13th Sunday in Ordinary Time B (30 June 2024)

1. Jesus is the Lord of life and not of death. In the gospel of this 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time we find the account of two miracles embedded in each other in the gospel of Mark, an account also present in the gospel of Matthew and Luke. These are the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus and the healing of the hemorrhaging, a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years: 12 were the years of the child, as 12 were the years of the woman's illness, for both of which all medical possibilities had been tried in vain. The evangelist insists on the failure of the doctors to highlight the power to heal that is Jesus' own, capable even of raising the dead. The whole of Mark's gospel helps us to know who Jesus is and, if he can dominate the violence of storms as we saw last Sunday, through these two prodigies he assures us that he can do everything as he is the Lord of life. The resuscitation of the daughter of Jairus makes us think of our resurrection as well as of the definitive triumph of the kingdom of God that will come on the day when he will say to all mankind, as to the dead maiden: "Talitha koum, get up". And everything becomes possible to those who believe. Salvation, expressed in these miracles, embraces the whole of human reality and demands as its only condition that there be a freely proclaimed faith, a faith that is possible for everyone: both for those who, like Jairus, leader of the synagogue, are notable and powerful and for those who are poor, like the woman condemned to suffer and moreover considered impure because of her illness. Another important message is that, through the account of these miracles, St Mark tells us that Jesus came to combat all kinds of physical and spiritual marginalisation. And he asks us to trust him without doubting like those who mocked him because he said that the child was not dead but asleep.  God's work is mysterious and powerful, and everything becomes possible to those who freely abandon themselves into his hands in every situation, even dramatic ones. By calling as witnesses the disciples closest to him, Peter, James and John, who will also be at his side on Mount Tabor on the occasion of the Transfiguration and in the Garden of Gethsemane at the hour of passion, Jesus intends to educate them to a firm faith that does not rest on the search for miracles and spectacular signs, but seeks to grasp in every event of existence the divine intervention in human frailty.

2. For God never abandons us because he loves us and created man for incorruptibility, as we read in the first reading. It is a passage from the beginning of the book of Wisdom that brings to mind the first chapters of the book of Genesis: both begin with a long reflection on the destiny of the human being. Written in different eras and with different styles, however, they address the same issues, those of life and death. Being in contact with pagan peoples, Israel, jealous guardian of its own religious experience, intends to safeguard the purity of its faith whose first characteristic is precisely the optimism that rests on the certainty of divine love. The statement that we read here: "God created all things that they might exist, the creatures of the world are poprtators of salvation" can be considered a variant of what we read in Genesis: "God saw all that he had made: it was very good (Genesis 1:31).  And again, reading that "God created man...made him in the image of his own nature" we cannot help but think of the book of Genesis: "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness" (Genesis 1:26). He wanted to create us in his image for eternal life, that is, to live eternally with him. But how to justify death? Is it a failure of God? Absolutely not! And it is on this subject that the Word of God today invites us to reflect. We must first of all distinguish between biological death, which in the biblical and Christian vision is like the transformation of the chrysalis into a butterfly, that is, the passage from this earthly life to eternity; quite another thing is spiritual death, which consists of living separated from God and even rejecting him. And it is precisely this death that is dealt with here by highlighting the fact that in creating man God willed him for eternity, while leaving him free to choose to depart from him. This death, the author notes, entered the world through the devil's envy and 'those who belong to it experience it'. By allowing himself to be drawn by Satan, man experiences spiritual death, the terrible destiny of the wicked, notes the book of Wisdom where, in the first five chapters, the opposition is presented between the righteous who live from the life of God already on earth and the wicked who, on the contrary, choose death, in other words, decide to reject God and condemn themselves to separation from him. Righteous is he who lives by the spirit of God, ungodly is he who does not allow himself to be led by him. In the second book of Genesis we read that in creating man, God breathed into his nostrils the breath of his life and from that moment the human being became 'living'. We are therefore born to live animated by the breath of God, but if we turn away, if we reject God, we enter the realm of life that dies. The difference between the righteous and the wicked is also present in the first psalm often quoted in the liturgy: 'Blessed is the man who does not enter into the counsel of the wicked...but in the law of the Lord he finds his joy'. Here are people who enjoy peace and prosperity, like trees planted along streams of water, vigorous and rich in leaves and then in fruit. Not so the wicked, who are like chaff scattered by the wind: an incisive image of the volatility of life without God. In short, our existence has within itself the seed of eternity and only those who reject it experience spiritual death that can become final.

