(Mt 5:20-26)

«I tell you in fact that unless your righteousness will abound more [that] of the scribes and pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven»

In the churches of Galilee and Syria there were different and conflicting opinions about the Law of Moses: for some an absolute to be fulfilled even in detail, for others now a meaningless frill (v.22).

The disputants went so far as to insult, to ridicule the opposing party.

[But as the Tao Tê Ching (xxx) says: «Where the militias are stationed, thorns and brambles are born». Master Wang Pi comments: «He who promotes himself causes unrest, because he strives to affirm his merits»].

Mt helps all community brothers and sisters to understand the content of the ancient Scriptures and grasp the attitude of "continuity and cut" given by the Lord: «You have heard that [...] Now I say to you» (vv.21-22).

The ‘arrow’ of the ancient codes was shot in the right direction, but only understanding its range in the spirit of concordance sustains trajectory to the point of providing the energy needed to hit the “target”.

The ideal of ancient religiosity was to present oneself pure before God, and in this sense the Scribes official theologians of the Sanhedrin emphasised the value of the rules that they believed were nestled in the ‘prison of the lettering’ of the First Testament.

The Sadducees - the priestly class - focused on the sacrificial observances of the Torah alone. The Pharisees, leaders of popular religiosity, emphasised the respect for all traditional customs.

The teaching of professionals of the sacred produced in the people a sense of legalistic oppression that obscured the spirit of the Word of God and of Tradition itself.

Jesus brings out the goal: the greater Justice of Love.

The splendor, beauty and richness of the Glory of the living God is not produced in observing, but in the ability to manifest Him Present.

Right standing before the Father becomes - in Jesus' proposal - the ‘right position’ before one's own history and that of one’s neighbor.

First «debt» is therefore the global understanding: here the Eternal is revealed.

Justice is not the product of the accumulation of righteous deeds, in view of merit: this would manifest narrowness, detachment and arrogance (a type of man of unquestioning thought).

The new Justice chases complicity with evil up to the secret roots of the heart and ideas. But not to accentuate the sense of guilt, nor to make us pursues external dreams.

Observance that does not abide in friendship, in tolerance even of oneself, in Christ who orients, would arise from an ambiguous relationship with the norm and doctrines.

We can overlook the childish need for approval.

The Life of God transpires in a world not of sterilised or one-sided pure and phlegmatic, but in a conviviality of differences that resembles Him.

To internalize and live the message:

Where do you find the emotional nourishment you need?

What do you think of exclusive groups and their idea of ​​the ultimate court?

 [Friday 1st wk. in Lent, March 14, 2025]

If man is not reconciled with God, he is also in conflict with creation. He is not reconciled with himself, he would like to be something other than what he is and consequently he is not reconciled with his neighbour either. Part of reconciliation is also the ability to acknowledge guilt and to ask forgiveness from God and from others. Lastly, part of the process of reconciliation is also the readiness to do penance, the willingness to suffer deeply for one's sin and to allow oneself to be transformed. Part of this is the gratuitousness of which the Encyclical Caritas in Veritate speaks repeatedly: the readiness to do more than what is necessary, not to tally costs, but to go beyond merely legal requirements. Part of this is the generosity which God himself has shown us. We think of Jesus' words: "If you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (Mt 5: 23ff.). God, knowing that we were unreconciled and seeing that we have something against him, rose up and came to meet us, even though he alone was in the right. He came to meet us even to the Cross, in order to reconcile us. This is what it means to give freely: a willingness to take the first step; to be the first to reach out to the other, to offer reconciliation, to accept the suffering entailed in giving up being in the right. To persevere in the desire for reconciliation: God gave us an example, and this is the way for us to become like him; it is an attitude constantly needed in our world. Today we must learn once more how to acknowledge guilt, we must shake off the illusion of being innocent. We must learn how to do penance, to let ourselves be transformed; to reach out to the other and to let God give us the courage and strength for this renewal.

[Pope Benedict, Address to the Roman Curia 21 December 2009]

1. In the Gospels we find another fact that attests to Jesus' consciousness of possessing divine authority, and the persuasion that the evangelists and the early Christian community had of this authority. In fact, the Synoptics agree in saying that Jesus' listeners "were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes" (Mk 1:22; Mt 7:29; Lk 4:32). This is valuable information that Mark gives us from the very beginning of his Gospel. It attests to the fact that the people had immediately grasped the difference between Christ's teaching and that of the Israelite scribes, and not only in the manner, but in the very substance: the scribes based their teaching on the text of the Mosaic Law, of which they were the interpreters and commentators; Jesus did not at all follow the method of a "teacher" or a "commentator" of the ancient Law, but behaved like a legislator and, ultimately, like one who had authority over the Law. Note: the listeners were well aware that this was the divine Law, given by Moses by virtue of power that God himself had granted him as his representative and mediator with the people of Israel.

