6th Easter Sunday (year C) [25 May 2025]

God bless us and may the Virgin protect us. We walk with swift steps towards the Ascension of the Lord and Pentecost.  Jesus' words prepare us to receive the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, Parakletos, an untranslatable Greek word. Five times it appears in the N.T. only in John and the possible meanings are: Defender/Advocate; Comforter; Intercessor/Mediator, Inner Teacher/Spirit of truth. 

*First Reading From the Acts of the Apostles (15:1-2.22-29)

The first Christian communities were faced from the very beginning with a serious crisis that poisoned their existence for a long time. Let me explain: in Antioch of Syria, there were Christians of Jewish origin and Christians of pagan origin, and their coexistence had become increasingly difficult because their lifestyles were too different. Christians of Jewish origin were circumcised and considered those of pagan origin as pagans, and in daily life itself, everything pitted them against each other because of all the Jewish practices to which Christians of pagan origin had no desire to submit: numerous rules of purification, ablutions and above all very strict rules regarding food.  Some Christians of Jewish origin came on purpose from Jerusalem to exacerbate the dispute, explaining that only Jews were admitted to Christian baptism and therefore invited pagans first to become Jews (including circumcision) and then Christians. Three fundamental questions: 1. Is it necessary to have the same ideas, the same rites, the same practices in order to experience unity? 2. The second question was that Christians of all origins wanted to be faithful to Jesus Christ, but concretely, what does this faithfulness consist of? If Jesus was Jewish and circumcised, does this mean that to become a Christian one must first become a Jew like him? Furthermore, is it to Israel that God entrusted the mission to be his witness in the midst of humanity, and therefore one must be part of Israel to enter the Christian community? The conclusion was that one had to be Jewish before becoming a Christian, and concretely it was accepted to baptise pagans on condition that they first had themselves circumcised. 3. Third question, even more serious: is salvation given by God unconditionally or not? If by not accepting circumcision according to the tradition of Moses one cannot be saved, it is like saying that God Himself cannot save non-Jews and we decide instead who can or cannot be saved.  The first council of Jerusalem was convened where there were three positions on the matter: Paul wanted total openness, Peter was rather hesitant, and it was James, bishop of Jerusalem, who came to an agreement with a double decision: 1. Christians of Jewish origin should not impose circumcision and Jewish practices on Christians of pagan origin; 2. on the other hand, Christians of pagan origin, out of respect for their brothers of Jewish origin, should refrain from anything that might disturb their common life, especially during meals. The argument that prevailed over everything was the overcoming of the logic of Israel's election, having entered a new stage of history: the prophet Joel had well said: "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Joel 3:5) and Jesus himself: "Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved" (Mark 16:16). Everyone means everyone, not just Jews and, even more concretely, being faithful to Jesus Christ does not necessarily mean reproducing a fixed model since faithfulness is not mere repetition. History shows that, through the vicissitudes of humanity, the Church always retains the ability to adapt in order to remain faithful to Christ. Finally, it is interesting to note that only the rules that allow fraternal communion to be maintained are imposed on the Christian community, and this is indicated from the outset as the best way to be truly faithful to Christ who said: "By this all will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another" (Jn 13:35).

*Responsorial Psalm (66 (67) 2-3,5,7-8)

The psalm takes us inside the Temple of Jerusalem while a great celebration is taking place and at the end the priests bless the assembly in a solemn way and the faithful respond: "Let the peoples praise you, O God, let all the peoples praise you!" The psalm alternates between the priests' phrases, sometimes addressed to the assembly and sometimes to God, and the assembly's responses, which resemble refrains. The first phrase: "May God have mercy on us and bless us, may he make his face to shine upon us" takes up exactly the famous text from the book of Numbers that is the first reading on 1 January of each year, "The Lord spoke to Moses and said: 'Speak to Aaron and his sons and tell them: Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them, 'May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine for you and give you grace. May the Lord turn his face to you and grant you peace.' So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them' (Nm 6:24-26). An ideal text for wishes and good wishes because a blessing is a wish for happiness. In fact, blessings are always formulated in the subjunctive: "may God bless you, may God keep you" and yet God knows how to do nothing but bless us, love us, fill us at every moment. So when the priest says 'may God bless you', it is not because God might not bless us, but to arouse our desire to enter into the blessing that, on his part, God continually offers us. It is the same when the priest says "May the Lord be with you": God is always with us and the subjunctive "be" expresses our freedom because we are not always with him; or "May God forgive you": God always forgives us but it is up to us to welcome the forgiveness and enter into the reconciliation that he proposes. Permanent are God's desires for our happiness as Jeremiah states: "For I know the plans I have made for you - the Lord's oracle - plans of peace and not of misfortune, to grant you a future full of hope" (Jer 29:11). God is Love and all his thoughts about us are nothing but desires for happiness. In this psalm, the response of the faithful is the refrain: 'Praise thee, O God, may all nations praise thee! A splendid lesson in universalism: the chosen people reflect the blessing they receive for themselves on the whole of humanity, while the last verse is a synthesis of these two aspects: 'May God bless us (we, his chosen people) And may all the ends of the earth fear him'. Israel does not forget its vocation/mission to the service of all mankind and knows that on its fidelity to the freely received blessing depends the discovery of God's love and blessing by all mankind.

*Second Reading from the Apocalypse of St John (21: 10-14.22-23)

In last Sunday's passage, John said he saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven, from near God, ready for the wedding, like a bride adorned for her bridegroom. This time he describes it at length, fascinated by its light so strong that it obscures the glare of the moon and even that of the sun: it resembles a precious jewel, a precious stone sparkling in the light. And he immediately explains the reason for such extraordinary brightness, repeating twice: 'shining with the glory of God', 'the glory of God illuminates it'. These two statements, one at the beginning and the other at the end of the text, with the literary procedure called 'inclusion' that serves to highlight the phrases between the beginning and the end, indicate what strikes John, that is, the glory of God illuminating the holy city that descends from near Him. An angel has transported him to a great and high mountain and is holding his hand as he shows him the city from afar. In his left hand the angel holds a golden rod that he will use to measure the size of the city. The city is square: the number four and the square are a symbol of what is human and indicate here that the city is built by human hand, illuminated by the glory and radiance of God's presence. Since the number three evokes God, it is not surprising that the description of the city abundantly uses a multiple of three and four: twelve, which is a way of saying that God's action is manifested in this human work. In St John's time, a city without walls was not conceived: and this one has them, indeed a wall as great and as high as the mountain, and we know that in the Bible, the mountain is the place of encounter with God. Twelve gates are opened in the wall, which, according to the following text, never close so that all may enter and no one must find a closed gate. The twelve gates, distributed on the four sides of the square, three to the East, three to the North, three to the South, three to the West, are guarded by twelve angels and on each is written the name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. The people of Israel have in fact been chosen by God to be the gate through which all mankind will enter the final Jerusalem.The wall rests on foundations on which the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb are written: as in architecture, there is continuity between the foundations and the walls, so here there is continuity between the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles, and this is a way of saying that the Church founded by Christ fully realises God's plan that unfolds throughout history. Upon entering, John is surprised because he is looking for the Temple, being the living sign that God did not abandon his people, but in the city "I saw no temple" yet he is not disappointed because now "the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb. are his temple". He continues: 'The city has no need of the light of the sun nor of the moon, for the glory of God illuminates it, and its lamp is the Lamb'. Bearing in mind that in the book of Genesis, from the very first day at creation, light appears: God said, "Let there be light!". And the light was', the statement in Revelation takes on its full weight: the old creation has passed: no more sun, no more moon because we are now in the new creation and God's presence radiates the world through Christ. Jerusalem retains its name and indicates that it is a city built by human hand, a way of saying that our efforts to collaborate in God's project are part of the new creation and human work will not be destroyed, but rather transformed by God. The Christians who were then the recipients of the Apocalypse, were the object of scorn and often persecuted, they needed these words of victory to sustain their faithfulness, and it is good for us too to hear that the heavenly Jerusalem begins with our humble efforts every day.