3. The issue then is twofold: how to avoid spiritual death and how to behave in the face of the fate of biological death that is common to all living beings, since it is true that everything that is born is doomed to die.  Today's word of God emphasises two fundamental possible attitudes: that of the pagans, that is, those who profess not to want to believe, and adopt a style of behaviour summed up in the expression 'carpe diem'. The meaning of this famous Latin saying is manifold, but it is often interpreted as an invitation to live taking advantage of every earthly opportunity to enjoy because human existence is short: let us then live as we can and as we like best because everything comes to an end with our death and after death nothing awaits us. Faced with the mystery of death, the attitude of believers defined by the word of God as 'righteous' is different. They know they must pass through biological death but they were created for immortality. Perhaps not everything on earth goes as one would wish, and sometimes injustice prevails: those who seem to enjoy life by doing evil appear fulfilled in the eyes of men, while those who seek to remain in God's faithfulness go through many trials and may come across many sufferings to the point of suffering injustice and wickedness. Those who trust in God know, however, that not everything ends with biological death, and even if on earth one does not receive recompense for the good one has done, one must never forget that God is infinitely just and will restore justice in due time. The virtue of hope sustains our earthly pilgrimage and illuminates the mystery of death. We must all die, and death is an obligatory stage of our journey towards eternity, even if today efforts are made to conceal it out of fear, and it is not spoken of so as not to offend the sensibilities of people who consider it an inevitable misfortune. What is to be feared instead - and this is the message of God's word in this Sunday liturgy - is spiritual death, the eternal deprivation of God. But how many today stop to reflect on this reality? How many spend their days on earth as if they will never die? How many while living are already spiritually dead? The word of God helps us to recognise and love the Lord of life and death, it invites us to fearlessly place ourselves in his arms as a merciful and faithful Father. And if sometimes, before human frailties and sins we are tempted to become discouraged, let us listen to what St John writes: "Whatever it (the heart) reproaches us for, God is greater than our heart and knows all things" (1Jn 3:20).

+ Giovanni D'Ercole

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time B (23.06.2024)

1. The Lord began to speak to Job in the midst of the hurricane. This is how the first reading begins, taken from the book of Job, which does not pretend to tell the real story of a man, but is rather a sapiential reflection on the great dramas and tragedies of man and humanity. The Jewish people knew that the universal flood destroyed everything and later experienced drought, the harshness of the desert, and therefore knew what it means to suffer hunger, thirst and disease. Presenting God as the one who rules the waters, the winds and nature becomes a symbolic way of proclaiming Israel's faith in divine omnipotence. We even read here that God speaks in the midst of the hurricane, an even more incisive way of saying that the Lord alone is the being who dominates the storm to such an extent that he becomes its spokesman. Job's troubled story invites us to consider that in the life of every person all kinds of upheavals can occur; in one way or another we all have to come to terms with the problem of evil in its various forms: physical, moral, social and spiritual suffering, loneliness, failure of every dream and project, injustice and exploitation, despair and death. The temptation of mistrust led people, as it does us too, to hold God guilty of evil because it is not enough to be a good and religious person, like Job a righteous man and faithful to God, to be spared of it. Experience shows that everyone can suddenly experience disasters and misfortunes of all kinds, just as happened to Job: the tragic end of his children, the blackest misery and the sudden loss of everything he owned, and, as if that were not enough, the illness that reduced him to a revolting human larva. It is in the midst of this existential travail that Job questions God as to the reason for the suffering that befalls a good person like him. And he receives an articulate answer from the Lord, of which today's biblical text relates to us only the beginning: an answer that takes the form of a long discourse that is well worth rereading in its entirety in the book of Job. God, in a gentle and quiet, but firm and decisive manner puts man in his place: you are not the creator of the world, nor are you the ruler of every natural phenomenon, nor are you the one who ensures food for the animals and their reproduction. Do not forget, then, that the life of every human being is in God's hands, but this absolute power of his over everything does not serve to prove and exalt his omnipotence, but rather tends to arouse man's confidence because nothing escapes God even when we find ourselves in the midst of misfortune. In short, those who wrote this Old Testament book want to encourage us not to despair when we feel powerless in the face of tragic unforeseen events because even when everything collapses, we always remain in the arms of a God who is Father. No matter how violent the storms may become, he will never let us succumb to evil. Job's lesson is an invitation to put our trust in God at all times, with patience and perseverance.

