The Lord's work had begun with great enthusiasm. The sick were visibly cured, everyone listened joyfully to the statement: "The Kingdom of God is at hand". It really seemed that the changing of the world and the coming of the Kingdom of God would be approaching; that at last, the sorrow of the People of God would be changed into joy. People were expecting a messenger of God whom they supposed would take the helm of history in his hand. But they then saw that the sick were indeed cured, devils were expelled, the Gospel was proclaimed, but the world stayed as it was. Nothing changed. The Romans still dominated it. Life was difficult every day, despite these signs, these beautiful words. Thus, their enthusiasm was extinguished, and in the end, as we know from the sixth chapter of John, disciples also abandoned this Preacher who was preaching but did not change the world. 

"What is this message? What does this Prophet of God bring?", everyone finally wondered. The Lord talks of the sower who sowed in the field of the world and the seed seemed like his Word, like those healings, a really tiny thing in comparison with historical and political reality. Just as the seed is tiny and can be ignored, so can the Word. 

Yet, he says, the future is present in the seed because the seed carries within it the bread of the future, the life of the future. The seed appears to be almost nothing, yet the seed is the presence of the future, it is a promise already present today. And so, with this parable, he is saying: "We are living in the period of the sowing, the Word of God seems but a word, almost nothing. But take heart, this Word carries life within it! And it bears fruit!". The Parable also says that much of the seed did not bear fruit because it fell on the path, on patches of rock and so forth. But the part that fell on the rich soil bore a yield of thirty- or sixty- or a hundredfold. 

This enables us to understand that we too must be courageous, even if the Word of God, the Kingdom of God, seems to have no historical or political importance. In the end, on Palm Sunday Jesus summed up, as it were, all of these teachings on the seed of the word: If the grain of wheat does not fall into the ground and die it remains single, if it falls into the earth and dies it produces an abundance of fruit. In this way he made people realize that he himself was the grain of wheat that fell into the earth and died. In the Crucifixion, everything seems to have failed, but precisely in this way, falling into the earth and dying, on the Way of the Cross, it bore fruit for each epoch, for every epoch. Here we have both the Christological interpretation, according to which Christ himself is the seed, he is the Kingdom present, and the Eucharistic dimension: this grain of wheat falls into the earth and thus the new Bread grows, the Bread of future life, the Blessed Eucharist that nourishes us and is open to the divine mysteries for new life. 

It seems to me that in the Church's history, these questions that truly torment us are constantly cropping up in various forms: what should we do? People seem to have no need of us, everything we do seems pointless. Yet we learn from the Word of the Lord that this seed alone transforms the earth ever anew and opens it to true life.

[Pope Benedict, Meeting with the clergy of the Diocese of Aosta 25 July 2005]

Fighting personal sin and "sin structures”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

1. As we continue our reflection on conversion, sustained by the certainty of the Father's love, today we will focus our attention on the meaning of sin, both personal and social. 

Let us first look at Jesus' attitude, since he came to deliver mankind from sin and from Satan's influence. 

The New Testament strongly emphasizes Jesus' authority over demons, which he cast out "by the finger of God" (Lk11: 20). In the Gospel perspective, the deliverance of those possessed by demons (cf. Mk 5: 1-20) acquires a broader meaning than mere physical healing in that the physical ailment is seen in relation to an interior one. The disease from which Jesus sets people free is primarily that of sin. Jesus himself explains this when he heals the paralytic:  ""That you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins' he said to the paralytic "I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home'" (Mk 2: 10-11). Even before working cures, Jesus had already conquered sin by overcoming the "temptations" which the devil presented to him during the time he spent in the wilderness after being baptized by John (cf. Mk 1: 12-13); Mt 4: 1-11; Lk 4: 1-13).  

To fight the sin that lurks in us and around us, we must follow in Jesus' footsteps and learn the sense of his constant "yes" to the Father's plan of love. This "yes" demands our total commitment, but we would not be able to say it without the help of that grace which Jesus himself obtained for us by his work of redemption.

2. Now, looking at the world today we have to admit that there is a marked decline in the consciousness of sin. Because of widespread religious indifference or the rejection of all that right reason and Revelation tell us about God, many men and women lack a sense of God's Covenant and of his commandments. All too often the human sense of responsibility is blurred by a claim to absolute freedom, which it considers threatened and compromised by God, the supreme legislator. 

The current tragic situation, which seems to have foresaken certain fundamental moral values, is largely due to the loss of the sense of sin. This fact makes us aware of the great distance to be covered by the new evangelization. Consciences must recover the sense of God, of his mercy, of the gratuitousness of his gifts to be able to recognize the gravity of sin which sets man against his Creator. Personal freedom should be recognized and defended as a precious gift of God, resisting the tendency to lose it in the structures of social conditioning or to remove it from its inalienable reference to the Creator. 

3. It is also true that personal sin always has a social impact. While he offends God and harms himself, the sinner also becomes responsible for the bad example and negative influences linked to his behaviour. Even when the sin is interior, it still causes a worsening of the human condition and diminishes that contribution which every person is called to make to the spiritual progress of the human community. 

In addition to all this, the sins of individuals strengthen those forms of social sin which are actually the fruit of an accumulation of many personal sins. Obviously the real responsibility lies with individuals, given that the social structure as such is not the subject of moral acts. As the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia recalls:  "Whenever the Church speaks of situations of sin, or when she condemns as social sins certain situations or the collective behaviour of certain social groups, big or small, or even of whole nations and blocs of nations, she knows and she proclaims that such cases of social sin are the result of the accumulation and concentration of many personal sins.... The real responsibility, then, lies with individuals" (n. 16). 

It is nevertheless an indisputable fact, as I have often pointed out, that the interdependence of social, economic and political systems creates multiple structures of sin in today's world. (cf. Sollicitudo rei socialis, n. 36; Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1869). Evil exerts a frightening power of attraction which causes many types of behaviour to be judged "normal" and "inevitable". Evil then grows, having devastating effects on consciences, which become confused and even incapable of discernment. If one then thinks of the structures of sin that hinder the development of the peoples most disadvantaged from the economic and political standpoint (cf. Sollicitudo rei socialis, n. 37), one might almost surrender in the face of a moral evil which seems inevitable. So many people feel powerless and bewildered before an overwhelming situation from which there seems no escape. But the proclamation of Christ's victory over evil gives us the certainty that even the strongest structures of evil can be overcome and replaced by "structures of good" (cf. ibid., n. 39).

4. The "new evangelization" faces this challenge. It must work to ensure that people recover the awareness that in Christ evil can be conquered with good. People must be taught a sense of personal responsibility, closely connected with moral obligations and the consciousness of sin. The path of conversion entails the exclusion of all connivance with those structures of sin which, today in particular, influence people in life's various contexts. 

The Jubilee offers individuals and communities a providential opportunity to walk in this direction by promoting an authentic "metanoia", that is, a change of mentality that will help create ever more just and human structures for the benefit of the common good.