*From the Gospel according to John (14:23-29)

We relive Jesus' last moments immediately before the Passion: the hour is grave and we can sense the anguish of the apostles from the words of reassurance that Jesus addresses to them several times. At the beginning of this chapter he had said "Let not your heart be troubled" (v. 1). His long discourse was interrupted by several questions from the apostles that revealed their distress and incomprehension. Jesus, however, remains serene: throughout the Passion, John describes him as sovereignly free; indeed, it is he who reassures the disciples as he announces in advance what would happen because when it happens, they would believe. Not only does he know what will happen, but he accepts it and does not try to escape it. He announces his departure and presents it as a condition and beginning of a new presence: I am leaving, but I am coming back to you. This departure of his will only be interpreted after the resurrection as the Passover of Jesus.  John says in chapter 13: "Before the feast of Passover, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father": the evangelist deliberately uses the verb pass, because Passover means passage and with this, he wants to parallel Jesus' Passion with the liberation from Egypt, relived at every Jewish feast of Passover. If it is liberation, this departure must not throw the apostles into sadness: "If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I am going to the Father" (v.28). This is a surprising sentence for the disciples who see the Master now being pursued by the religious authorities, that is, by those who, in the name of God, were held to be the repositories of the truth about what concerns God, and it is they who are Jesus' greatest opponents. The prophets fought against every obstacle to maintain faith in the one God who is both God close to man and God totally Other, the Holy One. Jesus preaches a God who is close to man, especially the little ones, but declares God himself, which in the eyes of the Jews, is blasphemy, an offence against the one God, the Holy One. In this Sunday's text, Jesus insists on the bond that unites him to the Father, whom he names five times, going so far as to speak in the plural: "If anyone loves me...we will come to him, and we will dwell with him". It is not the first time he has said this: a little earlier, to Philip who asked him "Show us the Father", he replied calmly: "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9), while here he reiterates: "The word you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me". Jesus is the Envoy of the Father, the word of the Father, and from now on the Holy Spirit will make us understand this word and keep it in the memory of the disciples. The key to this text is probably precisely the word "word": it recurs several times and, from what precedes, we understand that this "word" to be guarded is the "commandment of love": love one another, that is, put yourselves at the service of one another and, to be clear, Jesus himself gave a concrete example by washing the disciples' feet. To be faithful to his word therefore simply means to put oneself at the service of others. And today's text: 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word,' can be translated as follows: If anyone loves me, he will put himself at the service of his neighbour, and anyone who does not love me refuses to put himself at the service of others, so if anyone does not put himself at the service of others, he is not faithful to Christ's word. In this light, the role of the Holy Spirit is better understood: it is he who teaches us to love, reminding us of the commandment of love.  Jesus calls him Paraclete, Defender, because he protects and defends us from ourselves since the worst of evils is to forget that the essence of the gospel is to love one another and to serve one another. In today's first reading, we saw the Defender at work in the first community at the first Council of Jerusalem, where there were serious difficulties of coexistence between Christians of Jewish origin and those of pagan origin, and the Spirit of love inspired the disciples to maintain unity at all costs.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

5th Easter Sunday [18 May 2025]

God bless us and may the Virgin protect us! Already in this first week Pope Leo XIV is giving us, in a calm and profound manner, some marching directions to be well interiorised. I invite you not to miss any of his speeches, all of which are always read out and never delivered off the cuff. Why? It is interesting to seek an answer. Today then there will be the homily of the beginning of his Petrine ministry and therefore in a certain sense programmatic of the pontificate of which he will show the style. 

*First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles (14:21b-27)

From Antioch of Syria, Paul and Barnabas had departed by ship to the south coast of what we today call Turkey, passing through Cyprus; they had stopped at Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium (today Konya), Lystra and Derbe and everywhere, as we saw last Sunday, Paul and Barnabas first addressed the Jews, receiving a rather "mixed" reception. Enthusiasm on the part of some who converted and violent rejection on the part of others who opposed them decisively to the point of driving them out, and it was in Antioch of Pisidia that they decided to address not only the Jews, but also those who were called 'God-fearing', that is, practitioners of the Jewish religion although not yet integrated through circumcision, and therefore, strictly speaking, still pagans. This is why Paul says that God through them had "opened to the Gentiles the door of faith" (v.27).  On the return journey of this first missionary journey Paul and Barnabas retrace the same itinerary in the opposite direction and visit again the communities they had recently founded that were already suffering persecution because Luke specifies that Paul and Barnabas exhorted them to remain steadfast in the faith, saying that we must pass through many tribulations to enter the kingdom of God (v.22). Jesus had already used similar expressions: "the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation" (Lk 17:25)... or, addressing the disciples of Emmaus: "Should not Christ have suffered these things in order to enter into his glory?" (Lk 24:26).God does not impose trials or sufferings on us in a preventive manner, but because of the hardness of the human heart, the true prophets encounter persecution until the world is converted to love, justice, and sharing. Paul and Barnabas are therefore concerned to strengthen the faith and courage of the new converts by also watching over the good organisation of the communities. First they appointed leaders, the 'elders', the Greek term 'presbyteros' (from which our term 'priest' derives) and, after praying and fasting, they entrusted them to the Lord. Luke insists on the importance of prayer and fasting because it is not only the organisation that is taken care of, but prayer and fasting are equally important. Indeed, an evangeliser who no longer prays will soon no longer evangelise. Luke notes that they entrusted the leaders of the new communities to the Lord to act with courage and responsibility as Paul and Barnabas had entrusted themselves to the grace of God and continued their journey telling the members of the community of Antioch of Syria all that God had done with them. Luke speaks both of the work that the apostles had done and of what God had done with them, and this makes us realise that the mission entrusted by God to believers is a work of God entrusted to man and a work of man sustained, accompanied, continually inspired by God. 

*Responsorial Psalm (144 (145), 8-13)

Of Psalm 144 (145), chosen for this fifth Sunday of Easter, there are only six verses here, while in total there are twenty-one as many letters as there are letters of the Hebrew alphabet. It is an alphabetical psalm, an acrostic, and each verse begins with one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, in alphabetical order. It is therefore a psalm of praise for the covenant: a way of saying that our whole life, from A to Z (in Hebrew from aleph to tav), is immersed in God's covenant and tenderness. But why this Psalm 144 (145) today and why only these six verses? First of all, this psalm is part of the Jewish prayer of every morning, and the dawning of a new day evokes for the believing Jew the dawning of the final day, of the future world and renewed creation. For us Christians, at this Easter time, the psalm reminds us that the Day of God's final kingdom has already begun, before our eyes, with the resurrection of Christ. Moreover, in Jewish spirituality, the Talmud (i.e. the teaching of the rabbis of the first centuries after Christ) states that he who recites this psalm three times a day "may be certain to be a child of the future world". For us Christians, the future world of which the Jewish faith speaks is precisely the creation renewed by Jesus Christ, and the six verses chosen for today constitute a condensation of this revelation, and the psalm harmonises perfectly with the tones of the Easter season, in particular, with the other readings of this Sunday.  The first verse: "Merciful and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger and great in love" is the best summary of all biblical revelation: in fact, it is the name God gave of himself to Moses (Ex 34:6).The second verse: 'Good is the Lord towards all, his tenderness is spread over all creatures' is an enormous discovery for mankind that we owe precisely to the chosen people; a theme already present in the Old Testament: God loves all mankind and his plan of love, as St Paul says, concerns the whole of humanity. We sense a particular resonance of this in the Acts of the Apostles and especially in the first reading of this Easter Sunday, which insists that the proclamation of God's love is not reserved for the Jews, but is for all nations. Furthermore, this psalm, especially in the verses read today, insists on God's kingship: 'To make known to men your deeds and the splendid glory of your kingdom, your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, your dominion extends to all generations'. Four times the word "kingdom" returns (once "dominion") and the words "deeds" and "exploits", which in the Bible always refer to the liberation from Egypt: God liberated his people then and liberates them now, and this until the final liberation, which is the victory over death. A psalm therefore particularly suited to the Easter season because the Risen One experiences God's kingship in his flesh. When Israel composed this psalm, the insistence on God's kingship, or his dominion, was a way of affirming that they would never rely on idols because their only King and Lord is God, the God of love. When Christians pray this psalm, they know well that in Christ, the servant king, humble in the Passion and triumphant over death, they see the presence of the King of the universe: "He who has seen me has seen the Father," Jesus told the apostles (Jn.14:9).