2. The theme of the first reading is taken up by the gospel page that closes with this question: "Who is this then, that even the wind and the sea obey him?". The evangelist Mark shows the contrast between the violence of the storm that threatens to submerge the boat, the fright of the disciples who wake up the Master worried, and the calmness of Jesus who, awakened from sleep, with a simple intervention resolves everything. In fact, he commands the sea and the wind: "Be quiet, calm down!" and immediately restores calm. If it is true that the entire gospel of Mark tends to offer the answer to the question: "Who is the Christ?", in today's passage we find the answer because it invites us to reflect that the reason why Jesus has power over creation by calming the fury of the waters and the wind, lies in the fact that he is God, the same God who, as we read in the first reading, limited the space of the waters, made the clouds his garment and blocked the arrogance of the waves of the sea by placing the forces of nature at the service of his people. At the same time that the disciples ask themselves the question of who this man is who dominates the violence of the waters, they also give themselves the answer: he is God's envoy and, precisely for this reason, as the evangelist emphasises, from being terrified by the storm they are then filled with wonder at the calm miraculously restored. What is most surprising in this text, however, is not the disciples' fear of the storm's fury and then the fear they feel before the one they recognise as God's envoy, but rather the question Jesus asks them: "Do you still have no faith?" We are surprised that Jesus asks the disciples this question. Realising our helplessness before certain trials and difficulties that surprise us and being afraid is quite normal. Jesus' question invites us to go further: when we are overwhelmed by something absolutely shocking that puts our life in crisis, how do we react? What is our attitude in the face of storms that suddenly turn the world upside down? Like the apostles, it is natural to cry out: Master we are lost and what are you doing, you are asleep and do not care about us? The evangelist Mark wants to warn us against the risk of falling into the temptation of interpreting God's frequent silence before what makes us suffer as a sign of his indifference and abandonment. On the contrary, the gospel wants to warn us against the risk of discouragement and invites us not to be afraid because God, in spite of everything, can do everything and bring us back to calm. He also reveals the secret to us: he assures us that everything is possible if, like him, we trust in our heavenly Father, the only one who can make us able to command the stormy sea and calm the raging wind. 

Let us try to reflect: "is not our feeling of helplessness in the face of difficulties already the sign of a lack of faith"? We certainly should not take our dreams as reality and believe ourselves omnipotent in God's way because everyday reality leads us back to our human limitation. However, it is a matter of growing in faith, that is, maintaining the trust that in Jesus all things are possible to us, including dominating the power of nature and the violence of evil. Such trust pacifies the heart and opens it to new horizons of hope even when we remain in the darkness of problems.

3. Here is the good news: with the advent of Jesus, a new world is born and nothing remains as before. In the Garden of Eden God commanded Adam and Eve to work and subdue the earth, and it was not a mere figure of speech, but God's plan that will be fully realised in Jesus. And Christ before his ascension says to the apostles: "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations": he entrusts the entire planet to his disciples (Mt 28:19). Now, as St Paul states in today's second reading, the love of Christ possesses us and nothing more can separate us from this love in which we were immersed on the day of our baptism. St Paul goes on to explain: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; old things have passed away; behold, new things have come into being" (2 Cor 5:14-17). With Christ the new world is born: we are no longer in the world of the first creation, but must enter the world of Christ's resurrection. Baptism makes us new humanity called to live in the risen Christ an existence of solidarity, justice and sharing in the service of our brothers and sisters, imitating the Master who came not to be served but to serve. This newness of life, however, demands that we remain grafted into Christ in order to become 'new' persons, that is, renewed, and ready to face the battles against violence, injustice and hatred, which disfigure the face of humanity, counting on the power of divine love. May the Lord help us to consistently realise this Christian vocation of ours, so that, like St Paul, we may be able to affirm that it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us, and consequently be ready to run "with perseverance in the race that lies ahead, keeping our gaze fixed on Jesus, the one who gives origin to faith and brings it to fulfilment" (Heb.: 12, 2). Ultimately, if we want to be consistent with our faith to the end, the word impossible is not part of the vocabulary of Christians, because everything is possible to God: is this not the real challenge for our faith?

