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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To internalise and live the message:

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

Legalistic conception and hardness of heart

(Mt 19:3-12)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 8 October 2006]

1. The family in the modern world, as much as and perhaps more than any other institution, has been beset by the many profound and rapid changes that have affected society and culture. Many families are living this situation in fidelity to those values that constitute the foundation of the institution of the family. Others have become uncertain and bewildered over their role or even doubtful and almost unaware of the ultimate meaning and truth of conjugal and family life. Finally, there are others who are hindered by various situations of injustice in the realization of their fundamental rights.

Knowing that marriage and the family constitute one of the most precious of human values, the Church wishes to speak and offer her help to those who are already aware of the value of marriage and the family and seek to live it faithfully, to those who are uncertain and anxious and searching for the truth, and to those who are unjustly impeded from living freely their family lives. Supporting the first, illuminating the second and assisting the others, the Church offers her services to every person who wonders about the destiny of marriage and the family.

In a particular way the Church addresses the young, who are beginning their journey towards marriage and family life, for the purpose of presenting them with new horizons, helping them to discover the beauty and grandeur of the vocation to love and the service of life.

[Pope John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Pope Francis, Angelus 7 October 2018]

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B (11 August 2024)

Biblical references: 

First reading: "By the power of that food he walked up to the mountain of God" (1 Kings 19:4-8)

Responsorial Psalm: "Taste and see how good the Lord is" (Psalm 33/34 2-3,4-5) 

Second Reading: "Walk in charity like Christ" (Eph 4,30-5,2)

Gospel: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven" (Jn 6:411-51)

1. God never leaves us alone. In the first reading we meet the prophet Elijah, Eliyyah meaning "My God is Yah" first syllable of God's name. A name that indicates well his characteristics as a prophet who fought a relentless battle against idolatry. At a certain point, however, he felt his strength waning, a situation that can happen to anyone, and being left alone and abandoned by all, he went into the desert in despair to escape Queen Jezebel who wanted to kill him. Drought, famine, loneliness, physical and moral exhaustion: the desert mirrored his inner emptiness made more acute by the fear of death. But God did not abandon him and his flight turned into a pilgrimage to the source of the Jewish faith, Mount Sinai, also called Horeb. God draws him to the Mountain of the Covenant, where he once called Moses (Ex 3) to deliver to him the tablets of the law (Ex 19) and showed him in the darkness of a cave his mysterious radiance (Ex 33:21-23). From that encounter was born the Jewish people liberated from Egyptian slavery, a metaphor for all slavery. In that same place, the new birth will take place for Elijah as the great prophet of Israel. We will get to know all this better with the miracles performed in the house of the widow of Sarepta (1 R 17:7-24) in the next XXXII Sunday of Ordinary Time, today instead we stay with Elijah, who after a day's journey tired and desperate doubts even himself because he becomes aware of his unworthiness. God does not leave him alone and an angel gives him bread, water and above all comfort from Heaven to understand the meaning of his mission. If until then he had defended an all-powerful God who destroys his enemies and had challenged him on Mount Carmel against the 450 priests of Baal, now to discover the true face of God he will have to enter the same cavern of Horeb where Moses saw the Lord: only then will Elijah also understand that the God of Love is not revealed in the hurricane, the earthquake and the fire, but in the murmur of a gentle breeze (1 R 19:12). The first reading today describes her journey of forty days and forty nights to prepare for this encounter. In the Bible, the number forty always indicates a gestation, and what the prophet went through recalls our personal experience: to be born again, one must pass through the desert and receive as a gift the bread and water that restore life when one feels abandoned and lost on the brink of suicide, despair, enslaved to sin and marked by all kinds of physical and moral suffering. Elijah believed himself to be privileged because he was called by God, now he discovers that the prophet is one like the others to whom God entrusts a mission far beyond his strength: he experiences, however, that the Lord does not abandon anyone and there are no situations that escape the power of his mercy. This is echoed in the responsorial psalm: "the poor man cries out and the Lord hears him, rescues him from all his distress" (Psalm 33/34).