NOTE: Reading the entire psalm one notices a profound similarity with the Lord's Prayer: one addresses God as Father - "Our Father... give us... forgive us... deliver us from evil..." - a Father who is the God of mercy and pity as the psalm expresses it. He is also addressed as King: 'Thy Kingdom come'.  In fact, all the phrases that Jesus collected in the Lord's Prayer were already part of the customary prayers of the Jewish people

Depending on whether one counts the sign Sin/Shin as one or two letters (the same symbol is sometimes pronounced Sin, sometimes Shin), one would count 21 or 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Grammarians distinguish the two letters Sin and Shin and the alphabet counts 22 letters, but the psalmist uses only the letter Shin and therefore the psalm counts 21 verses.

*Second Reading from the Book of Revelation of Saint John (21:1-5a)

"Behold, I make all things new": a new heaven, a new earth, a new Jerusalem; this is our future, our "a-coming", that is, what is to come. Gone are the tears, the death, the groans, the cries, the sadness... all this belongs to the past: the first heaven and the first earth are gone. In other words, the past is past, accomplished. John warned us: his book is a book of visions, revealing the future to give courage to face the present. The first heaven and the first earth refer back to the biblical account of creation and to understand this passage of Revelation we must refer back to the book of Genesis which in the first chapter presents "the first creation" of which Revelation states that it was totally good: "God saw what he had made, and behold, it was very good" (Gen 1:31). Despite this, however, every day we see tears, cries, sadness, death as Revelation repeats and the cause lies in the account of the forbidden fruit (Gen.3) explaining what corrupted the goodness of creation. The root of all suffering is the rift created between God and mankind with the original suspicion that destroys the Covenant and drives mankind down paths that only lead to failure. The chosen people heard, through the prophets, the call to the way of the Covenant which is the only way to true happiness. It is necessary for God to truly dwell among us so that we may be His people, and He may be our God. Restoring the Covenant as a dialogue of love is Israel's thirst throughout its history, and many prophets announce what the author of Revelation now sees fulfilled. Isaiah writes: "Behold, I create a new heaven and a new earth...the past shall no longer be remembered, it shall no longer come to mind...There shall no longer be heard in it voices of weeping, nor cries of distress...There shall no longer be a child who lives but a few days, nor an old man who does not complete his days" (Isaiah 65:17-20). But why symbolically is the renewal of all things represented by the disappearance of the sea even though Israel is not a people of sailors? The reason is that the creation of the universe, in the Bible, is read from the birth of the chosen people, and this birth, i.e. the coming out of slavery in Egypt, was a victory over the sea: God made the land appear dry to allow the passage of his people; the saved people crossed the sea on foot and the forces of evil, slavery and oppression were swallowed up. Later, in the New Testament, the Son of God made man manifested his victory over evil and its forces by walking on water. Now the victory is total, the Apocalypse suggests: the sea has disappeared and with it every form of evil: suffering, crying, death. Humanity and the entire universe await the fulfilment of the plan that God had when he created the world: to establish with humanity a Covenant without shadows, an eternal dialogue of love as it appears in the theme of the wedding between God and humanity always present in the Bible. One thinks of the prophets Hosea or Isaiah and the Song of Songs, and in the New Testament, the wedding story of Cana, to name but one. Here, in our passage from Revelation, this promise emerges from two images: that of the new Jerusalem, "ready as a bride adorned for her husband" (v.2) and from the expression "God with them" (v.3) where "with" expresses the covenant of love, a spousal covenant. "Then I heard a mighty voice, coming from the throne, saying, 'Behold the tent of God with men! He will dwell with them and they will be his people and he will be the God-with-them" (v.3. ). Moreover, the centre of the new creation bears the name of the holy city - 'behold, the new Jerusalem "descends from God"' - the city that for centuries has symbolised the expectation of the chosen people, and the very name Jerusalem means 'City of justice and peace' 'descending from God' and for this reason is called 'new'. The new Jerusalem is not just a human work because the kingdom of God, which we await and in which we seek to collaborate, is at the same time in continuity and in rupture with this land. We are therefore invited to collaborate with God and our efforts contribute to the renewal of creation through God's intervention that will transfigure our efforts.We also perceive this in St Paul's letter to the Romans: "The sufferings of the present time are not comparable to the future glory that will be revealed in us. For the ardent expectation of creation is directed towards the revelation of the sons of God...for creation too will be delivered from the bondage of corruption, to enter into the freedom of the glory of the sons of God. For we know well that the whole creation groans and suffers until now in labour pains" (Rom 8:19-22).

*From the Gospel according to John (13:31- 35)

The first sentences of this text are like variations on the theme of "glory":

"When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him, and will glorify him now': all this may seem a little complicated to us, but in fact it is a very Jewish way of speaking: it expresses the reciprocity of the relationship between the Father and the Son, or rather their profound union: 'He who has seen me has seen the Father', writes John (14:8) and again: 'I and the Father are one' (10:30). "The Son of Man is glorified, or God is glorified in him", means that the Son is a reflection of the Father and we note once again how much effort is required to understand the language of Jesus and his contemporaries.  At the very moment when Judas goes out on the night of the betrayal, Jesus fulfils his vocation to be the reflection of the Father. But John did not understand this immediately because together with the apostles they had helplessly witnessed his passion and death; they had experienced this succession of events as a moment of horror and only later did John understand that this was in fact the moment of Jesus' glory: because it was there that the Son revealed how far the Father's love reaches. And since the Son betrayed, abandoned, persecuted by all, he alone continues against all, to be only love, kindness, forgiveness, he reveals to the world how far the Father's love reaches, an infinite love. And then - and this is the second part of our text - those who contemplate this mystery of God's mad love become capable in their turn of loving like him. Jesus in fact clearly connects the two things: he says that now he will reveal to the world how far the Father's love goes and he specifies: "now I give you a new commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you", but he also adds that only now will you be able because you will draw on my own love. In reality, the novelty is not the commandment to love; Jesus does not invent the commandment of love that already exists in the teaching of the rabbis of his time. What is new is to love like him, but not only "in his way", that is, to the point of giving one's life, rejecting all power, dominion and violence. What is new is to love 'really like him', that is, being completely led by his Spirit. Only thus can we understand in a completely new way the famous phrase: "By this all will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another". This is not just a commandment, but rather a statement: we are truly his disciples because it is his own Spirit that guides our behaviour. God knows how difficult everyday love is, and if we succeed in our communities in loving one another, the world will be forced to admit this evidence: that the Spirit of Christ is at work in us. We are therefore first of all invited to an act of faith: to believe that his Spirit of love dwells in us, that his resources of love dwell in us: that we possess unsuspected capacities to love, because they are his, and then it becomes possible to love 'like' him, because we allow his Spirit to act in us. However, we know from experience that it is not at all easy to love those around us, indeed with some it is even impossible to speak of love and forgiveness. Jesus certainly did not ignore this when he commanded his disciples to love one another; but we must not confuse love and sensitivity. Jesus showed with gestures of what love we must love one another when at the Last Supper he washed the feet of the apostles and concluded by saying: 'I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you'. This, then, is what it means to love 'as' he loved us! If we think about it, it is possible by his Spirit to serve one another, even those for whom we feel no sympathy. But faithfulness to this commandment is vital for us because it is by this that our communities are judged. For Jesus, the most important thing is not the quality of our speeches, our theology and knowledge, nor the beauty of our celebrations, but the quality of the love we offer one another. Jesus cried out on that last dramatic evening: "Now the Son of Man has been glorified (i.e. revealed as God), and God has been glorified in him. Humanity is introduced into the glory, the presence, the life of God, through the event of Christ's passion-death-resurrection. And now introduced into God's 'glory' (i.e. Christ's sacrifice), his disciples can live entirely under the sign of love, since God is love and his presence shines through them as well. All we have to do is believe it and let the Spirit work in us.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

4th Easter Sunday, Good Shepherd Sunday [11 May 2025]

God bless us and may the Virgin protect us! We are in a decisive week for the Church, and the biblical texts of this Sunday help us to better understand the mission of the new pontiff, successor of Peter, who is called to firmly maintain the trust of the Christian people in Jesus the true Shepherd who knows and loves all his sheep. Yes, we are his and we belong to him. The disciples of Jesus, throughout history, really need to rest on the certainty that no one can snatch them from the hand of the Father!