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 25 August 1999]

Letting oneself slip slowly into sin, relativising things and entering "into negotiation" with the gods of money, vanity and pride: from what he called a "fall with anaesthesia" the Pope warned in the homily of the Mass celebrated at Casa Santa Marta on Thursday morning, 13 February, reflecting on the story of King Solomon.

The first reading of the day's liturgy (1 Kings 11:4-13) "tells us," he began, "the apostasy, let us say, of Solomon," who was not faithful to the Lord. In fact, when he was old, his women made him "turn aside his heart" to follow other gods. He was first a 'good boy' who asked the Lord only for wisdom, and God made him wise, to the point that judges and even the Queen of Sheba, from Africa, came to him with gifts because she had heard of his wisdom. "You can see that this woman was a bit of a philosopher and asked him difficult questions," the Pontiff said, noting that "Solomon came out of these questions victorious" because he knew how to answer them.

At that time, Francis continued, one could have more than one bride, which did not mean, he explained, that it was licit to be a 'womanizer'. Solomon's heart, however, was weakened not because he had married these women - he could do so - but because he had chosen them from another people, with other gods. And Solomon therefore fell into the "trap" and allowed it when one of his wives asked him to go and worship Camos or Moloc. And so he did for all his foreign women who offered sacrifices to their gods. In a word, 'he allowed everything, he stopped worshipping the one God'. From a heart weakened by too much affection for women, 'paganism entered his life'. Therefore, Francis pointed out, that wise boy who had prayed well asking for wisdom, fell to the point of being rejected by the Lord.

"It was not an overnight apostasy, it was a slow apostasy," the Pope clarified. King David, his father, had also sinned - strongly at least twice - but immediately repented and asked for forgiveness: he had remained faithful to the Lord who kept him until the end. David wept for that sin and for the death of his son Absalom, and when he fled from him before, he humbled himself thinking of his sin, when people insulted him. "He was holy. Solomon is not holy," said the Pontiff. The Lord had given him so many gifts but he had wasted it all because he had let his heart be weakened. It is not a matter, he noted, of the 'one-time sin' but of 'slipping'.

"The women caused his heart to deviate, and the Lord rebuked him: 'You have deviated your heart'. And this happens in our lives. None of us are criminals, none of us do big sins like David did with Uriah's wife, none of us. But where is the danger? Letting yourself slip slowly because it is a fall with anaesthesia, you don't realise it, but slowly you slip, you relativise things and you lose fidelity to God," Francis remarked. "These women were from other peoples, they had other gods, and how often we forget the Lord and enter into negotiation with other gods: money, vanity, pride. But this is done slowly and if there is no grace from God, we lose everything,' he warned again.

Again the Pope recalled Psalm 105 (106) to emphasise that this mixing with the pagans and learning to act like them, means becoming worldly. "And for us this slow slide in life is towards worldliness, this is the grave sin: "Everyone does it, but yes, there is no problem, yes, really it is not the ideal, but...". These words justify us at the price of losing our allegiance to the one God. They are modern idols," Francis warned, asking us to think about "this sin of worldliness" that leads to "losing the genuine of the Gospel. The genuine of the Word of God" to "losing the love of this God who gave his life for us. You cannot be right with God and right with the devil. We all say this when we talk about a person who is a bit like this: 'This one is well with God and with the devil. He has lost faithfulness'.

And, in practice, the Pontiff continued, this means not being faithful 'neither to God nor to the devil'. Therefore, in conclusion, the Pope urged to ask the Lord for the grace to stop when one realises that the heart begins to slip. "Let us think of this sin of Solomon," he recommended, "let us think of how that wise Solomon fell, blessed by the Lord, with all the inheritances of his father David, how he fell slowly, anaesthetised towards this idolatry, towards this worldliness, and his kingdom was taken away from him.

And "let us ask the Lord," Francis concluded, "for the grace to understand when our heart begins to weaken and slip, to stop. It will be his grace and his love that will stop us if we pray to him."

[Pope Francis, St. Martha, in L'Osservatore Romano 14/02/2020]

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (year C)  [5 October 2025]

May God bless us and may the Virgin protect us. Paul's recommendations to Timothy are also very useful for us. And the word of the Gospel opens our hearts to humble trust in the fulfilment of our mission.

*First Reading from the Book of the Prophet Habakkuk (1:2-3; 2:2-4) 

The prophet Habakkuk is not very popular today, but he certainly was at the time of the New Testament, since he is quoted several times. For example, the Virgin Mary's phrase in the Magnificat: "I rejoice in the Lord, I exult in God my saviour" was already found, centuries earlier, in the book of Habakkuk (Hab 3:18); it is also from him that St Paul drew and quoted several times a phrase that is part of our reading today: "The righteous shall live by his faith" (Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11). This little book is really a booklet, only three chapters, each with about twenty verses, but what a wealth of feelings! From lamentation to violence, from invocation for help to pure exultation. His cries of anguish bring to mind Job: "How long, O Lord, shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? I will cry out to you, 'Violence!' and you will not save?" (Hab 1:2). Yet hope never abandons him: when St Peter invites his readers to be patient, he repeats an expression inspired by Habakkuk: "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise..." (2 Pt 3:9). The first verses resemble the book of Job: "How long, Lord, shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? I will cry out to you, 'Violence!' and you will not save?" It is a plea in the face of rampant violence, but above all it is a cry of extreme anguish, that of God's silence. Here, as in the book of Job and in many psalms, the Bible dares to say things in which man seems to call God to account: 'How long, O Lord, shall I cry for help, and thou wilt not hear? I will cry out to you, 'Violence!' and you will not save?" The violence Habakkuk speaks of is that of Babylon, the new emerging power in the Middle East. Since the beginning of time, the same atrocities of war have been repeated, as we can clearly see even today. Yet Habakkuk does not lose his faith. In another verse, he states: 'I will stand at my watch, I will station myself on the ramparts, and I will keep watch to see what the Lord will say to me' (Hab 2:1). There are at least two things in this expression: first of all, it is the watchman's expectation, certain that dawn will come; it is the same theme as in Psalm 129/130: 'My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the dawn." The second is the awareness that his questioning is somewhat bold: the prophet has asked God for an explanation and expects to be rebuked. Instead, God's response does not bring any condemnation; he only invites him to patience and trust: the days of the enemy's victory will not last forever (cf. Hab 2:2-3). In today's text, Habakkuk does not describe the content of the vision, which will be the subject of the following chapter, but we can already guess that it concerns the liberation of the oppressed. However, one fact remains: God has not really answered the question; he has not said why he sometimes seems deaf to our prayers. He has only reaffirmed that he never abandons us. Habakkuk's message seems to be this: in trials, even the most terrible ones, the only possible path for the believer is to keep faith in God: to accept not understanding, but not to accuse God. Any other position is destructive because distrust of God brings only pain. This is probably the meaning of the final formula: 'The righteous shall live by his faith' (Hab 2:4), or, in other words, it is trust in God that keeps us alive, otherwise suspicion and rebellion wear us down. On the contrary, it is legitimate to cry out in pain: if the Bible has us read cries of anguish and even reproaches directed at God in the book of Job and in the Psalms, it is because believers have the right to cry out in suffering, in impatience in the face of the violence that crushes them. Let us return to the final sentence: 'Behold, the unrighteous man shall perish, but the righteous shall live by his faith' (Habakkuk 2:4). The proud one is Babylon, which boasts of its conquests and thinks it can build lasting prosperity on them; the righteous one, on the other hand, knows that only God gives life. The most famous example in the history of Israel is Abraham: when he left his land and his family to respond to God's call, he did not know where he would be led. When, still obeying God, he prepared to offer his only son, he did not understand, but he continued to trust the One who had given him his son. And once again, his faith gave life to him and his son (Gen 22). Scripture says of him: 'Abraham believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness' (Gen 15:6).