2. From here comes an invitation for all: every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we hear the Lord whispering in our hearts: 'Rise up and eat, for long is the road ahead of you'.   

The inner unease of the prophet Elijah appears, albeit in a different context, in the restlessness of Jesus' listeners in the synagogue of Capernaum. Last Sunday, his discourse had stopped at these words: "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall never hunger", expressions that sounded strange and aroused perplexity and criticism in his listeners. The Jewish people knew well that there are two kinds of bread: material bread and spiritual bread, and they knew that the only spiritual bread is the word of God, as we read in Deuteronomy: "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Deut 8:3).  Understandable then the people's question: How can Jesus claim to be the word of God? How can he claim to be the one who brings eternal life, he who is the son of Joseph, a carpenter from Nazareth, and Mary a simple woman from the village? He is one like us and claims to consider himself God? To tell the truth, anyone who stops at Jesus' claims cannot but find them at first sight difficult to understand and accept. No wonder then that, as we will read in the coming Sundays, some of those present abandoned him. The listeners were peasants from Galilee accustomed to having their feet on the ground, worshipping one God and therefore enemies of idolatry. Jesus provokes them and provokes us with a question that touches the heart of Christianity: can Jesus man be God?  Question, the heart of the Christian faith that always questions and awaits a personal answer. Jesus perceives the mumbling of the people as a refusal to believe and reacts forcefully: "do not murmur among yourselves". This command on Jesus' lips recalls the severe rebuke related to unbelief, the original sin of Israel, which murmured and rebelled against God and Moses in the desert during the forty years of the exodus. It is the temptation of every believer. But Jesus continues his discourse with patient pedagogy and reiterates one after the other the fundamental points of his revelation: Yes, I am the word of God, I am the one who gives eternal life, I am the Son of God, and in confirmation he refers to the prophets who had assured: "And all shall be taught of God".

3. Yes, 'I am the bread of life' and he adds: 'this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that whoever eats of it will not perish'. The mistrust, doubts and murmurings of the listeners and even of the disciples also affect us - we should not be surprised - because to overcome the scandal of the incarnation, of Christ's death on the cross, it is indispensable to humbly listen to the voice of the Spirit who invites us to always and totally trust in God: We are saved only by God. All this is the mystery of the 'Eucharistic bread', the real presence of divine life in Jesus Christ, the presence of the Holy Trinity. If faith does not open the heart to humbly listening to the Holy Spirit, we risk reducing it all to a liturgical rite that we simply call 'the Mass'.  St John does not recount the institution of the Eucharist during the Last Supper and replaces it with the prophetic gesture of the washing of the feet, making clear the inseparable link that unites the Eucharist to the New Commandment of love and service. Some say that it is more important to do good to others than to attend Mass. Beware lest we lose sight of the fact that the fullness of evangelical love linked to the Eucharistic mystery must never be reduced to charitable, social and solidarity work. Only the faithful sharing in the Eucharist of the 'bread of life' that is God himself Love who gives himself freely opens the Christian's heart to the total gift of love.  But it can happen that we approach the celebration of the Eucharist thinking we are sharing a religious rite without understanding that instead it is welcoming into our poor existence the One who is the glory of God and the salvation of the world.  When we gather on Sunday it is not to do the most beautiful and important prayer together, but for something else: we participate in a real and living way in the very life of God - the Trinity. We can say that there is the Eucharist, Body of Christ, because the Holy Spirit "transfigures" the bread and wine into the identity of Jesus Christ, the same Spirit that Jesus with his "authority" sends for this transformation. If Jesus did not send the Spirit, the bread and wine would remain as they are; and if the Spirit were not present, no power could replace it, because Jesus' power is signified and activated by the Holy Spirit. When Christ is separated from his Spirit, the plan of God the Trinity Mercy is dissolved. In the Christian tradition, Christ and the Spirit are held closely together for the understanding of the Eucharist. And the heart of the Eucharistic celebration is sealed by the celebrant praying thus: 'Through Christ, with Christ and in Christ to you, God the Father Almighty in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honour and glory for ever and ever'.   The final Amen of the whole assembly is indispensable because it is a solemn and much needed proclamation of assent and consent: it is the signature that allows us to contemplate the glory of God through Jesus. St Jerome said that the Amen resounds like thunder from heaven (from the "Dialogues against the Luciferians", in Latin: "Dialogus contra Luciferianos).

