awareness that only the sick heal, only the incomplete grow.

Only the lame regain expression, evolve. And falling, they move forward.

Cf. Jn 16:23-28: Prayer in the Name: comm. quotid. Saturday 6th Easter

Cf. Mt 11,25-27: The only prayer of Jesus ever taught Wednesday 15.a

Prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit (cf. CCC 2565). Therefore the life of prayer consists in being habitually in God’s presence and being aware of it, in living in a relationship with God as we live our customary relationships in life, with our dearest relatives, with true friends; indeed the relationship with the Lord is the relationship that gives light to all our other relationships. This communion of life with the Triune God is possible because through Baptism we have been incorporated into Christ, we have begun to be one with him (cf. Rom 6:5).

In fact, only through Christ can we converse with God the Father as children, otherwise it is not possible, but in communion with the Son we can also say, as he did, “Abba”. In communion with Christ we can know God as our true Father (cf. Mt 11:27). For this reason Christian prayer consists in looking constantly at Christ and in an ever new way, speaking to him, being with him in silence, listening to him, acting and suffering with him. The Christian rediscovers his true identity in Christ, “the first-born of all creation” in whom “all things hold together” (cf. Col 1,15ff.). In identifying with him, in being one with him, I rediscover my personal identity as a true son or daughter who looks to God as to a Father full of love.

But let us not forget: it is in the Church that we discover Christ, that we know him as a living Person. She is “his Body”. This corporeity can be understood on the basis of the biblical words about man and about woman: the two will be one flesh (cf. Gen 2:24; Eph 5:30ff.; 1 Cor 6:16f.). The indissoluble bond between Christ and the Church, through the unifying power of love, does not cancel the “you” and the “I” but on the contrary raises them to their highest unity. Finding one’s identity in Christ means reaching communion with him, that does not wipe me out but raises me to the loftiest dignity, that of a child of God in Christ: “The love-story between God and man consists in the very fact that this communion of will increases in a communion of thought and sentiment, and thus our will and God's will increasingly coincide” (Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, n. 17). Praying means raising oneself to God’s heights, through a necessary, gradual transformation of our being.

Thus, by participating in the liturgy we make our own the language of Mother Church, we learn to speak in her and for her. Of course, as I have already said, this happens gradually, little by little. I must immerse myself ever more deeply in the words of the Church with my prayer, with my life, with my suffering, with my joy, and with my thought. It is a process that transforms us.

I therefore think that these reflections enable us to answer the question we asked ourselves at the outset: how do I learn to pray, how do I develop in my prayer? Looking at the example which Jesus taught us, the Pater Noster [Our Father], we see that the first word [in Latin] is “Father” and the second is “our”. Thus the answer is clear, I learn to pray, I nourish my prayer by addressing God as Father and praying-with-others, praying with the Church, accepting the gift of his words which gradually become familiar to me and full of meaning. The dialogue that God establishes with each one of us, and we with him in prayer, always includes a “with”; it is impossible to pray to God in an individualistic manner. In liturgical prayer, especially the Eucharist and — formed by the liturgy — in every prayer, we do not only speak as individuals but on the contrary enter into the “we” of the Church that prays. And we must transform our “I”, entering into this “we”.

[Pope Benedict, General Audience 3 October 2012]

Our Father, who art in heaven . . .".

We stand at the altar around which the whole Church is gathered in Sarajevo. We utter the words that Christ, Son of the Living God, taught us: Son consubstantial with the Father. He alone calls God "Father" (Abba - Father! My Father!) and He alone can authorise us to address God by calling Him "Father", "Our Father". He teaches us this prayer in which everything is contained. We wish to find in this prayer today what we can and must say to God - our Father, at this moment in history, here in Sarajevo.

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven".

"I, the Bishop of Rome, the first Slavic Pope, kneel before You to cry out: "From plague, famine and war - deliver us!""

2. Our Father! Father of men: Father of peoples. Father of all peoples who dwell in the world. Father of the peoples of Europe. Of the peoples of the Balkans.

Father of the peoples who belong to the family of the South Slavs! Father of the peoples who have written their history here, on this peninsula, for centuries. Father of the peoples, touched unfortunately not for the first time by the cataclysm of war.