+Giovanni D'Ercole

XI Sunday in Ordinary Time B (16 June 2024)

1. The first reading, taken from the book of the prophet Ezekiel, could be read as a parable of hope for the Jewish people. In order to understand it well, it is necessary to keep in mind the historical context marked by the occupation of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, who had deported the king and a good part of the inhabitants to Babylon, including the prophet Ezekiel himself, and, as if this were not enough, after a short time Jerusalem was completely destroyed and stripped of all its inhabitants who had been enslaved in Babylon. At that moment, Israel was in the grip of total discouragement because it had lost everything: the land, the concrete sign of God's blessing, its mediator king between God and the people, the temple, the place of God's presence, and it perceived its situation as a tree that had been cut down and was destined to be sterile, that is, without certainty or hope for the future. The recurring question was whether God had therefore abandoned his people and everyone's trust was put to the test. 

A kind of miracle took place, because in the midst of such a dramatic situation as the Babylonian deportation, the faith of Israel was purified to become more steadfast: an extraordinary jolt of faith of the chosen people took place, and Ezekiel was one of the architects of it. In the past he had tried to warn them by foreseeing what later occurred, but now that the catastrophe has fallen upon the people, his mission is to revive confidence and so he speaks a word of hope. He uses for this purpose the parable of the gigantic cedar we encountered in the first reading. Why the cedar tree? The cedar tree was the symbol of the dynasty of kings and thus an image of the exiled king who had become a dead tree from which, however, the Lord plucked off a twig in order to transplant it "upon a high mountain of Israel", which points to Jerusalem. Two victorious events are heralded here: the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the restoration of the kingdom of Jerusalem, which will later see people flock to Jerusalem from all parts of the world and will then be the triumph of the one God. 

This proves that nothing is impossible for God who confirms: "I am the Lord, who humbles the high tree and raises up the low tree". And again: "I, the Lord, have spoken and I will do it". 

We see two aspects of the Jewish faith highlighted here: firstly, God is all-powerful and brings to fulfilment all that he promises; secondly, Israel preserves hope because it nurtures certainty in the divine intervention that brings to fulfilment all his promises. And indeed, here we are dealing with the announcement of the future Messiah, a promise that has sustained Israel's hope over the centuries, especially in the dramatic moments of its history, and the mission of the prophets, of which Ezekiel offers us a great example, contributes to nourishing this trust.

2. The Gospel text, as is often the case, recalls the first reading. Today it is St Matthew who tells us the parable of the mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, which buried in the earth "sprouts and grows" until it becomes "greater than all the plants in the garden".  The twig plucked from the top of the barren cedar tree in the first reading and "the smallest of seeds" of which we read in the gospel bring to mind the life of every Christian. Thanks to the seed of God placed in us on the day of baptism, we have become potential trees of new life called to produce and scatter fruits of love and goodness. In particular, the Gospel parable emphasises two aspects of the Christian life: The seed placed by the Trinity in the heart of man grows every day silently in the earth, indicating that only God can ensure the total growth and fulfilment of our existence. The mention of the smallness of the mustard seed, even the smallest of all, comes to emphasise that we too, with our smallness and fragility, are in some way participants and indispensable collaborators in this surprising growth. And so it is good to let ourselves be guided by divine Providence, which has placed at our disposal two wings to fly towards heaven: God's intervention and man's action. The Christian tradition has translated this human-divine synergy into contemplation and action, highlighting the interconnection between praying understood as listening to God and acting as a response to the divine will. St Ignatius of Loyola writes in this regard: 'Act as if everything depended on you, knowing then that in reality everything depends on God' (cf. Pedro de Ribadeneira, Life of St Ignatius of Loyola, Milan 1998) and Gilbert Keith Chesterton summarises this human-divine project as follows: 'Pray as if everything depended on God; act as if everything depended on us'. 

If God sometimes seems absent from the horizon of our existence, we believe that He is always at work. Indeed, where the darkness becomes thicker, its light shines even more brightly. An example of this is the life of St John of the Cross, the great reforming saint of the Carmelite order, who had an untroubled but absurdly difficult existence. Yet it was precisely in his darkest moments, such as the time he spent in a prison isolated and abandoned by all, indeed betrayed even by his fellow brothers, that he wrote one of his most beautiful works of spirituality, from which many continue to draw inspiration in their journey of sanctification. And so one understands that the Christian life is a journey towards God. If, then, one bears within oneself a great love, this love almost gives one wings to bear more easily all the harassments, contrasts and injustices of this world, because one bears within oneself the great light of faith that consists in feeling loved by God and letting oneself be loved by him in Christ Jesus. Great temptation, however, is fear the mother of discouragement and pride the father of mistrust.