• +Giovanni D’Ercole

P.S. The Apostle Paul invites us in the second reading from the Epistle to the Ephesians to be imitators, that is, friends of God (Eph 5:1), and this imitation is none other than our identification with Christ: as Christ loved us, "walk in charity". Linking this to the words of Jesus in Capernaum, we understand that no one can understand the Eucharist unless they are instructed and drawn by God's love. We read in the gospel: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him" (Jn 6:44).  God alone knows God and that is why Jesus says that one must be instructed by God's light to enter into the mystery of the bread of life.  The Eucharist is the sign par excellence of God's covenant with humanity, it is the original expression of his love, realised by Jesus in human flesh like ours. Love indicated by the offering and sacrifice of his body and blood, celebrated every time we remember the death and resurrection of the One whom in hope we await to come in glory.

The itinerary of the creature (and of the Church) that realizes in itself the victory of Life over death

Mary is an icon of how to find the right path, from which the events of life can step us away or take us away.

Emblem of those who are on their own conformal story in person, Gem of comparison so as not to betray our identity-vocational character and innate disposition.

Like her however giving in; nevertheless, changing. And thus realizing our true nature, in the pilgrimage towards the Core of being - because present to things, in the different ways of taking field in the world, clearly.

Her soul possessed a youthful freshness, an ability to approach herself without however losing the scope of the comparisons: in noticing, living of every Gift.

Whoever follows her style embraces and adores the unexpected, and when the Novelty of the Spirit breaks in, the heart immediately makes room for it.

The attitude of his soul did not turn to the banal repetition: amazed by a Word, stunned by the Unexpected, surprised by a Wound.

Itinerant, she taught to open the will and mind to new paths that not only dodged but even flew over the preponderant of conditionings.

She spontaneously activated flows of possibilities that put so many habits behind, without even fighting them.

Mary disposed herself to grasp the variations, the nuances of the soul; even the unusual feelings that maybe we repudise to attribute to her and that instead she felt. Sometimes even getting lost in the labyrinths of a frightening epochal struggle with the «dragon», the ideology of power.

A full life, as a family mother, not as an incorporeal creature that withdraws, and only modest.

Nothing naive and enslaved. Free woman, Mary leaves without asking for authorization of the delayed, hierarchical and still patriarchal society.

And she does not associate herself with reassuring caravans, because she’s not a person of a pack but of novelty.

She didn’t walk along the Jordan, which was the most travelled and safest road. But why to risk life in hostile land? Because love knows no obstacle.

And exuberance doesn’t repeat conformity. Life flowing from Galilee to Judaea, that is, from the periphery to the center.

So she agreed to make cohabit in herself and make the variegated situations coexistent with the facets of the many appeals, the afflatus of the care and the spirit of decision - as an emancipated person.

As today’s Liturgy expresses, the Woman accepted the Desert but found a Refuge, «forgetting her people and her father’s house».

Solidarity, Sobriety, Silence: the experience of the Exodus. Novelty, Fraternity and Person’s Horizon: that allow the rediscovery of one’s own ‘seed’ - and the sense of the Church.

Mary is a sign of the paradoxical existence of the believer, who knows his baseness and the Unpredictable of God: in her travel we recognize the ideal path of our journey.

We cannot ignore that in the world sometimes strength prevails over weakness, need makes love pale, decline seems to ridicule life...

But in the dialectic of losing ourselves in order to find ourselves, we introduce new energies; like Her, we acquire an ability to see the graves wide open, grasping life even in places of death.

In this way, Lk is the evangelist who celebrates the reversals of the situations [pharisee and tax collector, first and last place, unruly son and firstborn, so on].