*First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles (13, 14.43-52)  

We are in the synagogue of Antioch of Pisidia (in the heart of Asia Minor, today western Turkey) on a Saturday for the celebration of Shabbat. There are many people there with some differences: there are Jews by birth, some proselytes, that is, people who are not Jewish but have converted to the Jewish religion whom Luke calls "converts to Judaism" and pagans called "God-fearers" because having been attracted to the Jewish religion they go to the synagogue on the Sabbath for Shabbat, but even though they know the Jewish Scriptures they do not accept circumcision and all the Jewish practices. When Paul arrived in the city he went to the synagogue and first of all wanted to speak to his Jewish brothers about Jesus of Nazareth. The apostles were all Jews who recognised Christ as the Messiah and tried to convince other Jews to convert to Christ. Paul, preaching in the synagogues, thought that when all the Jewish people are converted, the conversion of the Gentiles will take place, since God's plan foresaw two stages: the choice of the chosen people to whom he revealed himself (this is the election of Israel) and the chosen people are entrusted with the task of proclaiming salvation to the Gentiles.  Of this "logic of election" of God's plan, the prophet Isaiah writes: "I have established you as the light of the nations, that my salvation may reach the ends of the earth" (Is 49:6) and, again in this logic, Jesus also told the apostles at the beginning: "Do not go among the Gentiles... go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Mt 10:5). From the first Saturday, Paul and Barnabas therefore go to the synagogue where they receive a favourable reception that gives them hope that some will become Christians. The following Saturday they return to the synagogue and many people go to hear them. This success of theirs, however, begins to annoy the Jews who "when they saw that crowd, they were filled with jealousy and with insulting words opposed Paul's statements". Luke calls "Jews" those Jews who categorically refuse to recognise Jesus as the Messiah. On the contrary, the pagans (i.e. the God-fearing) seem more favourable as he notes immediately afterwards: 'The pagans rejoiced and glorified the word of the Lord, and all who were destined for eternal life believed'.  In Antioch of Pisidia Paul decides to change his plans: if only a few Jews accept, and the hope of converting the entire Jewish people to Christ must be abandoned for the time being, the rejection of the majority of the Jews must not, however, delay the proclamation of the Messiah to the Gentiles. In this regard, he knew well that it will be the "little Remnant", of whom Isaiah speaks at length (cf. chapters 1- 12 of the book of the prophet Isaiah), who will save Israel and all mankind. Paul understands that the little Remnant formed by Paul and Barnabas with all those who want to follow them, must take on the vocation of apostles of Israel and the pagan nations and says: "It was necessary that the word of God be proclaimed to you first, but since you reject it and do not judge yourselves worthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles" and from that moment they direct their missionary energy first of all to the "God-fearing" and then to the Gentiles. As is clear, here in Antioch of Pisidia there was a decisive turning point in the lives of the early Christians.

*Responsorial Psalm (99 (100) 1-3.5) 

This psalm was composed specifically to accompany a thanksgiving sacrifice and is called the 'psalm for todah' (in Hebrew, 'thanks' is said todah).

Already from the first verses, it is clear that it is meant to accompany a celebration in the Temple: 'Hail... serve... present yourselves to him with exultation'. Just as a hymn book can often be found at the entrance to churches, so the book of Psalms is the Jerusalem Temple's book of canticles suitable for various types of celebrations. This psalm was composed for a thanksgiving sacrifice and, in Israel, when thanks are given, it is always for the covenant. A very short psalm, each line evokes the entire history and faith of Israel and almost every word recalls the Covenant. After all, the heart of the tradition, faith and prayer of this people, the memory that is transmitted from generation to generation is this common faith: election, deliverance, the Covenant. After all, the whole Bible is here. Let us examine a few words: 'Acclaim', the word used indicates a special acclamation reserved for the new king on the day of his coronation and therefore means that the true king is God himself. "Acclaim the Lord": in the Hebrew text, the word Lord is expressed with the four letters YHWH (the Tetragrammaton), which we do not even know how to pronounce or translate because God is beyond our comprehension, and God revealed Himself by this name during the burning bush to Moses (Ex 3). Moses discovered on that occasion the greatness of God, the Totally Other. At the same time Moses receives the revelation of God's total closeness: 'I have seen, yes, I have seen the misery of my people... I have heard their cry... I know their sufferings'. "All the earth": anticipating a future event, Israel already glimpses the day when all mankind will come to acclaim its Lord. Indeed, in the psalms we always find the two themes linked: the election of Israel and the universalism of divine salvation. "Recognise that the Lord alone is God": here is Israel's profession of faith: Shema Israel: "Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One". "Serve the Lord in joy": in Israel's memory, the Egypt of slavery will be called the "house of bondage". Henceforth, the chosen people will learn 'service' as the choice of free men, and hence the exodus can be said to have been for the Jewish people the transition 'from slavery to service'. "He has made us and we are his": this formula is not a reference to the creation, but to the liberation from Egypt: the people do not forget that they were slaves in Egypt and that God made them free, from fugitives he made the Jews a people. Throughout the Sinai crossing Israel learnt to live in the Covenant proposed by God and the expression "He has made us and we are His" became a customary Covenant formula. The first article of Israel's 'Creed' is not I believe in God the Creator, but I believe in God the Deliverer. 

NOTE: The Bible was not written in the order in which we read it: it did not begin by recounting the creation, then the events of the life of the chosen people, as in a report. Reflection on creation only came much later. Having experienced God as the liberator, Israel realised that this work of liberation has been going on since the creation of the world, and the reflection on creation stems from faith in a liberating God. The ancient formula 'We, his people' typical of the Jewish faith is a reminder of the Covenant, because God, in proposing the Covenant, had promised: 'You shall be my people and I will be your God'.  The expression then "We, his people and the flock of his people" is typical of Israel where the flock was the wealth of the owner, his boast, but also the object of his solicitude and care, and it was for the needs of the flock that the nomadic shepherd would move his tent in the desert, following the clumps of grass for the animals' nourishment. In the same way God moved with his people as they walked in the Sinai desert. Finally "His love is forever" is a refrain of the Covenant that we know well because it recurs in other psalms and here it is joined to the following verse with another traditional formula: "His faithfulness from generation to generation": "love and faithfulness" is one of the few ways to speak of God without betraying him

*Second Reading, from the book of Revelation of St John the Apostle (7:9 -17)  

 The reference to the "immense multitude that no one could count" recalls God's promise to Abraham of an innumerable descendants: "I will make your descendants as numerous as the dust of the earth: if one could count the grains of dust, one could count your descendants!"(Gen 13:16); and a little further on: "Look at the sky and count the stars, if you can...so shall your descendants be!" (Gen 15:5); and again: "I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore" (Gen 22:17). Revelation, the last book of the Bible, makes us contemplate God's project realised: a multitude composed of all nations, races, peoples and languages, four terms to indicate the whole of humanity, as Isaiah had announced: "All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God" (Is 52:10). The salvation of which Isaiah speaks is the elimination of all hunger, thirst, and tears, and in chapter 49 we read verbatim: "They shall hunger and thirst no more; the fierce wind and the sun shall smite them no more. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them to springs of water" (Is 49:10). And, above all, salvation is the presence of the One who is at the root of true happiness: "full of compassion", says Isaiah and John translates here: "He who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them". When he uses this expression, his readers know what he is referring to: the Jewish people have always aspired to this - that God would 'pitch his tent' in their midst, that is, that God would dwell permanently in their midst: it is the mystery of closeness, of intimacy, of permanent divine presence. In this regard, we note that John in the gospel used the same terms for Christ: "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn 1:14). In the Jewish people, some already had the honour of living, in a certain way, an anticipation of this intimacy: they were the priests, who served God day and night in the Temple of Jerusalem, a visible sign of God's presence. Here the sacred author glimpses the day when all mankind will be introduced into intimacy with God: 'I saw an immense multitude, which no one could count...all stand before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple'. To describe this immense multitude he uses images from the Jewish liturgy and the Christian liturgy: all this enriches the text while making it complex. When referring to the Jewish liturgy, John alludes to the feast of the Tents or Tents (Sukkot), a feast that is a remembrance of the past and an anticipation of the future promised by God. It recalls the time spent in the desert when one discovered the Covenant proposed by the neighbouring God and lived for eight days in specially built huts. At the same time, the eight days heralded God's promised future, the new creation (as the figure eight reminds us each time, a foretaste of the triumph of the Messiah and with him the fulfilment of God's plan consisting of happiness for all). Among the rituals of the Feast of Tents, John recalls the palms carried in processions around the altar of sacrifices in the Temple of Jerusalem. In fact, in such processions each person waved a bunch (the lulav) composed of various branches, including a palm tree (lulav), a sprig of myrtle (Hadas), a sprig of willow (Aravah) along with a citron (Etrog) lemon-like fruit while chanting "Hosanna", which means both "God gives salvation" and "we pray thee, Lord, give us salvation". Let us read the text of Revelation uncut: "I saw: behold, an immense multitude, which no one could count... they stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes and with palms in their hands. And they cried with a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb!"  Another rite of the Feast of Tanah was the rite of the "Water Libation" (Nisuakh haMayim), the procession to the pool of Siloe on the eighth and last day of the feast, carrying water in procession to sprinkle the altar, a rite of purification prefiguring the final purification promised by God through the prophets, especially Zechariah: "On that day, living waters shall go out from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea and half to the western sea" (Zech 14:8). It was precisely during a Feast of Tabernacles, on the eighth day, that Jesus said (and it is again St John who reports this): "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me, and drink who believes in me. As the Scripture says, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7:37). Here, in echo, John predicts: "The Lamb who stands in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd and will lead them to the springs of the waters of life". From the Christian liturgy, St John has taken the white robe of the baptised and the blood of the Lamb, the sign of the life given, to tell us that all that the Feast of Tents symbolically announced is now fulfilled. In Jesus Christ the expectation of God's people for a definitive purification, a new Covenant, God's perfect presence with us, is fulfilled. Through Baptism and the Eucharist, humanity participates in the life of the Risen One and thus enters into God's intimacy for good.