3. In short, the satanic trap of suspicion, which deceived the progenitors in the Garden of Eden, is always at work and we must remain on our guard, without ever losing the certainty that "the Lord my rock is righteous: in him is no evil" as the responsorial psalm taken from Psalm 91/92 makes us pray today. Israel is guilty of having accused its Lord on several occasions. Remember well when in the Sinai desert in days of great thirst, the people rebelled against Moses, accusing him and the Lord of having brought them out of Egypt and then leaving them to die of thirst in the desert. It is the famous episode of Massa et Meriba (Ex. 17:1-7). Yet even on that occasion, despite their rebellion, God showed himself greater than the resentment and wailing of the people out of anger, and caused water to gush forth for all from the rock. In memory of this event, Israel will call God 'his rock', a way of recalling the divine faithfulness that is stronger than any suspicion of his people. From this rock Israel throughout the centuries will continue to draw the water of its survival: it will be the source of its faith and trust. 

In the face of Israel's ingratitude God proclaims His faithfulness because He is infinite Mercy ready to make covenant with His own, He who is God of love and faithfulness, slow to anger and full of love.  From the word of God today we receive an invitation to keep a close watch on our existence because the trap of suspicion often returns in the course of life: when we are thirsty, when the water is not good, when we are hungry for happiness and everything seems to be going not as we would like but in the wrong direction, we are tempted to accuse God of having deceived and abandoned us. Be careful not to forget the lesson of the Garden of Eden when the cunning satanic serpent managed to make the man and woman believe that God was not sincere towards them and they fell into the trap of suspicion: they found themselves naked, that is, stripped of everything that constituted their rich divine inheritance.  

How to guard against the temptation of deception? How to protect oneself from the trap of suspicion is indicated to us by the psalm that the liturgy makes us meditate on today: it is necessary to remain firmly planted in God's temple like a cedar tree and not tire of repeating, even in the darkness of certain dark nights, that 'it is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing to your name, O Most High' because to turn to God with confidence does good to ourselves. St Augustine says: 'Everything that man does for God profits man and not God'. Praying then and singing for God, "proclaiming his love in the morning and his faithfulness in the night" helps protect us from Satan's deception, fear and mistrust. The experience of so many saints shows that only truth and invincible trust in his love can enlighten us in every situation in life, while distrust and suspicion distort our view of reality. Suspecting that God wants to deceive us or abandon us to our fate is the trap we must not fall into, because it can become a deadly trap. Rather, let us follow the Apostle Paul's invitation in the second reading: "as long as we dwell in the body - for we walk in faith and not in vision - we are full of confidence and prefer to go into exile from the body and dwell with the Lord". (2 Cor 5:6-10).  While we are pilgrims to heaven, let us walk with our feet firmly planted on this earth, but let our heart find its reason for hope and commitment in Christ who already opens wide for us the door to eternal happiness.  Happy Sunday!

+ Giovanni D'Ercole

Commentary Liturgy 10th Sunday in O.T. (9 June 2024)

1. There are two fundamental choices possible in life: to live according to God or to choose to do without God. This is the fundamental option, a decision that originates in the very centre of the person, from the heart, seen as the nucleus of his personality. Fundamental decision that conditions all other choices because it is the basic orientation that concerns the whole of existence. The book of Genesis (chapters 2-3) speaks of this, presenting Adam and Eve in symbolic language in the garden of Eden entrusted to them by God with the task of cultivating and guarding it. At the centre of this garden is the tree of life and "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil", that is, the secret of the knowledge of what makes man happy or deprives him of happiness. And here is God's delivery: 'you may eat of all the trees in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you must not eat, for on the day you eat of it you will surely have to die'.  The truth expressed here is that God created the human person, enriched him with intelligence and free will, and fixed what is good and vital for him. Wanting to define for ourselves in a radical way what is good or bad for us means making ourselves creators of ourselves and in other words wanting to make ourselves similar to God. In the divine plan, the reason for human happiness is God himself adhering to his will, because we are created to live in harmony with him. In his book 'Recognising God at the Centre of Life', a meditation text for the entire liturgical year, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Protestant theologian and pastor who died by hanging on 9 April 1945 in the Flossenbürg concentration camp in Germany, writes that 'to understand each morning in a new way the ancient faithfulness of God, to be able to begin a new life in the company of God every day: this is the gift that God gives us at the dawning of each day'.  