The evangelists and the early Christian community who reflected on that observation of the listeners about Jesus' teaching, realised even better its full significance, because they could compare it with the whole of Christ's subsequent ministry. For the Synoptics and their readers, it was therefore logical to move from the affirmation of a power over the Mosaic Law and the entire Old Testament to that of the presence of a divine authority in Christ. And not only as in an Envoy or Legate of God as it had been in the case of Moses: Christ, by attributing to himself the power to authoritatively complete and interpret or even give in a new way the Law of God, showed his consciousness of being "equal to God" (cf. Phil 2:6).

2. That Christ's power over the Law involves divine authority is shown by the fact that he does not create another Law by abolishing the old one: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish but to fulfil" (Mt 5:17). It is clear that God could not "abolish" the Law that he himself gave. He can instead - as Jesus Christ does - clarify its full meaning, make its proper sense understood, correct the false interpretations and arbitrary applications, to which the people and their own teachers and leaders, yielding to the weaknesses and limitations of the human condition, have bent it.

This is why Jesus announces, proclaims and demands a "righteousness" superior to that of the scribes and Pharisees (cf. Mt 5:20), the "righteousness" that God Himself has proposed and demands with the faithful observance of the Law in order to the "kingdom of heaven". The Son of Man thus acts as a God who re-establishes what God has willed and placed once and for all.

3. For of the Law of God he first of all proclaims: "Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, not one iota or one sign of the law shall pass away, and all things shall be fulfilled" (Matt 5:18). It is a drastic statement, with which Jesus wants to affirm both the substantial immutability of the Mosaic Law and the messianic fulfilment it receives in his word. It is about a "fullness" of the Old Law, which he, teaching "as one who has authority" over the Law, shows to be manifested above all in love of God and neighbour. "On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Mt 22:40). It is a "fulfilment" corresponding to the "spirit" of the Law, which already transpires from the "letter" of the Old Testament, which Jesus grasps, synthesises, and proposes with the authority of one who is Lord also of the Law. The precepts of love, and also of the faith that generates hope in the messianic work, which he adds to the ancient Law, making its content explicit and developing its hidden virtues, are also a fulfilment.

His life is a model of this fulfilment, so that Jesus can say to his disciples not only and not so much: Follow my Law, but: Follow me, imitate me, walk in the light that comes from me.

4. The Sermon on the Mount, as recorded by Matthew, is the place in the New Testament where one sees Jesus clearly affirmed and decisively exercised the power over the Law that Israel received from God as the cornerstone of the covenant. It is there that, after having declared the perennial value of the Law and the duty to observe it (Mt 5:18-19), Jesus goes on to affirm the need for a "justice" superior to "that of the scribes and Pharisees", that is, an observance of the Law animated by the new evangelical spirit of charity and sincerity.

The concrete examples are well known. The first consists in the victory over wrath, resentment, and malice that easily lurk in the human heart, even when an outward observance of the Mosaic precepts can be exhibited, including the precept not to kill: "You have heard that it was said to the ancients: 'You shall not kill; whoever kills shall be brought into judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother shall be brought into judgment" (Mt 5:21-22). The same thing applies to anyone who offends another with insulting words, with jokes and mockery. It is the condemnation of every yielding to the instinct of aversion, which potentially is already an act of injury and even of killing, at least spiritually, because it violates the economy of love in human relationships and hurts others, and to this condemnation Jesus intends to counterpose the Law of charity that purifies and reorders man down to the innermost feelings and movements of his spirit. Jesus makes fidelity to this Law an indispensable condition of religious practice itself: "If therefore you present your offering at the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go first to be reconciled with your brother and then return to offer your gift" (Mt 5:23-24). Since it is a law of love, it is even irrelevant who it is that has something against the other in his heart: the love preached by Jesus equals and unifies everyone in wanting what is good, in establishing or restoring harmony in relations with one's neighbour, even in cases of disputes and legal proceedings (cf. Mt 5:25).

5. Another example of perfecting the Law is that concerning the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, in which Moses forbade adultery. In hyperbolic and even paradoxical language, designed to draw the attention and shake the mood of his listeners, Jesus announces. "You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery, but I say to you . . ." (Mt 5:27); and he also condemns impure looks and desires, while recommending the flight from opportunities, the courage of mortification, the subordination of all acts and behaviour to the demands of the salvation of the soul and of the whole man (cf. Mt 5:29-30).

This case is related in a certain way to another one that Jesus immediately addresses: "It was also said: Whoever repudiates his wife, let him give her the act of repudiation; but I say to you . . ." and declares forfeited the concession made by the old Law to the people of Israel "because of the hardness of their hearts" (cf. Mt 19:8), prohibiting also this form of violation of the law of love in harmony with the re-establishment of the indissolubility of marriage (cf. Mt 19:9).