*Responsorial Psalm (94/95:1-2, 6-7ab, 7d-8a, 9)

We are in the temple in Jerusalem, pilgrims are crowding the steps of the temple for a great celebration: "Come, let us sing to the Lord, let us acclaim the rock of our salvation". The rock of our salvation: this expression alone is a profession of faith. Israel has chosen to rely on God and God alone, as in the early days of the Covenant. The Bible often compares the history of the people of Israel to an engagement with their God. After the initial enthusiasm and promises, doubts and infidelities arose. God, however, always remained faithful, and after every storm and every infidelity, Israel always returned to Him, like a repentant bride grateful for the ever-renewed Covenant: Let us go to Him with thanksgiving. The Hebrew word here is tôdah: it indicates a specific moment in the worship of the Covenant, the sacrifice of tôdah, which expresses gratitude, thanksgiving, praise, repentance, and the desire to love... In modern Hebrew, thanks is still said tôdah. An English term that would sum up this psalm well is gratitude: recognising God, knowing who He is, knowing who we are, and then gratitude overwhelms us.First and foremost, recognising God: our Creator but, even more so, our liberator. It seems simple to trust in this God who guides and protects us, this God who freed us from slavery in Egypt. It is simple, as long as there are no problems. But when trials come, doubts arise. Yet it is precisely in trials that our trust is tested, and this is where the question of trust arises. In the Bible, listening means trusting; listening to his voice is also the opposite of hardening one's heart. In fact, the psalm continues: 'Today, if you hear his voice! Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day of Massah in the desert, where your fathers tempted me, testing me even though they had seen my works'. Massa and Meriba mean, precisely, temptation and provocation. The episode of Massa and Meriba has remained famous in the memory of Israel as a symbol of the temptation to suspect God as soon as the first difficulty arises. The people began to regret slavery because their newly won freedom seemed very uncomfortable. In Egypt they were slaves, of course, but at least they survived... in the desert, the people were thirsty and a revolt broke out. The text says that the people murmured, but the term is probably stronger than in our English today, because Moses exclaims to God: "A little more and they will stone me!" (Ex 17:4). God intervenes, and water gushes from the rock (here the image returns: God, my rock). How much better it would have been to trust! In suffering, as we saw in Habakkuk in the first reading, we can cry out, beg, call on God, but never doubt Him. Massa and Meriba remain the names of that suspicion that can always resurface in our hearts.

*Second Reading from the Second Letter of Saint Paul to Timothy (1:6-8, 13-14)

When Paul writes his second letter to Timothy, he is in prison in Rome, shortly before his execution; he himself says that he is chained like a criminal and asks Timothy not to be ashamed of him, as others have been. He knows very well that he does not have much time left and feels very alone. This second letter to Timothy is therefore a kind of testament: Timothy will have to take his place and Paul gives him recommendations in this regard. It should be noted that, for reasons of style, vocabulary and even content, it is generally thought that the letters to Timothy were not written by Paul, but by one of his disciples after his death. It is not possible to settle this difficult question and, in order to be faithful to the teaching of these letters, we must not get lost in endless discussions. For the sake of convenience, we will therefore continue to refer to Paul and Timothy. After all, whether it is Paul and Timothy or their future disciples is of little importance to us now: what matters is the content of these letters, which contain Paul's recommendations to a young Christian leader, and therefore concern us closely. The first recommendation is perhaps the most important: "Revive the free gift of God"; this gift of God, if we read the rest of the text, is clearly the Holy Spirit. And, visibly, Timothy will really need it! Paul, chained for the Gospel, knows this all too well. Timothy received this gift of the Spirit through the laying on of hands: the words 'confirmation' and 'ordination' did not yet exist, but we know that, from the beginning of the Church, the gesture of laying on of hands signified the gift of the Spirit. 'Stir up the gift of God within you' means that God's gifts can therefore lie dormant within us. Elsewhere Paul says: "Do not quench the Spirit" (cf. 1 Thess 5:19). Here too, we can hear a message that encourages us to carry the fire of the Spirit within us, and even if it seems that we have covered it with ashes, it is still within us, burning under the ashes, since nothing can extinguish it. This Spirit is not a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love and self-control. Here we find a theme dear to Paul: that of the transmission of faith. Paul passed on this precious treasure to Timothy, who in turn must pass it on, and so on: Hold fast to the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit with the help of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. Elsewhere, in his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote: 'I have passed on to you what I myself have received' (cf. 15:3-4). This brings to mind a relay race, in which the runners pass on a baton that remains the same from the beginning to the end of the race, while the deposit of faith is inevitably expressed in different terms over the centuries. Faith, in fact, is not a neatly packaged, untouchable object. The problem, however, is knowing whether the transmission is truly faithful. Many controversies over the centuries have arisen from differences among Christians about the content of the deposit of faith. But in reality, we are not the ultimate guarantors of this fidelity: it is the Holy Spirit who is the supreme guardian of the deposit of faith. In order to faithfully pass on the torch to subsequent generations, we need only to rekindle in ourselves the gift of God, the fire of the Spirit that nothing can extinguish.