In such reverses Life in the Spirit does not manifest itself as a reply that reassures or sacralizes positions, but as an attitude to gain in loss; a flowering, in the bitterness of the cross.

Knowing how to find opportunities for growth even in the apparent degradation.

And in us? The redefinition of what is "deal or humiliation" can become redeemed history, the authentic disruptive force in the course of events, and of any situation.

In the defenceless and incapable of miracle there is in fact the perception of a power that knows how to recover the whole being. Virtue that reassembles the harmony of the vital wave.

Project that wants to raise the poor from garbage, to turn us into masterpieces - starting from the truth of lowest and beggar roots [where we are ourselves].

The challenge of Faith is open.

The itinerary of the creature (and of the Church) who realises in herself the victory of Life over death

Mary is Icon of how to find the right path, from which the vicissitudes of life can lead us away or take us away.

Emblem of those who are on their own and conforming path, Gem of comparison for not betraying our identity-vocational character and innate disposition.

Like Her, however, surrendering ourselves; yet changing. And thus realising our true nature, in the pilgrimage towards the Core of Being - being present to things, in the different ways of being in the world, sharply.

His soul possessed a youthful freshness, an ability to approach itself without losing the scope of feedback: in realising, living from every Gift.

Those who follow his style embrace and adore the unexpected, and when the Newness of the Spirit suddenly bursts in, they immediately know how to make room for it.

The attitude of his soul did not turn to banal repetitiveness: amazed by a Word, stunned by the unexpected, surprised by a Wound.

Itinerant, she taught to open the heart and mind to new paths that not only dodged but even flew over the preponderance of conditioning.

She spontaneously activated streams of possibilities that put so many habits behind them, without even fighting them.

Maria disposed herself to grasp the variants, the nuances of the soul; even the unaccustomed feelings that we may be loathe to attribute to her and which she felt instead. Sometimes even losing herself in the labyrinths of a frightening struggle with the 'dragon', the ideology of power.

A full life, as a mother of a family, not as an incorporeal creature who only recoils.

Nothing naive or subservient. A free woman, Maria sets off without asking for permission from the backward, hierarchical and still patriarchal society.

And she does not associate herself with reassuring caravans, because she is not a person of the herd but of novelty.

She did not set out along the Jordan, which was the beaten and safe road. But why risk your life in a hostile land? Because love knows no obstacle.

And exuberance does not repeat conformity. Life that flows from Galilee to Judea, that is, from the periphery to the official religious centre, never vice versa.

Not infrequently, for the devout in an observant territory, any announcement of life and any novelty are perceived with extreme distrust [an attack on one's security and personal offence, instead of service].

This is why when she arrives at the house of the man of worship she does not even 'greet' him. Elizabeth (she too seems to be a forgotten one) cultivated the promise ["Elì-shébet" the Lord My-Personal has sworn; as in "God is faithful to Me"].

He Zechariah ["Zachar-Ja" the Lord yes but not Mine but of Israel "remembers"; OK, God does not suffer amnesia but has been, has been... and who knows when 'He comes']. He could not move from religiosity to Faith.

Usual cliché, not innate ability:

In ancient religions the priest is the elder of great reminiscences. He makes devout memories - all right - but as if still in a museum, almost embalming temporal decay.

The man of the cult is part of a class that likes to frequent the places that count; refractory to a Spirit that insists and appeals, that throws life [also of institutes] into the air by breaching and inflaming consciences, to stir up situations.

Here instead is the poor woman. She prophesies - like the first communities of evangelisation that are represented there in a watermark.

She was not a legal person in that culture, rather a non-person, who even had to ask permission from her son, about everything.

The opposite of authority and officialdom (inside and outside the House), who remained incapable of communicating anything: not 'blessed' but unhappy; 'mute' because he had nothing more to say to those waiting outside the Temple.

Nothing vital and no real blessing to pass on to people; zero with which to fill the existence of his neighbour.