NOTE: In the immense multitude (v. 9) tradition identifies the Church even though at the end of the first century Christians were not many. However, there is a possible different interpretation: in the preceding verses (v. 3-8), John describes a first crowd ("the servants of our God" whose "forehead is marked with the seal") and it is believed to be the baptised, i.e. the Church. The immense crowd clothed in white robes (the wedding garment) would then be the multitude of the saved, in the line of the Servant theology (cf. the four hymns of the second book of Isaiah), with which the Johannine writings, and not only them, are all imbued. Therefore the immense crowd (vv9 ff.) would be the "multitude" justified by the Servant: "The righteous, my servant, will justify the multitudes" (Is 53:11). Confronted then with persecution, Christians found here a reason to resist because they knew that their sacrifice was a seed of salvation for the multitude.*From the Gospel according to John (10:27-30)

Right after the text proposed to us in this Sunday's liturgy, St John writes: "The Jews again picked up stones to stone him" (v.31). Why did they react so strongly and what had Jesus said that was so extraordinary? In reality, he did not take the initiative but merely answered a question.The evangelist narrates that he was in the Temple in Jerusalem, under the portico called 'Solomon's Portico', and the Jews, in order to corner him, asked him: 'How long will you keep us in uncertainty? If you are the Christ, tell us openly' (v24). In short, we are faced with a kind of ultimatum, such as: Are you the Christ (i.e. the Messiah) or not, say it clearly once and for all. Instead of answering "yes, I am the Messiah", Jesus speaks of "his" sheep, but it is the same thing because the people of Israel willingly compared themselves to a flock: "We are God's people, the flock he leads", this expression recurs often in the psalms, in particular, in this Sunday's psalm: "He has made us and we are his, his people and the flock of his pasture"; a flock often mistreated, neglected, or misguided by the successive kings on David's throne. It was known, however, that the Messiah would be an attentive shepherd, so Jesus truly presents himself as the Messiah. His interlocutors understood this very well and Jesus takes them much further because when speaking of "his" sheep he dares to say: "I give them eternal life and they will not be lost for ever and no one will snatch them out of my hand" (v. 28). But who can ever give eternal life? The expression 'to be in the hand of God' was customary in the Old Testament as we find for example in Jeremiah: 'As clay is in the hand of the potter, so you are in my hand, house of Israel!" (Jer 18:16), or in the book of Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes): "The righteous, the wise, and their deeds are in the hand of God" (Qo 9:1), and also in Deuteronomy: "I make dead and alive, I wound and I heal, and no one can deliver from my hand" (Deut 32:39), and a little further on: "All the saints are in your hand" (Deut 33:3). Jesus refers to all this and adds: "No one can snatch them out of the hand of the Father" (v.29), equating "my hand" and "the hand of the Father". And he does not stop there because he says: "I and the Father are one" (v.30) which is to say: "yes, I am the Christ, that is, the Messiah" making himself equal to God, himself God. For his interlocutors, this was unacceptable because they expected a Messiah who was a man but could not imagine that he could be God: faith in the one God was so strongly affirmed in Israel that it was practically impossible for fervent Jews to believe in the divinity of Jesus. Professing daily the Jewish faith: 'Shema Israel', 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the one Lord', they could not tolerate hearing Jesus say: 'I and the Father are one'. This explains why the fiercest opposition to Jesus came from the religious leaders. The reaction was immediate and as they prepared to stone him, they accused him of blaspheming by making himself God. Once again, Jesus came up against the incomprehension of those who had been waiting for the Messiah with greater fervour and this is a constant reflection in John: "He came among his own, and his own did not receive him". The whole mystery of Christ is contained in this, and also, in filigree, his trial. And yet, all is not lost; Jesus faced misunderstanding, even hatred, he was persecuted, eliminated, but some believed in him; John himself says this in the Prologue of his gospel: "He came among his own, and his own did not receive him... but to those who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God" (John 1:11-12). And we know well that it is thanks to these that the revelation has continued to spread. From that little Remnant was born the people of believers: "My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life'. In spite of the opposition that Jesus encounters here, in spite of the already foreseeable tragic outcome, there is undoubtedly in these words a language of victory: "No one will snatch them out of my hand"... "No one can snatch them out of the hand of the Father": one perceives here an echo of another phrase of Jesus reported by the same evangelist: "Have courage, I have overcome the world" (Jn 16:33). Jesus' disciples, throughout history, really need to rest on the certainty that no one can snatch them from the hand of the Father.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

Third Easter Sunday [4 May 2025]

God bless us and may the Virgin protect us! In these days, as the prayer of the Church is intense in anticipation of the choice of Peter's successor, the proclamation of the Gospel (Jn 21:1-19) concerning Peter himself takes on great value.

*First Reading, from the Acts of the Apostles (5, 27b-32. 40b-41)

 After the apostles had been scourged for their preaching, St Luke writes that when they came out of the Sanhedrin they went away rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer outrages for the name of Jesus. After all, the Lord had foretold to them that they would be hated, banished, insulted, and reviled because of the Son of Man, and that precisely that would be the time to rejoice and even exult because great is the reward in heaven, since this was also the case with the prophets (cf. Lk 6:22-23). Besides, if they persecuted the Master, they will do the same to you (cf. Jn 15:20). Peter and John, after the healing of the cripple at the Porta Bella, a miracle that made much noise in the city, had been tried before the Sanhedrin, the Jerusalem tribunal, the same one that had condemned Jesus a few weeks earlier. As soon as they were released, they had resumed preaching and performing miracles. Arrested again and put in prison, during the night they were released by an angel and it is understood that this miraculous intervention made them even stronger; they resumed preaching. Today's passage situates us precisely at this moment: arrested once again and brought to court, Peter replies to the high priest who questions them that "one must obey God rather than men". He then speaks of the difference between the logic of God and the logic of men: that of men, that is, that of the Jewish court, considers that a wrongdoer who has been killed should certainly not be given publicity. And he argues thus: Jesus, in the eyes of the religious authorities, is an impostor crucified because he had to be prevented from deceiving the populace prone to give credence to any supposed messiah. A condemned man hung on the cross, according to the Torah, becomes cursed even by God. However, there is also God's logic: you crucified Jesus and yet, against all odds, he is not only not cursed by God but raised to the right hand of God who made him Prince and Saviour to grant Israel conversion and forgiveness of sins. Words that sound scandalous to the judges exasperated by the apostles' confidence, so many decide to eliminate them as they did Jesus. Gamaliel intervenes, however, who invites the Sanhedrin to prudence because if this work is of human origin it will destroy itself, but if it comes from God this will never happen; indeed he warns them so that "it will not happen to you to fight against God" (Acts 5:34-39). Today's liturgical reading skips the Gamaliel episode and directly narrates Peter's response to the tribunal determined to scourge the apostles and then free them. History shows that there have always been persecutions, scandals, and attacks of all kinds in the Church, and yet it continues to go on through the centuries. St Augustine writes: "The city of God advances through time, pilgrimaging between the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God." (De Civitate Dei, XIX, 26).