*From the Gospel according to Luke (17:5-10)

 Here we find several verses that follow one another and are not similar. It almost seems as if there are two parts to this text: in the first, a dialogue between Jesus and his apostles about faith, with Jesus' somewhat terrible formula: 'If you had faith as small as a mustard seed, you would say to this tree, "Be uprooted and planted in the sea," and it would obey you'. In the second part, there is a kind of parable about the servant, which also ends with a very strong statement by Jesus: 'When you have done all that you were commanded, say, "We are unworthy servants. We have done what we ought to have done." Jesus is certainly not trying to discourage us; on the other hand, if these verses are so close together, without any interruption, it means that there is a connection between them. Here we have a dialogue between Christ and his apostles, that is, his envoys, which means that this phrase of Jesus concerns the activity of evangelisation. The envoys say to the one who sends them: Increase our faith! This is a prayer that is also very often ours when we become aware of our weakness, our powerlessness, and it seems to us that if we were richer in faith we would be more effective. But how can we reconcile this with Paul's words: "If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing" (1 Cor 13:2)? In his language, Jesus replies that it is not a question of measuring our faith: that is not the problem. Rather, it is a question of relying on God's power, because it is He who acts, not our faith, however small or great it may be. Jesus deliberately emphasises the paradox: the mustard seed was considered the smallest of all seeds, and the large tree he speaks of (in Greek, sycamore) was considered impossible to uproot. Jesus' statement therefore means: You don't need to have a lot of faith: a tiny mustard seed is enough to do seemingly impossible things. It could then be translated as follows: When you act in the name of the Gospel, remember that nothing is impossible for God. Then there is the expression 'useless servants' archreioi (17:10), which we can translate as follows: you are simply servants who are not even indispensable, called to serve in a task that is beyond you. And - I would say - fortunately so, because who would feel strong enough to bear the responsibility of the Kingdom of God? These words of Jesus, therefore, are not harsh or discouraging, but on the contrary, they are meant to encourage us: if we are only subordinates, the responsibility does not fall on us, but that does not make us useless: if the servant were truly useless, no master would keep him. If God takes us as servants, it is because he wants to need us. If Jesus chose the apostles and said that 'the harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few' (Mt 9:37-38), and if his words continue to resonate two thousand years later, it is because he wants our collaboration. We are what we are, and God associates us with his work of salvation. Jesus says: "When you have done all that you were commanded, say, 'We are unworthy servants. We have done what we ought to have done'" (17:10). In doing so, he suggests two attitudes: first, he invites us once again to abandon the logic of merits and rewards, but above all, he invites us to remain serene in the exercise of our mission. He is the master of the harvest, not us. Then we can better understand the connection between the two parts of this text: the message is the same: a little faith, however small, is enough for God to perform miracles. On condition, however, that we faithfully place ourselves at his service.

+ Giovanni D'Ercole

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time (year C)  [28 September 2025]

May God bless us and may the Virgin protect us. We continue our teaching on wealth and our relationship with the poor, a subject that is particularly relevant for our reflection in the face of the injustices, both large and small, that we see in the news every day.

First Reading from the Book of the Prophet Amos (6:1a, 4-7)

In the Bible, Amos is the first 'writing' prophet, that is, the first of whom a book remains. Other great prophets before him remained very famous: Elijah, for example, or Elisha, or Nathan... but we do not have their written sermons, only memories handed down by those around them. Amos preached around 780-750 BC and certainly had to say things that not everyone liked, since he was eventually expelled after being denounced to the king.  Originally from the south, he preached in the north during a period of great economic prosperity. Last week we read one of his texts in which he rebuked some rich people for building their wealth at the expense of the poor. Today's passage gives us an idea of the luxury that reigned in Samaria: 'Lying on beds of ivory... they eat lambs from the flock and calves from the stall... they sing to the sound of the harp like David and anoint themselves with the finest ointments, but they do not worry about Joseph's ruin'. The rulers do not know or do not want to know that a terrible threat hangs over them: 'they do not care about the ruin of Joseph'. They will then be deported, indeed they will be the first to be deported, and the band of revellers will no longer exist. This prophet of doom, who sought to warn the powerful and the ruling class, was not listened to; on the contrary, he was silenced by getting rid of him. But what he feared came true. Amos therefore addresses the rich and powerful, those in charge. What exactly does he reproach them for? The first sentence gives us the key: 'Woe to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria'. In other words: you are comfortable, satisfied with your well-being and even your luxury... well, I pity you because you have understood nothing: you are like people who hide under the covers so as not to see the cyclone coming, and this whole society will collapse, crushed a few years later by the Assyrians, with many dead and the survivors deported. Woe to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria'... But what are they doing wrong? The wrong is to base their security on what is passing: some ephemeral military success, economic prosperity and the appearances of piety... so as not to displease God and his prophet. They even boast of their successes, believing they deserve some credit, when everything comes from God. Now, Israel's only security is fidelity to the Covenant. This is the great insistence of all the prophets, as Micah will do a few years later when he preaches in Jerusalem. Hypocrisy reigned in Samaria: when they offer sacrifices, they turn the banquet that follows into a revelry... because the meals that Amos describes are probably sacred meals, like those that followed certain sacrifices. Sacrilegious meals, therefore, that have nothing to do with the Covenant. The difficulty of this passage lies in its conciseness: in fact, to understand it, one must have in mind the whole of prophetic preaching; Amos' logic, like that of all the prophets, is as follows: the happiness of individuals and peoples inevitably depends on fidelity to the Covenant with God; and fidelity to the Covenant means social justice and trust in God, and if one departs from these two points, one is lost. This is what Amos is talking about, and we need only reread last Sunday's text, in which he rebuked the rich for enriching themselves on the backs of the poor. In today's text, the luxury banquets described obviously do not benefit everyone, and the need for God is no longer felt. Isaiah will also say: 'This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me' (Is 29:13). Samaria was covered with luxurious palaces, built by some at the expense of others; once they had become rich, thanks to flourishing trade, it was easy to expropriate small landowners, reducing some of the poorest to slavery, as in last Sunday's text. Archaeology also provides interesting details on this point: while in the tenth century the houses were all of the same model and represented identical standards of living, in the eighth century, on the contrary, there was a clear distinction between rich and poor neighbourhoods.

*Responsorial Psalm (145/146, 6c.7, 8.9a, 9bc-10)

This splendid litany is only part of Psalm 145/146, and today's liturgy does not include the Alleluias that frame it in the Hebrew text, as it is an Alleluia psalm. This means that, as last Sunday, we are faced with a psalm of praise. Speaking in this psalm are the oppressed, the hungry, the blind, the bent over, the strangers, the widows, and the orphans who recognise God's concern for them. In reality, it is the people of Israel who speak of themselves: it is their own history that they recount and give thanks for God's protection, having experienced all these situations: oppression in Egypt, from which God freed them with a mighty hand and outstretched arm, and oppression in Babylon, where once again God intervened. They experienced hunger in the desert, and God sent manna and quails. God opens the eyes of these blind people, revealing himself progressively through his prophets. It is these broken people that God tirelessly lifts up and makes stand; they are the people seeking justice that God guides. It is therefore a song of gratitude: The Lord brings justice to the oppressed, gives bread to the hungry, frees prisoners, opens the eyes of the blind, lifts up those who have fallen, loves the righteous, protects the stranger and supports the widow and the orphan. The Lord, who returns in a liturgical manner, is the translation of the Name of God in four letters, the Tetragrammaton: YHVH, which speaks of his active and liberating presence. The verse preceding today's verses sums them all up: 'Blessed is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord (YHVH) his God': the secret of happiness is to rely on God and expect everything from Him. This psalm is chosen for this Sunday as a response to the text of Amos, who warned the people of Samaria to know well in whom to place their trust, fleeing false securities because only God is trustworthy. Recognising our dependence on God and living it with complete trust, because He is total benevolence: this is the definition of faith and the secret of happiness, as the prophets preach.  We must not forget the unique experience that the children of Israel had the privilege of enjoying: throughout their journey to freedom, they experienced the presence of the One they recognised as the Lord who led them in their search for freedom and justice for all, indeed for greater justice, respect and defence of the small and the weak. If we look more closely, we see that the law of Israel has no other goal: to make Israel a free people, respectful of the freedom of others. God leads his people on this long journey of liberation. It is good for us to reread this psalm not only to recognise what God does for his people, but also to give us a course of action: if God has acted in this way towards Israel, we, who are heirs to this long journey of Covenant, are in turn obliged to do the same for others.