"Our Father . . .". I, Bishop of Rome, the first Slavic Pope, kneel before You to cry out: "From plague, famine and war - deliver us!" I know that in this plea many join me. Not only here in Sarajevo, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but in the whole of Europe and beyond. I come here carrying with me the certainty of this prayer uttered by the hearts and lips of countless of my brothers and sisters. For so long they have been waiting for this very "great prayer" of the Church, of the people of God, to be fulfilled in this place. For so long, I myself have invited everyone to join in this prayer.

How can we not recall here the prayer made in Assisi in January last year? And then the one raised in Rome, in St Peter's Basilica, in January of this year? From the beginning of the tragic events in the Balkans, in the countries of former Yugoslavia, the guiding thought of the Church, and in particular of the Apostolic See, has been the prayer for peace.

3. Our Father, "hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come . . .". May your holy and merciful name shine among men. Thy kingdom come, kingdom of justice and peace, of forgiveness and love.

"Thy will be done . . .".

Thy will be done in the world, and particularly in this troubled land of the Balkans. Thou lovest not violence and hatred. Thou shun injustice and selfishness. Thou wilt that men be brothers to one another and acknowledge Thee as their Father.

Our Father, Father of every human being, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!

4. It is Christ "our peace" (Eph 2:14). He who taught us to address God by calling him "Father".

He who by His blood conquered the mystery of iniquity and division, and by His Cross broke down the massive wall that separated men, making them strangers to one another; He who reconciled humanity with God and united men among themselves as brothers.

That is why Christ was able to say one day to the Apostles, before his sacrifice on the Cross: 'I leave you peace, I give you my peace. Not as the world gives it, I give it to you" (John 14: 27). It is then that he promised the Spirit of Truth, who is at the same time Spirit of Love, Spirit of Peace!

Come, Holy Spirit! "Veni, creator Spiritus, mentes tuorum visita . . .!" "Come, Creator Spirit, visit our minds, fill with your grace the hearts you have created".

Come, Holy Spirit! We invoke you from this city of Sarajevo, crossroads of tensions between different cultures and nations, where the fuse was lit which, at the beginning of the century, triggered the First World War, and where, at the end of the second millennium, similar tensions are concentrated, capable of destroying peoples called by history to work together in harmonious coexistence.

Come, Spirit of peace! Through you we cry out: "Abba, Father" (Rom 8:15).

Give us this day our daily bread . . .".

Praying for bread means praying for all that is necessary for life. Let us pray that, in the distribution of resources among individuals and peoples, the principle of a universal sharing of mankind in God's created goods may always be realised.

Let us pray that the use of resources in armaments will not damage or even destroy the heritage of culture, which constitutes the highest good of humanity. Let us pray that restrictive measures, deemed necessary to curb the conflict, will not cause inhuman suffering to the defenceless population. Every man, every family has a right to its 'daily bread'.

6. "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us . . .".

With these words we touch upon the crucial issue. Christ himself warned us of this, who, dying on the cross, said of his slayers: 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do' (Lk 23:34).

The history of men, peoples and nations is full of mutual resentment and injustice. How important was the historic expression addressed by the Polish Bishops to their German brethren at the end of the Second Vatican Council: 'Let us forgive and ask forgiveness'! If peace has been possible in that region of Europe, it seems to have come about thanks to the attitude effectively expressed by those words.

Today we want to pray for the renewal of a similar gesture: "Let us forgive and ask forgiveness" for our brothers in the Balkans! Without this attitude it is difficult to build peace. The spiral of 'guilt' and 'punishment' will never be closed, if at some point forgiveness is not achieved.

Forgiveness does not mean forgetting. If memory is the law of history, forgiveness is the power of God, the power of Christ acting in the affairs of men and peoples.

7. "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil . . .".

Lead us not into temptation! What are the temptations that we ask the Father to remove today? They are those that make the heart of man a heart of stone, insensitive to the call of forgiveness and concord. They are the temptations of ethnic prejudices, which make one indifferent to the rights of others and their suffering. They are the temptations of exaggerated nationalisms, which lead to the overpowering of one's neighbour and the lust for revenge. They are all the temptations in which the civilisation of death expresses itself.