*Responsorial Psalm 29 (30), 3-4, 5-6ab, 6cd.12, 13

Psalm 29 (30) is very short, only thirteen verses (of which only eight are proposed in today's liturgy). Reading through the entire psalm one perceives the situation of a desperate person who has done everything to be saved, crying out, begging, asking for help. There are people who even enjoy seeing him suffer and mock him, but he continues to cry out for help until someone finally listens and frees him. It is God himself who intervenes and, freed from oppression, the desperate man explodes with joy. The opening of the psalm sets the tone for everything else: 'I exalt you, O Lord, for you have raised me up and not allowed my enemies to rejoice over me'. In every psalm there are two levels of reading: here too, the adventure of one who, despite having suffered an unexpected collapse in his life, continues to be certain that in the end he will be delivered, is an image of Israel exploding with joy after the Babylonian exile, just as it had exulted after the crossing of the Red Sea. In tragic moments, Israel trusts in God: "In my confidence I said: never shall I waver"; he cries out to the Lord: "Hear, Lord, have mercy on me, Lord come to my aid!" and uses every argument possible, going so far as to provoke God: "what good would it do you if I died, what good would my blood do you if I went down to the grave?"  And when the psalmist says: "Can the dust praise thee, proclaim thy faithfulness?" he makes us realise that in those days it was believed that after death there was nothingness, so useless before death were prayers, sacrifices, songs. God, however, listens and performs the miracle: "I cried out to you, my God, and you healed me; Lord you brought me up from the abyss and revived me when I was about to die". This psalm finds its fulfilment in the Easter cry of Alleluia because the Lord has delivered us from the bondage of evil. Among rabbinic commentaries I found this: "God has led us from slavery to freedom, from sorrow to joy, from mourning to the feast day, from darkness to shining light, from slavery to redemption. Therefore we sing Alleluia before him!"

* Second Reading: From the Book of Revelation of Saint John the Apostle (5, 11-14)

The book of Revelation is a hymn to victory narrated with many visions. In today's text, millions and millions of angels shout at the top of their voices in heaven: "long live the King!" while on land, sea, and under the earth, every breathing creature praises the new King, Jesus Christ: the immolated Lamb, acclaimed as he receives "power and riches, wisdom and strength, honour, glory, and blessing". To describe the kingship of Christ, the vision uses a language of images and numbers; a rich text, therefore, because only symbolic language can introduce us into the ineffable and lindicable world of God. It is, at the same time, a difficult text because it uses recurring images, colours and numbers that are not easy to interpret. It is difficult to grasp the hidden meaning of a passage such as the expression "the four living creatures", which in the previous chapter are four winged beings: the first with the face of a man, the other three of animals - a lion, an eagle, a bull - and we are used to seeing them in many paintings, sculptures and mosaics, believing we know without hesitation to whom they refer. St Irenaeus, in the 2nd century, proposed a symbolic reading: for him, the four living ones are the four evangelists; St Augustine took up the same idea, modifying it slightly, and his interpretation has remained in the tradition: according to him, Matthew is the living one with the face of a man, Mark the lion, Luke the bull and John the eagle. Modern biblical scholars do not seem to agree because for them the author of Revelation has taken an image from Ezekiel, where the four beings support the throne of God and simply represent the created world. The numbers are also difficult to interpret. According to many, the number 3 symbolises God; 4 the world the created world by reason of the four cardinal points; 7 (3+4) evokes both God and the created world in its fullness and perfection, while 6 (7-1) stands for incompleteness, imperfection. Of singular interest is this acclamation: 'The Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength, honour, glory and praise': power and riches, wisdom and strength refer to earthly success, honour, glory and praise are reserved for God. It is a total of seven words: this is to say that the immolated Lamb, that is, Jesus is fully God and fully man, all expressed with the suggestive power of symbolic language. All creatures in heaven, on earth, under the earth and on the sea thus proclaim their submission to God who sits on the Throne and to the Lamb: "To him who sits on the Throne and to the Lamb, praise, honour, glory and power for ever and ever". John's insistence aims to exalt the victory of the immolated Lamb: defeated in the eyes of men, he is the great victor. Let us contemplate here the mystery that lies at the heart of the New Testament, which is at the same time its paradox: the Lord of the world is made the least, the Judge of the living and the dead is judged as an evildoer; he who is God is accused of blasphemy and rejected precisely in the name of God. All this happens because God has allowed it. By using this language, St John has a twofold objective: on the one hand, he offers the community a response to the scandal of the cross by providing arguments to Christians who were arguing bitterly with the Jews about the death of Christ. For the Jews it was clear that he was not the Messiah because it is written in Deuteronomy that "anyone condemned to death under the law, executed and hung on a tree, is a curse of God" (Deut 21:22). For Christians, on the other hand, in the light of the resurrection, his death is the work of God and the cross constitutes the place of the exaltation of the Son, as Jesus himself had announced: "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, you will know that 'I am'" (Jn 8:28). That is, you will recognise my divinity: "I Am" is exactly the name of God (Ex 3:14). In a condemned wretch the glory of God shines forth, and in John's vision the Lamb receives the same honours and acclamations as he who sits on the Throne. Secondly, with Revelation John wanted to support Christians in the hour of trial because on the cross Love conquered hatred and, after all, this is precisely the message of Revelation in support of persecuted Christians

*From the Gospel according to John (21, 1-19)

John specifies in this text the presence of seven apostles (21,2). Since the seven Churches of Revelation represent the whole Church, it can be assumed that the seven apostles indicate the disciples of all times, i.e. the whole Christian world. This chapter, as is often the case in the Fourth Gospel, is all symbolic. Let us look at just a few examples. 

1. When the boat touches the shore, despite the fact that the disciples find an embers fire with some fish and bread, Jesus asks them to bring the fish caught by them. Probably this is the message: in the work of evangelisation, since he called Peter "fisher of men", Jesus goes ahead of us (here is the fish already placed on the fire before the disciples arrive), but he always asks for our collaboration.

2. Another point is the dialogue between Jesus and Peter of which the Italian translation has tried to render in some way the subtlety of the Greek verb used for love. Commenting on verses 15-17 in the catechesis of 24 May 2006, Benedict XVI notes the use of the two verbs agapaō and phileō.  In Greek, phileō expresses the love of friendship, affectionate but not all-encompassing; agapaō, love without reserve. The first time Jesus asks Peter: "Simon... do you 'agapā̄s me'?" (21:15), i.e. "Do you love me with that total and unconditional love?", Peter however does not answer with agapaō but with phileō, saying: "Lord, I love you (phileō) as I know how to love". Jesus repeats the verb agapaō in the second question, but Peter insists with phileō. Finally, the third time, Jesus only asks "phileîs me?" and Simon understands that his poor love is enough for Jesus. One can say that Jesus adapted himself to Peter, rather than Peter to Jesus, and it is this adaptation of God that gives hope to the disciple, who has experienced the suffering of infidelity. As in the night between Thursday and Friday, Peter denied three times that he knew the man, now Jesus questions him three times: infinite delicacy to allow him to erase his threefold denial. Hence the confidence that will enable him to follow Christ to the end. 

3. Each time Jesus bases his demand on this adherence of Peter to entrust him with the ministry of shepherding the community: "Shepherd my sheep". Our relationship with Christ has meaning and truth if it fulfils a mission in the service of others. Jesus indeed specifies 'my' sheep: Peter is invited to share the 'burden' of Christ. He does not own the flock, but the care he devotes to Christ's flock will be the test of his love for Christ himself. When Jesus asks him if he loves me more than them, this is not to be understood as 'because you love me more than the others, I entrust the flock to you', but quite the opposite. Precisely because I entrust you with this task, you must love me more, and remember that in any ecclesial context, accepting a pastoral assignment entails a lot of gratuitous love. St Augustine comments: "If you love me, do not think that you are the shepherd; but shepherd my sheep as my own, not as your own."