*Second Reading from the First Letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to Timothy (6:11-16)

One could not imagine a more complete summary of everything that constitutes the faith and life of a Christian. At the same time, Paul's solemn formulas are surprising: 'Before God and... Christ Jesus, I charge you'. At first reading, one seems to perceive echoes of difficulties in the community of Ephesus, where Timothy had responsibilities: 'Fight the good fight of faith'. A little earlier in the same letter, Paul had already spoken of the fight for the faith in the first chapter (1 Tim 1:18-19). There is therefore a battle to be fought in order to affirm one's faith. The moment is serious, which explains the solemn tone: the fidelity of the young Christian community to its baptism is at stake. The passage we read today is framed by two very similar texts that further clarify the two dangers to be avoided: false doctrines and the pursuit of riches. We must believe that there were real problems with false doctrines: Timothy, guard the deposit, avoid ungodly chatter and pseudo-scientific objections. Because they professed it (meaning this pseudo-science), some strayed from the faith (cf. 1 Tim 6:20-21). And in the same vein, a few verses earlier: If anyone teaches a different doctrine, if he does not adhere to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine in accordance with godliness, he is blinded by pride. He is ignorant, sick, seeking controversy and verbal disputes (1 Tim 6:3-4). This problem had already appeared at the beginning of the letter, and Paul had recommended that Timothy remain in Ephesus (cf. 1 Tim 1:3-4). He then insists with the same force on the risk of seeking riches because the root of all evil is the love of money (cf. 1 Tim 6:10). These, then, are the two worst dangers to the faith in Paul's eyes, and he invites Timothy to remain faithful to his baptism. In Paul's time, baptisms were administered in front of the entire community, and in the baptismal rite itself, the profession of faith was a very important moment because the 'yes' of our baptism is rooted in Christ's 'yes' to the Father, and we must be able to repeat this 'yes' day after day. Timothy will need all his strength, which is why Paul multiplies his recommendations that he persevere in fighting for the faith in order to obtain eternal life. The weapons of combat are faith, love, perseverance and gentleness, which is the main weapon. True combat has nothing to do with religious wars, and history shows that religious wars have never converted anyone. The goal on which we must always keep our eyes fixed is eternal life, which is also the manifestation ('epiphany') of Christ. Paul concludes with a kind of profession of faith, which is precisely what Timothy must continue to affirm against all adversity: 'God is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the only one who possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see'. God is the All-Other, a theme we find in the Old Testament: it is the transcendence of God, the All-Other who nevertheless draws close to us and, at the appointed time, will reveal the Lord Jesus Christ.

From the Gospel according to Luke (16:19-31)

The last sentence is doubly terrible: "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead."  This statement seems desperate, as if nothing can change a heart of stone, and it is even more terrible coming from the mouth of Jesus. When Luke wrote the Gospel, he knew full well that Christ's Resurrection had not converted everyone; on the contrary, it had hardened the hearts of some even more. Let us move on to the story of the rich man and poor Lazarus: we do not know much about the rich man, not even his name; it is not said that he is evil; on the contrary, later he will think of saving his brothers from misfortune in the afterlife. However, he lives in his own world, so immersed in his comfort, like the Samaritans mentioned by Amos in the first reading, that he does not even see the beggar dying of hunger at his door who would be content with his leftovers. The poor man's name is Lazarus, which means 'God helps', and this already says a lot: God helps him, not because he is virtuous, but simply because he is poor. This is perhaps the first surprise that Jesus has in store for his listeners: this story was a well-known tale from Egypt, about two characters, a rich man full of sins and a poor man full of virtues: when they arrive in the afterlife, they are weighed on the scales, and the good and bad deeds of both the rich and the poor are evaluated. The good, both rich and poor, were rewarded, while the bad, rich or poor, were punished. Even the rabbis before Jesus told similar stories: the rich man was the son of a sinful tax collector, while the poor man was a very devout man; they too were weighed on the scales and the merits of each were carefully evaluated, with the devout man proving to be more deserving than the tax collector's son. Jesus upsets this logic somewhat: he does not calculate merits and good deeds because it is not said that Lazarus is virtuous and the rich man evil, but simply notes that the rich man remained rich all his life, while the poor man remained poor at his door: this signifies the abyss of indifference that was created between rich and poor, simply because the rich man never opened his door. Another important detail in Jesus' story: it is not entirely true that we know nothing about the rich man, because he tells us how he was dressed: in purple and linen, a clear allusion to the clothes of priests. The colour purple, originally the colour of royal clothing, had become the colour of the high priests because they served the king of the world; linen was the fabric of the high priest's tunic. Jesus means that you can be the High Priest, but if you despise your brothers, you do not deserve the title of children of Abraham. In fact, Abraham is mentioned seven times and is certainly a key to the text. Jesus' question is: "Who is truly a son of Abraham?" and he answers that if you do not listen to the Law and the Prophets, if you are indifferent to the suffering of your brothers, you are not a son of Abraham. And he goes further: the poor man would have liked to eat the rich man's crumbs, but it was the dogs that licked his sores. Dogs were unclean animals... so even if the pious rich man had taken the trouble to open the door, he would still have been scandalised and would have fled from that unclean man licked by dogs... Jesus' lesson is therefore: You worry about merits, you try to remain pure, you are proud to be descendants of Abraham... but you forget the essential... No extraordinary signs are needed to convert: the Law with the Prophets is enough, and for us the Gospel is enough: but we must live them!

+ Giovanni D'Ercole

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (year C)  [21 September 2025]

May God bless us and may the Virgin Mary protect us. As we resume our pastoral activities, the word of God guides us to understand where the true riches of life lie. 