God's original plan was, however, undermined by the tempter serpent who, with deceitful cunning, provoked Eve by insinuating that God had forbidden her to eat of every tree in the garden. The woman rightly replied that according to the Creator's delivery, the fruit of every tree can be eaten, except that of the knowledge of good and evil. She is saying something right, but without realising it she came into contact with the serpent, bewitched by the prospect of becoming like God without needing God and with a simple magic gesture, and allowed herself to be convinced: she took the fruit and ate it, sharing it with Adam, later acknowledging: 'The serpent deceived me and I ate'.  

Beyond the symbolic language, a fundamental truth is spoken here: by detaching himself from God, man runs the risk of no longer even understanding himself and others. The consequence was indeed dramatic: the eyes of both opened and they realised that they were naked and ashamed of each other, compromising the harmonious transparency of their relationship. Satan succeeded in deceiving human beings and ruining the original harmony of creation.

2. From this biblical episode we can draw some useful considerations: human life will now be subject to the temptations of the Evil One, who will try in every way to separate man from his Creator. However perverse human nature may become, the Bible teaches that evil is not intrinsic to man; rather, it is external to him, and only when he allows himself to be seduced and deceived does it open up dangerous paths of sadness and unhappiness for him. After original sin, life is a struggle for everyone and throughout the entire history of salvation, the prophets have always warned the chosen people against Satan's deceptive seductions. But God does not abandon the human creature to himself: where there is sin, divine mercy shines even more brightly. God condemns the serpent: "Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou among all cattle and among all wild beasts". He curses evil, and his wrath in the Bible is always against that which destroys man, since evil does not come from God, nor is it essentially part of human nature. Adam and Eve's aspiration to be like God was quite right and it is also ours, since the Creator has structured us in his image and likeness and the divine breath is our breath. Under Satanic deception, however, our progenitors believed it to be their own achievement to be like God and not a free gift to be cultivated in trusting harmony with him. The adherence of the progenitors to the serpent's temptation has made us all susceptible to evil. But all is not lost, for God addressing the serpent assures him: 'I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed: she shall crush your head and you shall bruise her heel'.  A struggle is therefore envisaged, the outcome of which is already known: it will ultimately be Christ who will win and evil will never have the last word.  Christian theology defines this text from Genesis (3:15) with the term proto-gospel and considers it a prophecy of the future Messiah, called here 'the offspring of the woman', who would redeem humanity itself, snatching it from the condemnation it deserved because of the sin it had committed. God, who never abandons the human creature that has come out of his hands, manifests in this way his infinite mercy, just as he, in condemning humanity, had manifested his justice.

3. "O Father, who sent your Son to deliver man from the power of Satan, increase in us faith and true freedom". So we pray at the beginning of Mass on this Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time. Jesus Christ came into the world to redeem humanity from the bondage of evil. Let us better understand this message of hope by analysing today's page of Mark's gospel. Strangely enough, the behaviour and miracles performed by Jesus appear to some as surprising, even shocking, and everyone tries to come up with an explanation: Jesus is mad for his relatives, whereas for the religious authorities he has even made a pact with the devil. Jesus does not argue with those who think he is a madman, but takes seriously the accusation that he is possessed by the devil. And so we reason: if unity is strength, a family or a group divided within itself will be easy prey for enemies. If, therefore, you say that I cast out demons through their leader Beelzebul, it means that Satan is working against himself, and then he will easily go to ruin. Then follows a short parable that we find more common in Luke's gospel (11:14-26): "No one can enter the house of a strong man and plunder his possessions unless he first binds him. Only then can he plunder his house'.  The strong man in this case is Satan, and if Jesus becomes master of the house having expelled the demons, it means that he is stronger than Satan: he is the triumphant over evil. In the first reading, victory was foretold, and here Jesus presents himself as the one who achieves it. But then follows a warning: "Verily I say unto you, all things shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, sins, and also all blasphemies that they shall utter: but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven for ever: he is guilty of eternal guilt. Once again, we are reassured that God's mercy is infinite, and the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart that we celebrated last Friday reminded us of this well.