So the Soul Bride girl is the one who seems to ignore the still practitioner of the sacred and the ritual!

She does not even speak to him - for she is destined for 'heavenly glory', not to be drawn into the minutiae of reasoning and a rationality that makes love pale.

Creature and authentic community that reflects Jesus.

Instead, it teaches us to do our part, precisely by attempting to allow the things we like and the dissimilarities that arise to coexist.

All this, without inhibitions - seeking the Meaning of contradictions instead of taming them regardless; because one-sidedness would have made her fragile, arid, incomplete.

So she accepted to make the multifaceted situations cohabit within her and make them coexist with the facets of the many appeals, the afflatus of caring and the spirit of decision - as an emancipated woman.

As today's Liturgy recites, the Assumption accepted the Desert but found a Refuge, "forgetting her people and her father's house".Solidarity, Sobriety, Silence: the Exodus experience. Novelty, Fraternity and Person Horizon that enable the rediscovery of one's seed - and the meaning of the Church.

Mary teaches the paradoxical existence of the believer, who knows his lowliness and the Unpredictability of God: in her story we recognise the ideal path of our journey.

We cannot ignore that in the world sometimes strength prevails over weakness, need makes love pale, decline seems to ridicule life...

But in the dialectic of losing oneself in order to find oneself again, we introduce new energies; we acquire, like her, an ability to see graves wide open, glimpsing life even in places of death.

In this way, Lk is the evangelist who celebrates the reversals of situations [Pharisee and publican, first and last place, scape-goat son and first-born; and so on].

In these reversals, Life in the Spirit does not reveal itself as a replication that reassures or sanctifies positions, but as an attitude of gain in loss; a flowering in the bitterness of the cross.

A knowing how to find opportunities for growth even in the apparent degradation of the corrupt [even pious and respectable] world.

And in us? The redefinition of what is 'affair or humiliation' can become redeemed history, the authentic disruptive force in the course of events, and of any affair.

Indeed, in the helpless and incapable of miracles lies the perception of a power that can reclaim the whole being. Virtue that recomposes the harmony of the vital wave.

Project that wants to raise the poor from the rubbish, to transform us into masterpieces - starting from the truth of pitocche radici [where we are ourselves].

The challenge of Faith is open.

Dear brothers and sisters,

In the heart of August Christians of both East and West jointly celebrate the Feast of the Assumption into Heaven of Mary Most Holy. In the Catholic Church the Dogma of the Assumption — as is well known — was proclaimed in the Holy Year of 1950 by my venerable Predecessor, the Servant of God Pope Pius XII. The roots of this commemoration, however, are deeply embedded in the faith of the early centuries of the Church.

In the East, it is still known today as the “Dormition of the Virgin”. An ancient mosaic in the Basilica of St Mary Major, Rome, that was inspired precisely by the Eastern image of the “Dormitio”, portrays the Apostles, who, alerted by Angels of the end of the earthly life of the Mother of Jesus, gathered at the Virgin’s bedside. In the centre is Jesus, who has a little girl in his arms: she is Mary, who has become “little” for the Kingdom, being taken to Heaven by the Lord.

In the passage of today’s liturgy from St Luke’s Gospel, we read that “in those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah” (Lk 1:39). In those days Mary hastened from Galilee to a little town in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem to go and see her kinswoman Elizabeth. Today we contemplate her going up towards God’s mountain and entering the heavenly Jerusalem, “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Rev 12:1).

The biblical passage of the Book of Revelation, which we read in the liturgy of this Solemnity, speaks of a struggle between the woman and the dragon, between good and evil. St John seems to be presenting to us anew the very first pages of the Book of Genesis that recount the dark and tragic event of the sin of Adam and Eve. Our first parents were defeated by the Evil One; in the fullness of time, Jesus, the new Adam, and Mary, the new Eve, were to triumph over the enemy once and for all, and this is the joy of this day! With Jesus' victory over evil, inner and physical death are also defeated.

Mary was the first to take in her arms Jesus, the Son of God, become a child; she is now the first to be beside him in the glory of Heaven.