*First Reading from the Book of the Prophet Amos (8:4–7)

This is certainly a grave moment, for this text from the prophet Amos concludes with a solemn formula: 'The Lord swears by the pride of Jacob' (v. 7). 'The pride of Jacob' is God himself, because he is (or should be) the only pride of his people; in other words, the Lord swears by himself. God can only commit himself to himself! But what is God swearing about? He assures that he will not forget "all their deeds", that is, all the misdeeds of Israel that the prophet Amos condemns because they seek only to enrich themselves at the expense of others. Amos is a prophet of the 8th century BC, when Palestine was divided into two kingdoms. A small shepherd from a village in the south (Tekoa, near Bethlehem), he was chosen by God to go and preach in the northern kingdom, also called Samaria after its capital. Under the reign of Jeroboam II, around 750 BC, Samaria experienced a period of economic prosperity, but this prosperity did not benefit everyone. On the contrary, Amos noted that the enrichment of some came at the expense of the impoverishment of others, simply because basic necessities, such as daily bread or sandals, were in the hands of unscrupulous sellers. Thus, the poor had no other solution, in order not to die of hunger or cold, than to sell themselves as slaves, 'buying the needy and the poor for a pair of sandals' (v. 6). Those who suffer injustice may try to seek justice, but whenever there is a trial for fraud or obvious scams, the courts take the side of the rich against the poor simply because the rich pay the judges. Amos says it clearly: 'They turn justice into poison and throw righteousness to the ground' (5:7). Justice itself is distorted, corrupted. The text we have heard is therefore one in which Amos speaks to announce God's judgement, and it is a veritable indictment: he states the facts, then gives his verdict: You crush the poor, you destroy the humble of the earth, and you ask when the new moon festival will be over so that we can sell our grain?  The new moon, the first day of the month (called 'neomenia'), was a holiday: no work, no travel, no commercial activity was allowed because it was a day of rest like the Sabbath. This time of suspension of business served to turn man towards God. But here it seems that it is lived with impatience, because man now has another master: money, and for those whose only thought is profit, a day of rest is a loss. This is why Amos rebukes: 'Hear this, you who trample on the poor... and say, "When will the new moon be over so that we may sell our grain? (v.7). He targets dishonest sellers, for whom trade means fraud, with exorbitant prices and falsified scales. The image of the falsified scales has a double meaning: on the one hand, we understand how a crooked balance can falsify a measurement, but, more profoundly, it means that the whole of society lives on rigged scales. Ultimately, Amos reproaches the people of Samaria for living in falsehood and injustice: the scales are rigged, justice is corrupt, holidays are observed reluctantly and with ulterior motives; in short, everything is rigged. Here, then, is the judgement: 'The Lord swears by the pride of Jacob: I will not forget all their deeds' (v. 7). In other words: You who enrich yourselves unjustly, quickly forget your crimes, and the courts follow you; but the Lord declares that all this must not be forgotten and that you must not become accustomed to injustice. Amos pronounces his warning in the most solemn way possible, because there is a very serious lesson: the first thing God asks of his people is to live in justice, and a society founded on injustice and misery of all kinds can only offend God. Amos is all the more severe because, for a hundred years, the Northern Kingdom has boasted of having eliminated idolatry by abolishing the cults of Baal; but in reality, what Amos reproaches them for is having fallen into an even more dangerous idolatry: that of money.

*Responsorial Psalm (113/[112])

This psalm is the first of those that Jesus sang on Holy Thursday evening before leaving for the Mount of Olives. The first word he sang was Alleluia, which literally means Praise God: Allelu is the imperative, praise; and Ya is the first syllable of the Holy Name. Therefore, it is a psalm of praise, as can be understood from the first word: Alleluia. The composition of this psalm is interesting, consisting of two parts of four verses each, framing a central verse. The central verse is a question: 'Who is like our Lord God? (v. 5) and the two parts contemplate the two faces of the mystery of God: his holiness and his mercy. In his revelation, God has made himself known as the Transcendent, the All-Holy and as the Merciful, the All-Near. To manifest his holiness, his Name, 'the Lord', is repeated, the Name of God, revealed by himself in four letters (YHWH) which, however, are never pronounced. And as we know, in the Bible, when these four letters appear, the Hebrew reader spontaneously replaces them with 'Adonai', which means My Lord, and which does not claim to describe or define God. The term 'Lord', which expresses well the distance between God and us, is used five times, while 'the Name' is used three times, and the verb 'to praise' three times. The great discovery is found in the central verse: 'Who is like our Lord God?': the God of glory is at the same time the God of mercy. The second part of the psalm describes God's action in favour of the smallest and poorest: he lifts the weak from the dust, he raises the poor from the rubbish (v. 7). Among the weak and poor was the barren woman, who lived in constant fear of being rejected: "He settles the barren woman in her home, a joyful mother of children" (v. 9). Sarah, Abraham's wife, experienced this miraculous reversal: the joy of the barren woman who, after several years, found herself with a house full of children. The Bible loves to emphasise these reversals of situation: because nothing is impossible for God. Mary's Magnificat is full of this confident certainty. When, after the Last Supper, Jesus sang this psalm with his disciples as they climbed the Mount of Olives, he felt the verse "he lifts the weak from the dust" in a special way. He was heading towards his death, and he certainly recognised here a proclamation of his resurrection. 

*Second Reading from the First Letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to Timothy (2:1-8)

At the heart of this passage is a phrase that sums up the entire Bible, is central to Paul's thinking, and above all is central to the history of humanity: "God our Saviour wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (v. 4). Every word is important: 'God wants': it is the mystery of his will, that plan of mercy that he had already established in himself to bring the times to their fullness, as the letter to the Ephesians says (cf. 1:9-10). God's will is a will for salvation that concerns all people.  Paul insists on the universal dimension of God's plan: "God, our Saviour, wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth." In sentences like this, the word "and" can be replaced by "that is"; we must therefore understand: God wants all men to be saved, that is, to come to the full knowledge of the truth. And what is truth? It is that God loves us and is always with us to fill us with his love. To be saved means to know this truth according to the biblical meaning of 'knowing': that is, to live it, to allow ourselves to be loved and transformed by it. As long as people do not know God's love, they remain prisoners, and Christ came to set us free. This is why we find the expression 'he gave himself as a ransom for all' (v. 6): each time, the word 'ransom' can be replaced with 'liberation': believing in God's love for all men and living by this love means being saved. So, true prayer, as Paul says, is entering into God's plan to be able to spread the Gospel like a spark that spreads. In the last sentence, Paul's insistence is not so much about outward appearance, but about the state of mind with which we must present ourselves in prayer: "I want men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing." How can we enter into God's plan of love for all if our hearts are full of anger and evil intentions? Most likely, we can glimpse signs of serious difficulties, opposition, divisions, perhaps even persecution, in the community to which this letter was addressed. We cannot make precise assumptions, since we are not even sure of the date of the letter's composition, nor whether it is entirely by Paul or by one of his disciples. But that does not matter: what matters, in every age and in every difficulty, is that we must never forget that God wants all people to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth, that is, of God's love.