4. There is, however, an unforgivable sin that Jesus calls blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. At the beginning of the gospel Mark recounts that Jesus' fame had spread throughout the region, reaching as far as Jerusalem: he healed the sick and those possessed by the devil were set free. Healings and especially expulsion of demons were signs that the kingdom of God had come (cf. Luke 11:20).  However, some scribes and doctors of the law were so far from God that they did not recognise the Lord's work in these wonders. And it is precisely this attitude that is targeted by the Lord because it is that of Satan, the serpent who insinuated to Adam and Eve that God was cheating them because he did not love them. Jesus is not far from treating the scribes as poisonous snakes, he condemns their attitude because they do not recognise God's work. Attributing evil and deceitful intentions to God, that is what Jesus calls "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit". In fact, the very moment Jesus heals or expels a demon, the scribes treat him as a demon himself, instead of recognising him as the victor over Satan. It is the rejection of love, and love can only give itself if it is accepted. Jesus defines this sin as unforgivable: not because it is God who refuses his love and forgiveness, but because it is the hearts of the hermetically closed scribes that become refractory, that is, indifferent, insensitive, unwilling, deaf, to God's love.  And the conclusion of today's gospel makes us realise who the true friends and family of Christ are: 'He who does the will of God, this one is brother and sister and mother to me'.  In the background, these words from the prologue of the Fourth Gospel sound like a warning: "He came among his own, and his own did not receive him. To those who received him, however, he gave power to become children of God" (Jn 1:12). 

A question to close: how many today, by welcoming Christ into their lives, are sincerely willing to fight against the satanic serpent that continues to deceive humanity in so many ways? 

+ Giovanni D'Ercole

P.S. "My dear Malacoda, I note with deep regret that your patient has become a Christian. Do not entertain any hope of escaping the punishments that are usually inflicted in such cases'. Here is a passage from the book I recommend: "The Letters of Berlicche (original title The Screwtape Letters), an epistolary tale written by C.S. Lewis and first published in 1942.

An experienced and highly efficient Satan's official, Berlicche sends his young nephew Malacoda, a devil's apprentice, a series of letters to instruct him in the art of conquering (and damning) his 'patient'. Every manifestation of life, from thought to prayer, from love to friendship, from amusement to social life, from pleasure to work and war: everything is distorted for devilish purposes and becomes an expedient to lose men. The book is very short - just over a hundred pages - and is presented as an epistolary of Berlicche, a long-time devil, in dialogue with his young nephew Malacoda. Of the exchange, as the title suggests, we have only the part of Berlicche. Lewis, in order not to make the reader lose his bearings, opens each of the letters of Berlicche by having the devil give a small summary of what he received from his nephew Malacoda. A good device to make the narrative thread more linear. Before the letters we find a preface in which the author declares that he does not wish to narrate the circumstances in which he received the epistolary and takes the opportunity to remind readers that the Devil is a liar and invites them not to believe Berlicche. Finally, he states that the letters were not put in chronological order so there may be some temporal inconsistencies. Despite the brevity of the book, The Letters of Berlicche are not easy to digest. The pages are filled with elements of philosophy, morality, ethics and religion. God - or The Enemy, as he is called - is the villain of the story. He is a deity who does not really care about mankind but who, because of the way he has constructed his 'marketing', has passed off messages such as charity and mercy. Berlicche's goal is to raise Malacoda as a skilled devil capable of perpetrating the art of temptation and leading his victims astray (good from their point of view). It does so by giving advice and delving into the mechanisms not only of the human mind but also of how temptation itself works. Taking into account the complex themes, the Letters of Berlicche offer a reflection on man, sin and the Christian-Catholic religion. It is a small treatise hidden beneath an apparently light narrative mode but concealing a depth of content difficult to find in other works by Clive Staples Lewis.

*Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland, on 29 November 1898. His career began by teaching English Language and Literature at Oxford University, where he became a close friend of the writer J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings. With Tolkien and others (including Charles Williams) he founded the informal literary circle of the 'Inklings'. C.S. Lewis is not only known for The Chronicles of Narnia series (consisting of 7 books), but also for his books of religious reflection: Christianity As It Is and Surprised by Joy. Also in the wake of fantasy, C.S. Lewis produced a trilogy, written between 1938 and 1945, consisting of the volumes Far from the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Force. Clive Staples Lewis died in Oxford on 22 November 1963.