Faced with the desolating spectacle of human failures, let us pray with the words of Venerable Brother Bartholomew I, Patriarch of the Church of Constantinople: "Lord, make our hearts of stone crumble at the sight of your suffering and become hearts of flesh. Let your Cross dissolve our prejudices. With the vision of your agonising struggle against death, flee our indifference or our rebellion" (Way of the Cross at the Colosseum, Good Friday 1990, Opening Prayer).

Deliver us from evil! Here is another word that belongs completely to Christ and his Gospel. "I did not come to condemn the world, but to save the world" (Jn 12:47). Humanity is called to salvation in Christ and through Christ. To this salvation are also called the nations that the current war has so terribly divided!

Let us pray today for the saving power of the Cross to help overcome the historic temptation of hatred. Enough of the countless destructions! Let us pray - following the rhythm of the Lord's prayer - that the time of reconstruction, the time of peace, may begin.

Pray with us the dead of Sarajevo, whose remains lie in the nearby cemetery. They pray for all the victims of this cruel war, who in the light of God invoke reconciliation and peace for the survivors.

8. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God" (Mt 5:9). This is what Jesus told us in today's Gospel passage. Yes, dear Brothers and Sisters, we shall be truly blessed, if we make ourselves peacemakers of that peace that only Christ knows how to give (cf. Jn 14:27), indeed Christ himself. "Christ is our peace". We shall become peacemakers, if like him we are willing to forgive.

"Father, forgive them!" (Lk 23:34). Christ from the Cross offers forgiveness and also asks us to follow him on the arduous way of the Cross to obtain his peace. Only by accepting this invitation of his can we prevent selfishness, nationalism and violence from continuing to sow destruction and death.

Evil, in all its manifestations, constitutes a mystery of iniquity, in the face of which the voice of God, which we heard in the First Reading, rises up clear and decisive: "Thus speaks the High and Exalted . . . In high and holy place I dwell, but I am also with the oppressed and the humiliated" (Is 57:15). In these prophetic words is contained for all an invitation to a serious examination of conscience.

God is on the side of the oppressed: he is with the parents who mourn their murdered children, he listens to the helpless cry of the downtrodden, he is in solidarity with women humiliated by violence, he is close to refugees forced to leave their land and homes. He does not forget the suffering of families, the elderly, widows, young people and children. It is his people who are dying.

We must put an end to such barbarity! No more war! No more destructive fury! It is no longer possible to tolerate a situation that produces only fruits of death: killings, destroyed cities, ruined economies, hospitals lacking medicines, sick and elderly abandoned, families in tears and torn apart. A just peace must be achieved as soon as possible. Peace is possible if the priority of moral values over the claims of race or force is recognised.

9. Dear Brothers and Sisters! At this moment, together with you, I raise to the Lord the psalmist's cry: "Help us, God, our salvation, for the glory of your name, save us and forgive us our sins" (Ps 79:9).

Let us entrust this plea of ours to her who "stood" beneath the Cross silent and praying (cf. Jn 19:25). Let us look to the Blessed Virgin, whose Nativity the Church joyfully celebrates today.

It is significant that this visit of mine, long desired, has been able to take place on this Marian feast so dear to you. With Mary's birth there has blossomed in the world the hope of a new humanity no longer oppressed by selfishness, hatred, violence and the many other forms of sin that have stained the paths of history with blood. We ask Mary Most Holy that the day of full reconciliation and peace may also dawn for this land of yours.

Queen of peace, pray for us!

[Pope John Paul II, in connection with Sarajevo, 8 September 1994]

Continuing the catecheses on the ‘Lord’s Prayer’, today we shall begin with the observation that in the New Testament, the prayer seems to arrive at the essential, actually focusing on a single word: Abba, Father.

We have heard what Saint Paul writes in the Letter to the Romans: “you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’”(8:15). And the Apostle says to the Galatians: “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Gal 4:6). The same invocation, in which all the novelty of the Gospel is condensed, recurs twice. After meeting Jesus and hearing his preaching, a Christian no longer considers God as a tyrant to be feared; he is no longer afraid but feels trust in Him expand in his heart: he can speak with the Creator by calling him ‘Father’. The expression is so important for Christians that it is often preserved intact, in its original form: ‘Abba’.