*From the Gospel according to Luke (16:1-13)

This text holds a surprise: Jesus seems to be complimenting the swindlers: 'The master praised that dishonest steward because he had acted shrewdly' (v. 8). Be careful not to misunderstand! Jesus calls him dishonest, that is, wicked, because honesty was part of the most basic morality. Therefore, Jesus' intention is certainly not to go against basic morality, and he is careful to point out that the master praises the man for his shrewdness. If Jesus uses a provocative example, it is to make us reflect on something serious, as the last sentence shows: there is an urgent choice to be made between God and money because one cannot serve both God and money. Jesus lists a series of oppositions: between the children of this world and the children of light, between a small thing and a great thing, between deceitful money and authentic good, between the goods of others and what is truly ours. All these oppositions have a single purpose: to make us discover that money is a deception and that devoting one's life to making money is the wrong path; it is as serious as idolatry, which the prophets have always fought against. In the phrase, 'You cannot serve God and money', the verb 'serve' has a religious meaning. There is only one God: do not make idols, because all idolatry enslaves you, and money can become an end in itself and no longer a means. When you are obsessed with the desire to earn money, you quickly become a slave: it is important to beware of what you possess so that you are not possessed by it, as popular wisdom says. The Sabbath was also instituted to rediscover, once a week, the taste of gratuitousness, a way to remain free. Money is deceptive in two ways: first, it makes us believe that it will ensure our happiness, but one day we will have to leave everything behind. In Jesus' words, the expression 'when it fails' (v. 9) is an allusion to death, and there is certainly no great interest in being the richest person in the cemetery! Furthermore, money deceives us if we think that it belongs only to us. Jesus does not despise money, but puts it at the service of the Kingdom, that is, for the good of others, and no one is its owner, but rather its administrator. If it is true that there is no point in being the richest person in the cemetery, it makes a lot of sense to be rich so that others can benefit from it too. The question "if you have not been faithful with dishonest wealth, who will entrust you with true wealth?" (v. 11) helps us to understand that trust is important in the use of money: God trusts us, entrusts us with money of which we are administrators and responsible. All our wealth, of whatever kind, has been entrusted to us as stewards so that we may share it, transforming it into happiness for those around us. This helps us to better understand the previous parable, the story of the steward threatened with dismissal who, in order to save himself, once again gives gifts from his master's goods to make friends who will welcome him. He was completely dishonest, but he was able to quickly find an ingenious solution to secure his future. The cunning here lies in using money as a means and not as an end. It is therefore not dishonesty that Jesus admires, but skill: what are we waiting for to find creative solutions to secure everyone's future? The thirst for gain makes many people inventive; Jesus would like our passion for justice or peace to make us just as inventive! The day we devote as much time and intelligence to seeking ways of peace, justice and sharing as we devote to accumulating more money than we need, the face of the world will change. Ultimately, the moral of the parable can be summarised as follows: choose God decisively and put the same intelligence that you would use to make money at the service of the Kingdom. The children of light know that money is only a small thing; the Kingdom is the big thing, and that is why they do not serve money as a deity, but use it for the good of all.

+ Giovanni D'Ercole

Exaltation of the Holy Cross [Sunday, 14 September 2025]

May God bless us and may the Virgin protect us!  Contemplating the Mystery of the Cross, we discover the sweetness of a love that is born where life seems to die. As he dies crucified, Jesus reveals forever the definitive victory of Love and Mercy.

*First Reading from the Book of Numbers (21:4–9)

The Book of Exodus and the Book of Numbers recount similar episodes: when the people, freed from slavery in Egypt, walk towards the Promised Land, they must face daily life in the desert, a totally inhospitable place. As slaves in Egypt, they were sedentary, certainly not accustomed to long marches on foot, but they had a master who fed them, so they did not die of hunger as they did in the desert, where they began to regret the famous onions of Egypt.  They were tempted by discouragement due to hunger, thirst and fear of all the inconveniences of the desert, and, disheartened, they began to murmur against God and Moses for leading them to die in the desert. The Lord then sent poisonous snakes against the people, and many Israelites died. At this point, the people repented, acknowledged their sin, and prayed to the Lord to remove the snakes. God commanded Moses to make a snake (tradition says of bronze) so that, when fixed on a pole, it could heal anyone who looked at it. It is interesting to consider how Moses reacted: he did not question whether or not the snakes came from God, but his aim was to lead this distrustful people to an attitude of trust, whatever the difficulties, because it was not so much the snakes as their lack of trust in God that was slowing down their journey to freedom. To educate them in the faith, he uses a familiar practice: the worship of a healing god represented by a bronze serpent on a pole (probably the ancestor of the caduceus, today's symbol of medicine). It was enough to look at the fetish to be healed. Moses does not destroy the tradition, but transforms it: Do as you always have done, but know that it is not the serpent that heals you but the Lord, and do not be confused because one God has freed you from Egypt, and by looking at the serpent, you are actually worshipping the God of the Covenant. Centuries later, the Book of Wisdom would comment: 'Those who turned to look at it were saved, not by the object they looked at, but by you, Saviour of all' (Wis 16:7). The struggle against idolatry, magic and divination runs through the entire biblical history and perhaps continues to this day. That bronze serpent, a sign to lead people to faith, came to be considered a magical object again, and for this reason King Hezekiah destroyed it definitively, as we read in the Book of Kings (2 Kings 18:4).

*Responsorial Psalm (77/78:3-4, 34-39)

In the responsorial psalm, taken from Psalm 77/78, we have a summary of the history of Israel, which unfolds in the relationship between God, who is always faithful, and that fickle people, who are forgetful but still aware of the importance of memory, so they repeat: 'We have heard what our fathers told us, we will repeat it to the next generation'. Faith is transmitted when those who have experienced salvation can say, 'God has saved me,' and in turn share their experience with others. It will then be up to their community to remember and preserve this testimony because faith is an experience of salvation shared over time. The Jewish people have always known that faith is not intellectual baggage, but the common experience of God's ever-renewed gift and forgiveness. This psalm expresses all this: in seventy-two verses, it recalls the experience of salvation that founded the faith of Israel, namely, liberation from Egypt, and for this reason, the psalm contains many allusions to the Exodus and Sinai. Listening in the biblical sense means adhering wholeheartedly to the Word of God, and if a generation neglects to continue to bear witness to its faithfulness to God, the chain of transmission of faith is broken. Often over the centuries, fathers have confessed to their children that they have murmured against God despite his acts of salvation. This is what the psalm speaks of and accuses the people of unfaithfulness and inconstancy: "They flattered him with their mouths, but murmured with their tongues; their hearts were not steadfast towards him, and they were not faithful to his covenant" (vv. 36-37). This is idolatry, the target of all prophets because it is the cause of humanity's misfortune. Every idol sets us back on the path to freedom, and the definition of an idol is precisely what prevents us from being free. Marx said that religion is the opium of the people, revealing in a crude way the power and manipulation that any religion, whatever it may be, can exert over humanity. Superstition, fetishism and witchcraft prevent us from being free and learning to freely assume our responsibilities, because they make us live in a regime of fear. Every idolatrous cult distances us from the living and true God: only the truth can make us free men. Even the excessive worship of a person or an ideology makes us slaves: just think of all the fundamentalisms and fanaticisms that disfigure us, and money too can very well become an idol. In other verses that are not part of this Sunday's liturgy, the psalm offers a very eloquent image, that of a deformed bow: the heart of Israel should be like a bow stretched towards its God, but it is crooked. And it is precisely within this ingratitude that Israel had its most beautiful experience: that of God's forgiveness, as the psalm clearly states: "Their heart was not steadfast toward him; they were not faithful to his covenant. But he, being merciful, forgave  their iniquity instead of destroying them" (v. 38). This description of  God's tender mercy shows that the psalm was written at a time when the revelation of the God of love had already deeply penetrated the faith of Israel. 