4. We also have here an account of an apparition of the Risen One, but the term apparition should not mislead us because Jesus does not come from elsewhere and then disappear; on the contrary, he is permanently present with his disciples, with us as he had promised: "I am with you always, until the end of the world" (Mt 28:20). That is why it is better than apparition to use the term manifestation. Christ is Invisible, but not absent, and in the apparitions of then and of all times He makes Himself visible (in Greek: "He gives Himself to, He makes Himself seen"). These manifestations of Christ's presence are a support to strengthen our faith: full of concrete details, sometimes surprising, but with high symbolic value. 

5. What is the significance of the 153 fish? Apparently, exactly one hundred and fifty-three species of fish were known then. For St Eusebius of Caesarea, it is a symbolic way of indicating a maximum yield fishing. And later it becomes the theological symbol of the fullness of salvation wrought by Christ through the Church over the centuries that gathers all, Jews and Gentiles, into one faith.

NOTE: Chapter 20 of the Fourth Gospel concludes by saying that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book because we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing we have life in his name (20:30-31). It is therefore a good ending and why chapter 21? For many it was added later, almost as a postscriptum to clarify the issue of Peter's pre-eminence, already felt in the early Christian communities. Put another way, Peter's role in an account of Christ's appearance under the pen of St John may come as a surprise, and this points to one of the problems of the early Christian communities. This is why it seemed useful to remind the community linked to the memory of John that, by Christ's will, the pastor of the universal Church is Peter and not John. "When thou art old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall clothe thee, and bring thee whither thou wilt not" (v.18), a phrase that immediately follows the delivery to Peter: "shepherd my sheep" and seems to clearly indicate that the mission entrusted to Peter is one of service and not of domination. At the time, the belt was worn by travellers and servants: here is a double sign for the itinerant servants of the gospel. Peter died faithful in the service of the gospel; this is why John explains: Jesus "said this to indicate by what death he would glorify God"(v.19) and this suggests that this chapter is after Peter's death (during Nero's persecution in 66 or 67). It is generally thought that John's gospel was written very late and some even speculate (starting with Jn 21:23-24) that the final draft was written after his own death.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

Second Easter Sunday [27 April 2025]

God bless us and may the Virgin protect us. In these days, as we pray for our Pope Francis departed for the house of the Father, let us insistently invoke the light of the Holy Spirit on the Church and in particular on the cardinals who will have to elect the one whom the Lord has chosen to lead his Church after Pope Francis. 

*First Reading From the Acts of the Apostles (5:12-16) 

Here is a presentation of the first Christian community that seems almost too good to be true (In the Acts of the Apostles there are four summaries of life in the early days of the Church Acts 2:42-47 the best known and most detailed; Acts 4:32-35 emphasises the communion of goods; Acts 5:12-16 highlights the miracles and growth; Acts 6:7 brief summary of the spread of the gospel). However, we must not infer from this that everything was perfect because in the coming Sundays we will see all sorts of difficulties: the first Christians were men, not supermen. Why then does St Luke present this ideal picture? Because he wants to encourage us too to walk in the same direction: a fraternal community is an indispensable condition for the proclamation and witness of the gospel. Since the apostles followed Christ's command, the contagion of the gospel was irresistible: "You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8) and nothing could prevent the nascent Church from developing. St Luke notes that "all used to be together in Solomon's porch". We are still in Jerusalem, given that Christ's resurrection is close in time, exactly in the Temple of Jerusalem under Solomon's porch (the entire eastern wall of the Temple was actually a colonnade that ran along a wide covered corridor, a place of passage and meeting, accessible to all as it was not part of the area reserved for Jews only). After Jesus' death and resurrection, the apostles, being and remaining Jews, continued to attend the Temple. Indeed, their Jewish faith had been strengthened as they had seen the Old Testament promises fulfilled in the Easter events. Only later and progressively would the division between Christians and the Jews who did not recognise Jesus as the Messiah take place, although already in this text there is a first sign of this: "none of the others dared to associate with them", which tells us that the Christians already formed a distinct group within the Jewish people. Luke draws a parallel here with the beginnings of Jesus' preaching: 'The crowds from the towns near Jerusalem also flocked, bringing sick people and people tormented by unclean spirits, and all were healed'; in the gospel he had written the same thing about Jesus: 'At sunset, all who had sick people suffering from various infirmities brought them to him.... even demons came out of many' (Lk 4:40-41). If he insists on the healings of Peter and the apostles, the message is clear: he continues the work of the Messiah through the apostles and says to his community: it is up to you to take the witness of the apostles because Christ is counting on you. And it is interesting to note that, thanks to the testimony of the apostles, the crowds were not joining the apostles, but through the apostles, to the Lord: "More and more, believers were being added to the Lord, a multitude of men and women". This is an important detail because conversions are not the work of the apostles, but of Christ who acts when the community is made up of people with "one heart" and "by this all will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). St Peter and the other apostles did not present themselves as supermen, indeed Peter said to Cornelius, who had knelt before him: "Stand up. I too am a man." (Acts 10:26). If there is a lack of signs and miracles in our communities, is it not an invitation to live sincerely in the love of Christ? 

*Responsorial Psalm (117 (118), 2-4, 22-24, 25-27a)

Psalm 117 (118), already sung at the Easter Vigil and on Easter Day, returns and we find it every Sunday of ordinary time in the Office of Lauds (Liturgy of the Hours). For Jews, this psalm is about the Messiah; we Christians recognise in it the Messiah expected throughout the Old Testament, the true king, the victor over death. Like other psalms, this one too must be meditated upon on two levels: from the perspective of the Jewish expectation of the Messiah, and in the light of the converts' faith in the risen Christ. For the Jews it is a psalm of praise that begins with Alleluia, the meaning of which is "praise God" and which sets the tone for the whole. It consists of twenty-nine verses where the word Lord (the famous four letters of the Name of God in Hebrew YHWH) returns more than thirty times, or at least Yah, which is its first syllable, and they are all phrases, a true litany, of praise for the greatness, love and work of God towards his people. The sung psalm accompanies a sacrifice of thanksgiving during the Feast of Tents, which lasts eight days in the autumn. The most visible ritual for foreigners at this feast takes place outside the Temple. During the entire week everyone lives in huts made of branches, the Huts or Tabernacles (Sukkot is the name of the feast), commemorating the desert tents and the protective shadow of God in the Exodus. Inside the Temple there are celebrations whose common point is the renewal of the Covenant (and during which pilgrims wave branches or rather a bunch, the lulav, consisting of a palm, a myrtle branch, a willow branch and a cedar. Finally, a large procession takes place around the altar holding these bunches of lulav while singing psalms interspersed with Hosanna, which means either 'God saves' or 'God, save us'. There are rites of libation of water poured out by the altar (cf. Jn 7:37) and on the evenings before the last day a great lighting of the Women's Courtyard in the Temple with four golden candelabra, fuelled with oil and wicks made from discarded priestly garments, and the light thus produced was so intense that it illuminated the whole of Jerusalem. It is therefore a feast of fervour and joy, anticipating the coming of the Messiah: thanks are given for the salvation that has already been accomplished, and one welcomes the salvation that the Messiah who will not be long in coming will bring: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord"). When Jesus proclaims himself to be the true "light of the world" (Jn 8:2), he probably does so after the conclusion of the feast with the living memory of that luminous rite. In the verses chosen for today's liturgy, all the elements of the feast of Tabernacles are missing, but not the joy in the hearts of believers: "This is the day that the Lord has made: let us rejoice in it and be glad ... Let Israel say: His love is forever". In order to narrate the goodness of the Lord throughout the history of Israel, the psalm tells of a king who, after a merciless war, was victorious and thanks God for having sustained him: "They pushed me, they knocked me down, but the Lord was my help" (v.13), "All the nations surrounded me: in the name of the Lord I destroyed them" (v.10), and again: "I will not die, but I will live and proclaim the works of the Lord" (v.17). Indeed, the story of this king is told of the Israel that came close to annihilation throughout its history, but the Lord raised it up, and now sings on the Feast of Tabernacles: 'I will not die, but I will live and proclaim the works of the Lord'. Israel knows that he must bear witness to the works of the Lord, and from this knowledge he drew the strength to survive all his trials. For us Christians, the Jewish feast of the Tents finds an echo in Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, but above all, the exultation of this psalm befits the Risen One whom the evangelists, each in his own way, have presented as the true king (Matthew in the visit of the Magi, John in the Passion narrative). Meditating on the mystery of the rejected and crucified Messiah, the apostles discovered a new meaning in this psalm: Jesus is truly "the one who comes in the name of the Lord", a stone rejected by the builders, rejected by his people, Christ is the cornerstone of the foundation of the new Israel. This psalm was sung in Jerusalem on the occasion of a thanksgiving sacrifice, and Jesus has just performed the thanksgiving sacrifice par excellence: He is the new Israel who gives thanks to the Father in an eternal act of thanksgiving, bringing about between God and humanity the new Covenant in which humanity is a loving response to the Father's love.