Today we are celebrating a great mystery. It is above all a mystery of hope and joy for all of us: in Mary we see the destination for which are bound all who can interpret their life according to the life of Jesus, who are able to follow him as Mary did. This Feast, then, speaks of our future. It tells us that we too shall be beside Jesus in God’s joy and invites us to take heart, to believe that the power of Christ’s Resurrection can also work in us, making us men and women who seek every day to live as risen ones, bringing the light of goodness into the darkness of the evil in the world.

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 15 August 2011]

2. Truly, it would be difficult to find a moment when Mary could have uttered with greater transport the words she once spoke after the annunciation, when, having become the virginal Mother of the Son of God, she visited the house of Zechariah to care for Elizabeth;

"My soul doth magnify the Lord ...

Great things the Almighty has done in me, and holy is his name' (Lk 1:46, 49).

If these words had their full and superabundant motivation on Mary's lips when she, immaculate, became the mother of the eternal Word, they reach their definitive culmination today.

Mary who, thanks to her faith (so exalted by Elizabeth) at that moment still under the veil of mystery, entered the tabernacle of the most holy Trinity, today enters the eternal dwelling, in full intimacy with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in the beatific vision 'face to face'. And this vision, as the inexhaustible source of perfect love, fills his whole being with the fullness of glory and happiness. Thus the assumption is, at the same time, the 'crowning' of Mary's entire life, of her unique vocation, among all the members of humanity, to be the Mother of God. It is the 'crowning' of the faith that she, 'full of grace', demonstrated during the annunciation and that Elizabeth, her relative, so emphasised and exalted during the visitation.

Truly we can repeat today, following Revelation: 'The sanctuary of God was opened in heaven and the ark of the covenant appeared in the sanctuary... Then I heard a great voice in heaven saying, 'Now salvation is accomplished, and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the might of his Christ'" (Rev 11:19; 12:1O).

The kingdom of God in her who always desired to be only "the handmaid of the Lord". The power of her Anointed One, that is, of Christ, the power of the love he brought to earth like a fire (cf. Lk 12:49); the power revealed in the glorification of she who through her "fiat" made it possible for him to come to this earth, to become man; the power revealed in the glorification of the Immaculate, in the glorification of his own mother.

3. "...Christ is risen from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have died. For if for a man's sake death came, for a man's sake the resurrection of the dead will also come; and as all die in Adam, so shall all receive life in Christ. But each in his own order: first Christ, who is the firstfruits; then, at his coming, those who are Christ's" (1 Cor 15:20-23).

Mary's assumption is a special gift of the Risen One to his mother. If, in fact, "those who are Christ's" "will receive life" "at his coming", then it is right and understandable that this participation in the victory over death should be experienced first by her, the Mother herself; she who is "Christ's" in a fuller manner: in fact, he too belongs to her as the son belongs to the Mother. And she belongs to him: she is, in a special way, "of Christ", because she was loved and redeemed in an altogether singular way. She who in her very human conception was immaculate - that is, free from sin, the consequence of which is death - by the same fact, was she not to be free from death, which is the consequence of sin? Was not that "coming" of Christ, of which the Apostle speaks in today's second reading, "supposed" to be accomplished, in this one case exceptionally, so to speak, "immediately", that is, at the moment of the conclusion of earthly life? For her, I repeat, in whom his first 'coming' was fulfilled, in Nazareth and in the night of Bethlehem? Therefore that end of life, which for all men is death, in Mary's case tradition rightly calls it rather dormancy.

"Assumpta est Maria in caelum, gaudent Angeli! Et gaudet Ecclesia!"

4. For us, today's solemnity is almost a continuation of Easter: of the resurrection and ascension of the Lord. And it is, at the same time, the sign and source of the hope of eternal life and the future resurrection. Of this sign we read in the Apocalypse of John: "Then there appeared a great sign in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars" (Rev 12:1).