NOTE The great assembly at Shechem organised by Joshua had precisely this purpose: to revive the memory of this people who were the object of so much concern, but so often inclined to forget (Joshua 24: see the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time B): after reminding the assembled tribes of all God's works since Abraham, he said to them: "Choose today whom you will serve: either the Lord or an idol." And the tribes made the right choice that day, even if they would soon forget it. The transmission of faith is therefore like a relay race: "I have passed on to you what I myself have received," Paul says to the Corinthians (1 Cor 11:23), and the liturgy is the privileged place for this witness and for this reviving of memory in the sense of gratitude that comes from experience.

*Second Reading from the Letter of St Paul to the Philippians (2:6-1)

This passage from Paul is read every year on Palm Sunday and now on the Feast of the Glorious Cross: this means that the two celebrations have something in common, which is the close link between Christ's suffering and his glory, between the lowering of the cross and the exaltation of the resurrection. Paul says it clearly: 'Christ humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross... Therefore God exalted him above all else' (vv. 8-9). The expression 'therefore' indicates a strong link and contrast between humiliation and exaltation, but we must not read these sentences in terms of reward, as if Jesus, having behaved admirably, received an admirable reward. This could be the 'tendency' or rather the 'temptation', but God is love and knows no calculations, exchanges, or quid pro quo, because love is free. The wonder of God's love is that it does not wait for our merits to fill us, and in the Bible, men discovered this little by little because grace, as its name indicates, is free. So, if, as Paul says, Jesus suffered and was then glorified, it is not because his suffering had accumulated enough merit to earn him the right to be rewarded. Therefore, to be faithful to the text, we must read it in terms of gratuitousness. For Paul, it is clear that God's gift is free, and this is evident in all his letters, having experienced it himself. When we read, 'Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited' (v. 6), it is clear that Paul is alluding to Adam and Eve, and here Paul probably offers us a commentary on the story of the Garden of Eden: the tempter had said, 'You will be like God', and to become like God, all they had to do was disobey God. Eve reached out her hand towards the forbidden fruit and took it (the Greek labousa in theological reading is 'claimed to be like God' as if it were her right). Paul contrasts the attitude of Adam/Eve (grabbing/avenging) with that of Christ (welcoming freely, obeying). Jesus Christ was only acceptance (what Paul calls 'obedience'), and precisely because he was pure acceptance of God's gift and not vindication, he was able to let himself be filled by the Father, completely available to his gift. Jesus' choice is 'kenosis', the total emptying of himself marked by five verbs of humiliation: emptying himself, taking on the condition of a servant, becoming like men, humbling himself, becoming obedient. The cross is the abyss of annihilation (vv. 6-8), but also the climax of the second sentence of the hymn (vv. 9-11). 'God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name' (v. 9). Jesus receives the Name that is above every name: the name 'Lord' is the name of God! To say that Jesus is Lord is to say that he is God: in the Old Testament, the title of Lord was reserved for God, as was genuflection. When Paul says, "For at the name of Jesus every knee should bend," he is alluding to a phrase from the prophet Isaiah: "Before me every knee shall bend, and every tongue shall swear allegiance" (Isaiah 45:23). The hymn concludes with 'every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father' (v. 11): seeing Christ bring love to its culmination, accepting to die to reveal the extent of God's love, we can say like the centurion: 'Truly this man was the Son of God'... because God is love.

*From the Gospel according to John (3:13-17)

The first surprise in this text is that Jesus speaks of the cross in positive, even 'glorious' terms: on the one hand, he uses the term 'lifted up' – 'the Son of Man must be lifted up' (v. 14) – and then this cross, which in our eyes is an instrument of torture and pain, is presented as proof of God's love: 'God so loved the world' (v. 17). How can the instrument of torture of an innocent person be glorious? And here lies the second surprise: the reference to the bronze serpent. Jesus uses this image because it was well known at the time. The first reading speaks at length about this event in the Sinai desert during the Exodus, following Moses. The Jews were attacked by poisonous snakes and, having a guilty conscience because they had murmured, they were convinced that this was a punishment from the God of Moses. They begged Moses to intercede, and Moses was commanded to fix a fiery (i.e., poisonous) serpent on a pole: whoever had been bitten and looked at it would live (Num 21:7-9). At first glance, it seems like pure magic, but in reality, it is exactly the opposite. Moses transforms what was until then a magical act into an act of faith. Jesus refers to this episode when speaking of himself: 'Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life' (vv. 14-15). If in the desert it was enough to look with faith towards the God of the Covenant to be physically healed, now it is necessary to look with faith at Christ on the cross to obtain inner healing. As is often the case in John's Gospel, the theme of faith returns: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life" (v. 17).  When Jesus draws a parallel between the bronze serpent raised up in the desert and his own elevation on the cross, he also reveals the extraordinary leap that exists between the Old and New Testaments. Jesus brings everything to fulfilment, but in him everything takes on a new dimension. In the desert, only the people of the Covenant were involved; now, in him, the whole of humanity is invited to believe in order to have life: twice Jesus repeats that "whoever believes in him will have eternal life". Moreover, it is no longer just a matter of external healing, but of the profound transformation of man. At the moment of the crucifixion, John writes: 'They will look upon him whom they have pierced' (Jn 19:37), quoting the prophet Zechariah who had written: "On that day I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication; they will look upon me, the one they have pierced" (Zechariah 12:10). This "spirit of grace and supplication" is the opposite of the murmuring in the desert: man is now finally convinced of God's love for him.  There are therefore two ways of looking at the cross of Christ: as a sign of human hatred and cruelty, but above all as the emblem of the meekness and forgiveness of Christ, who accepts the cross to show us the extent of God's love for humanity. The cross is the very place where God's love is revealed: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9), Jesus said to Philip. Christ crucified shows God's tenderness, despite the hatred of men. That is why we can say that the cross is glorious: because it is the place where perfect love is manifested, that is, God himself, a God great enough to make himself small in order to share the life of men despite misunderstanding and hatred: he does not flee from his executioners and forgives from the height of the Cross. Those who accept to fall to their knees before such greatness are transformed forever: "But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name" (Jn 1:12).

+ Giovanni D'Ercole