In the New Testament it is rare for Aramaic expressions to be translated into Greek. We have to imagine that the voice of Jesus himself has remained in these Aramaic words as if ‘recorded’: they have respected Jesus’ idiom. In the first words of the ‘Our Father’ we immediately find the radical newness of Christian prayer.

It does not simply use a symbol — in this case, the father figure — to connect to the mystery of God; it is instead about having, so to speak, Jesus’ entire world poured into one’s heart. If we do this, we can truly pray the ‘Our Father’. Saying ‘Abba’ is something much more intimate, more moving than simply calling God ‘Father’. This is why someone has proposed translating this original Aramaic word ‘Abba’ with ‘Dad’ or ‘Papa’. Instead of saying ‘our Father’, saying ‘Dad, Papa’. We shall continue to say ‘our Father’ but with the heart we are invited to say ‘Dad’, to have a relationship with God like that of a child with his dad, who says ‘dad’ and says ‘papa’. Indeed, these expressions evoke affection, they evoke warmth, something that casts us into the context of childhood: the image of a child completely enveloped in the embrace of a father who feels infinite tenderness for him. And for this reason, dear brothers and sisters, in order to pray properly, one must come to have a child’s heart. Not a self-sufficient heart: one cannot pray properly this way. Like a child in the arms of his father, of his dad, of his papa.

But of course the Gospels better explain the meaning of this word. What does this word mean to Jesus? The ‘Our Father’ takes on meaning and colour if we learn to pray it after having read, for example, the Parable of the Merciful Father, in Chapter 15 of Luke (cf. Lk 15:11-32). Let us imagine this prayer recited by the prodigal son, after having experienced the embrace of his father who had long awaited him, a father who does not remember the offensive words the son had said to him, a father who now simply makes him understand how much he has been missed. Thus we discover how those words become vibrant, receive strength. And let us ask ourselves: is it possible that You, O God, really know only love? Do you not know hatred? No — God would respond — I know only love.

Where in You is vengeance, the demand for justice, anger at your wounded honour? And God would respond: I know only love.

In that parable the father’s manner of conduct somehow recalls the spirit of a mother. It is especially mothers who excuse their children, who protect them, who do not suspend empathy for them, who continue to love them, even when they would no longer deserve anything.

It is enough to evoke this single expression — Abba — for Christian prayer to develop. And in his Letters, Saint Paul follows this same path, because it is the path taught by Jesus: in this invocation there is a force that draws all the rest of the prayer.

God seeks you, even if you do not seek him. God loves you, even if you have forgotten about him. God glimpses beauty in you, even if you think you have squandered all your talents in vain. God is not only a father; he is like a mother who never stops loving her little child. On the other hand, there is a ‘gestation’ that lasts forever, well beyond the nine months of the physical one; it is a gestation that engenders an infinite cycle of love.

For a Christian, praying is simply saying ‘Abba’; it is saying ‘Dad’, saying ‘Papa’, saying ‘Father’ but with a child’s trust.

It may be that we too happen to walk on paths far from God, as happened to the prodigal son; or to sink into a loneliness that makes us feel abandoned in the world; or, even to make mistakes and be paralyzed by a sense of guilt. In those difficult moments, we can still find the strength to pray, to begin again with the word ‘Abba’, but said with the tender feeling of a child: ‘Abba’, ‘Dad’. He does not hide his face from us. Remember well: perhaps one has bad things within, things he does not know how to resolve, much bitterness for having done this and that.... He does not hide His face. He does not close himself off in silence. Say ‘Father’ to Him and He will answer you. You have a father. ‘Yes, but I am a delinquent...’. But you have a father who loves you! Say ‘Father’ to him, start to pray in this way, and in the silence he will tell us that he has never lost sight of us. ‘But Father, I have done this...’. — ‘I have never lost sight of you; I have seen everything. But I have always been there, close to you, faithful to my love for you’. That will be his answer. Never forget to say ‘Father’. Thank you.

[Pope Francis, General Audience 16 January 2019]