And although our life on earth takes place, constantly, in the tension of that struggle between the dragon and the woman, of which the same book of holy Scripture speaks; although we are daily subjected to the struggle between good and evil, in which man has participated since original sin - from the time, that is, when he ate "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil", as we read in the book of Genesis (Gen 2:17; 3:12): although this struggle sometimes takes on dangerous and frightening forms, nevertheless that sign of hope persists and is constantly renewed in the faith of the Church -.And today's feast allows us to look at this sign, the great sign of the divine economy of salvation, with confidence and all the greater joy.

It allows us to look forward to this sign of victory, of not succumbing, in the final analysis, to evil and sin, as we await the day when all will be accomplished by the one who has brought victory over death: the Son of Mary; then he will "hand over" the kingdom to God the Father, having reduced to nothing all principality and all power and might" (1Cor 15:24) and will place all enemies under his feet and will annihilate, the last enemy, death (cf. 1Cor 15:25).

Dear brothers and sisters, let us joyfully participate in today's Eucharist! Let us confidently receive the body of Christ, mindful of his words: "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day" (Jn 6:54).

And today let us venerate her who gave Christ our human body: the Immaculate and Assumption, who is the bride of the Holy Spirit and our mother!

[Pope John Paul II, homily 15 August 1980]

Il Vangelo lucano evidenzia la Visita di Maria ad Elisabetta sua cugina e la danza dei due Piccoli portati in grembo da donne speciali, abbracciate in modo diverso dalla Grazia.

Maria, la Madre di Gesù, si  esprime nel  canto di lode del Magnificat, che rimanda a Dio i benefici straordinari ricevuti.

Fin dagli inizi della sua chiamata, Francesco ebbe particolare e profonda venerazione per Maria Vergine, Madre del Signore.

Di lei contemplava sempre i misteri nelle varie stagioni della sua vita.

Le Fonti forniscono stupendi quadretti in merito.

“Circondava di un amore indicibile la Madre di Gesù, perché aveva reso nostro fratello il Signore della maestà.

A suo onore cantava lodi particolari, innalzava preghiere, offriva affetti tanti e tali che lingua umana non potrebbe esprimere.

Ma ciò che maggiormente riempie di gioia, la costituì Avvocata dell’Ordine e pose sotto le sue ali i figli […] perché vi trovassero calore e protezione sino alla fine” (FF 786).

“In lei, principalmente, dopo Cristo, riponeva la sua fiducia […] In suo onore digiunava con grande devozione, dalla festa degli apostoli Pietro e Paolo fino alla festa dell’Assunzione […]” (FF 1165).

E alle figlie, dimoranti a S. Damiano, Francesco in una sua composizione a loro dedicata, conclude dicendo:

«Quelle ke sunt adgravate de infirmitate/ et l’altre ke per loro suó adfatigate/ tutte quante lo sostengate en pace./ Ka multo venderi(te) cara questa fatica,/ lka ciascuna serà regina/ en celo coronata cum la Vergine Maria» (FF 263).

E Chiara, quando iniziò il suo cammino di fede seguendo Francesco, fu ricevuta da lui e dai suoi frati presso l’altare della S.ta Vergine alla Porziuncola. Inoltre, quella stessa Madre, al momento del trapasso, venne a prenderla apparendole presso il suo giaciglio.

Maria fu per Chiara modello da seguire per tutta la sua esistenza, tanto che nella Lettera d’introduzione alla Leggenda, nelle Fonti, si legge:

"Seguano dunque gli uomini i nuovi seguaci del Verbo incarnato: imitino le donne Chiara, impronta della Madre di Dio, nuova guida delle donne" (FF 3153).

Francesco e Chiara assunsero Maria, la Madre di Dio, nel loro vivere quotidiano per essere assunti da Cristo nella gloria celeste.

«L’anima mia magnifica il Signore […] poiché ha rivolto lo sguardo alla bassezza della sua serva. Ecco infatti, d’ora in poi tutte le generazioni mi chiameranno beata» (Lc 1,46.48a).

Assunzione B.V. Maria (Lc 1,39-56)