Note The Cornerstone: On this expression, see the commentary on Psalm 117 (118) for Easter Sunday.

* Second Reading From the Book of Revelation of St John the Apostle (1:9-11a.12-13.17-19)

For six consecutive Sundays we will read passages from the Book of Revelation as the second reading, a great opportunity to familiarise ourselves with one of the most fascinating books of the New Testament, seemingly difficult and in need of some effort. "Apocalypse" means revelation, unveiling in the sense of removing a veil, and John reveals the mystery of history hidden from our eyes, and because he has to show us what we do not see, the book speaks to us with visions ("see" or "look" is used five times in today's passage alone). In common hearings Apocalypse is synonymous with catastrophe, a bad misunderstanding, because Revelation like the whole Bible is Good News. In their literary genre, apocalypses, like the entire Bible, communicate God's love and the ultimate victory of love over all evil. For us, who live in a different cultural context, it remains almost impossible for us to perceive why this symbolic language and to understand to whom the author is addressing himself. In reality, he uses the language of visions because all books of the same genre were born in a period of strong persecution of Christians (between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD. several apocalypses were written by different authors). St John makes this clear: 'I, John, your brother and companion in tribulation, kingdom and perseverance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. On Patmos he was in exile, not on holiday, and being in the midst of persecution, this text circulated secretly to comfort the communities. The main theme is the final victory of those who were oppressed: you are persecuted and your persecutors prosper, but do not lose courage because Christ has overcome the world. The forces of evil can do nothing against you as they are already defeated and the true king is Christ. John states this at the beginning: "I, John, your brother and companion in tribulation, kingdom and perseverance in Jesus. To prevent the persecutors from understanding, stories from other times are told using fanciful visions so as to discourage the uninitiated from reading them. For example, St John misrepresents Babylon, whom he calls the great prostitute, but it is understood that he is talking about Rome. In short, the message of every Revelation is that the forces of evil will never prevail. In today's reading, Christ's victory is shown in this grandiose vision: it is Sunday, the Lord's Day, enraptured by the Spirit John hears a voice as powerful as a trumpet, and among seven golden candlesticks there appears to him a being of light, a 'son of man'. Son of man is in the New Testament an expression used to refer to the Messiah, the Christ. He falls at his feet as he listens to him: "Fear not! I am (i.e. the very name of God YHWH) the First and the Last and the Living One. I was dead, but now I live ... and I have the keys of death and the underworld."  This is a vision that is for the service of the brothers: "Write down the things you have seen", i.e. encourage them and know that past, present and future belong to me. We perceive here the promise of Christ: "He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live" (Jn 11:25).

Note: Exegetes agree that John is the author of the Revelation written during the reign of the Emperor Domitian (81-96) even though this emperor did not organise a systematic persecution of Christians. However, John's community lives in a climate of insecurity: he himself is exiled and there is mention of martyrs throughout the book. Christians are confronted with the demands of the imperial cult promoted by Domitian, and it seems that some local governors showed particular zeal. Moreover, the Christians encountered opposition from the Jews who remained hostile to Christianity. This also seems to emerge from the letters to the seven Churches. There are also other examples of Apocalypse. In the Old Testament, the book of Daniel contains an apocalyptic message written around 165 BC by Daniel to encourage his brothers persecuted by the Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes. He too does not attack the problem directly, but narrates the heroic deeds of some faithful Jews during Nebuchadnezzar's persecution four centuries earlier (6th century BC). Only on the surface is this a history lesson, but for those who know how to read between the lines, the message is clear. Here, finally, is an example of Apocalypse in recent history: at the time of Russian rule over Czechoslovakia, a young Czech actress composed and performed several times in her country a play about Joan of Arc: evidently, the story of Joan driving the English out of France in the 15th century was not the Czechs' first concern; and if the scenario had ended up in the hands of the occupying power, it would not have compromised anyone. But for those who could read between the lines, the message was clear: what a young girl of nineteen was able to do, with God's help, so can we.

*From the Gospel according to John (20:19-31)  

"Shalom, peace be upon you!" This is the first word spoken by the risen Jesus. The disciples remembered his last sentence on the cross: "All is accomplished", which closes the account of the Passion in the fourth gospel (Jn 19:30). The evangelist at that moment understood that God's plan was completely fulfilled and with this evidence he now narrates this first apparition. Jerusalem, in the very name Yerushalaïm, bears the Hebrew word shalom, and it is here that Jesus announces and gives, that is, makes effective, his peace: Shalom! He thus greets them twice and, now recognised with God, this word is not a wish, but a gift already realised: by saying peace he gives it and makes it effective.  It is always urgent to believe that Christ by rising has brought us peace even if concrete situations show a world marked by hatred, violence and wars. This is because peace is already there, but it does not come with a wave of a magic wand: it must first be born in the hearts of believers and then spread through the joy that the disciples had "when they saw the Lord". The risen Jesus always appears "on the first day of the week" so that for Christians, this day has become the first day of the new times. The seven-day week reminded the Jews of the seven days of creation, while the new week linked to Christ's resurrection is the beginning of the new creation. For this reason, when the evangelist speaks of the first day of the week, he does not merely provide chronological precision, but invites us to understand that Sunday, from the Latin dies dominicus, is a day consecrated to God, the day of the new creation in which the plan of salvation is accomplished. On the very first day of the week, as the prophet Ezekiel had announced: "I will put my own Spirit within you", Jesus "breathed" on the disciples and said: "Receive the Holy Spirit". John deliberately picks up the term we find in Genesis ( 2:7): (God breathed into the nostrils of the man moulded with dust "a breath of life" (nėšāmāh linked to rûah; in Greek pnoē) and he became a living being) and inaugurates the new creation by blowing upon the apostles his Spirit (pneûma hágion), "the first gift given to believers", as the fourth Eucharistic prayer recalls. In the Bible, the Spirit is always given for a mission and Jesus also sends the disciples to announce to the world the one indispensable truth: God is Mercy. This mission is urgent because man dies if he does not know the truth, as Jesus says: "he who commits sin is a slave to sin" (Jn 8:34) because he does not know God's love. There is no other mission than to reconcile men with God: everything else follows from this. "Whose sins you forgive will be forgiven", we could translate it like this: announce that sins are forgiven and be ambassadors of universal reconciliation. The mission that the Father entrusts to you is urgent and indispensable, and if you do not go, the novelty of reconciliation will not be announced. In this context the phrase: 'those whom you do not forgive will not be forgiven' could be understood in this sense: if you do not bring your brothers and sisters to know God's love (if you do not forgive) they will live outside his love (they will not be forgiven).   What trust and what responsibility! God's plan will only be definitively fulfilled when we, in turn, have fulfilled our mission: "As the Father has sent me, I also send you". The first sin, which is at the root of all the others, is not to believe in God's love: therefore, I send you, move without delay to proclaim God's love to all'.

Note 'That day, the first day of the week': in the Hebrew reading of the Creation narrative, this first day was called 'Day ONE' in the sense of 'first day' but also 'unique day', because in a sense it encompassed all the others, as the first ear of the harvest heralds all the harvest... And the Jewish people still await the New Day that will be God's day, when He will renew the first Creation.

Today, Divine Mercy Sunday, I propose a prayer that I take from the book of the Holy Trinity Mercy Shrine in Maccio (Como). The Most Holy Trinity is Infinite Mercy

"Most Holy Trinity, Infinite Mercy, Mercy, Inscrutable Light of the Father who creates; Mercy, Face and Word of the Son who gives Himself; Mercy, Penetrating Fire in the Spirit that gives life; Most Holy Trinity, Mercy that saves in the unique gift of His Triune Being, I trust and hope in you! You, who have given yourself to us, make us all give ourselves to you! Make us witnesses of your Love in Christ our Redeemer, our brother and our King! Most Holy Trinity, I trust in you!"

+Giovanni D'Ercole