6. With the same procedure, Jesus contrasts the ancient prohibition of perjury with that of not swearing at all (Mt 5, 33-38), and the reason that emerges quite clearly is still founded in love: one must not be incredulous or distrustful of one's neighbour, when he is habitually frank and loyal, and rather one must on the one hand and on the other follow this fundamental law of speech and action: "Let your language be yes, if it is yes; no, if it is no. The more is from the evil one" (Mt 5:37).

7. And again: "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; but I say to you, do not oppose the evil one...'" (Mt 5:38-39), and in metaphorical language Jesus teaches to turn the other cheek, to surrender not only one's tunic but also one's cloak, not to respond violently to the anguish of others, and above all: "Give to those who ask you and to those who seek a loan from you do not turn your back" (Mt 5:42). Radical exclusion of the law of retribution in the personal life of the disciple of Jesus, whatever the duty of society to defend its members from wrongdoers and to punish those guilty of violating the rights of citizens and the state itself.

8. And here is the definitive refinement, in which all the others find their dynamic centre: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy; but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for your persecutors, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, who makes his sun rise on the wicked and on the good, and makes it rain on the just and on the unjust . . ." (Mt 5:43-45). To the vulgar interpretation of the ancient Law that identified the neighbour with the Israelite and indeed with the pious Israelite, Jesus opposes the authentic interpretation of God's commandment and adds to it the religious dimension of the reference to the clement and merciful heavenly Father, who benefits all and is therefore the supreme exemplar of universal love.

Indeed, Jesus concludes: "Be... perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48). He demands of his followers the perfection of love. The new law he brings has its synthesis in love. This love will make man overcome the classic friend-enemy opposition in his relations with others, and will tend from within hearts to translate into corresponding forms of social and political solidarity, even institutionalised. The irradiation of the 'new commandment' of Jesus will therefore be very broad in history.

9. At this point, we would particularly like to note that in the important passages of the "Sermon on the Mount", the contrast is repeated: "You have heard that it was said . . . But I say to you"; and this is not to "abolish" the divine Law of the old covenant, but to indicate its "perfect fulfilment", according to the meaning intended by God the Lawgiver, which Jesus illuminates with a new light and explains in all its fulfilling value of new life and generator of new history: and he does so by attributing to himself an authority that is that of God the Lawgiver. It can be said that in that expression repeated six times: I say to you, there resounds the echo of that self-definition of God, which Jesus also attributed to himself: "I am" (cf. Jn 8:58).

10. Finally, one must recall the answer that Jesus gave to the Pharisees, who reproached his disciples for plucking the ears of grain from the fields full of wheat in order to eat them on the Sabbath, thus violating the Mosaic law. Jesus first cites to them the example of David and his companions who did not hesitate to eat the "offering loaves" to feed themselves, and that of the priests who on the Sabbath day did not observe the law of rest because they performed their duties in the temple. Then he concludes with two peremptory statements, unheard of for the Pharisees: "Now I say to you that there is something greater here than the temple . . .", and: "The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath" (Mt 12:6.8; cf. Mk 2:27-28). These are statements that clearly reveal the consciousness Jesus had of his divine authority. Calling himself "one above the temple" was a quite clear allusion to his divine transcendence. Then proclaiming himself "lord of the Sabbath", i.e. of a Law given by God himself to Israel, was an open proclamation of his authority as the head of the messianic kingdom and promulgator of the new Law. It was therefore not a matter of mere derogations from the Mosaic Law, admitted even by the rabbis in very restricted cases, but of a reintegration, a completion and a renewal that Jesus enunciates as eternal: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Mt 24:35). What comes from God is eternal, as God is eternal.

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 14 October 1987]

This […] Gospel continues the “Sermon on the Mount”: Jesus’ first great preaching. Today’s theme is Jesus’ attitude toward the Jewish Law. He says: “Think not that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them” (Mt 5:17). Jesus did not want to do away with the Commandments that the Lord had given through Moses; rather, he wanted to bring them to fulfilment. He then added that this “fulfilment” of the Law requires a higher kind justice, a more authentic observance. In fact, he says to his disciples: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:20).

But what does this “fulfilment” of the Law mean? What is this superior justice? Jesus himself answers this question with a few examples. Jesus was practical and he always used examples to make himself understood, comparing the old Law with his teachings. He begins with the fifth of the Ten Commandments: “You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shalt not kill’ ... But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to council” (v. 21-22). In this way, Jesus reminds us that words can kill! When we say that a person has the tongue of a snake, what does that mean? That their words kill! Not only is it wrong to take the life of another, but it is also wrong to bestow the poison of anger upon him, strike him with slander, and speak ill of him.

This brings us to gossip: gossip can also kill, because it kills the reputation of the person! It is so terrible to gossip! At first it may seem like a nice thing, even amusing, like enjoying a candy. But in the end, it fills the heart with bitterness, and even poisons us. What I am telling you is true, I am convinced that if each one of us decided to avoid gossiping, we would eventually become holy! What a beautiful path that is! Do we want to become holy? Yes or no? [The people: Yes!] Do we want to be attached to the habit of gossip? Yes or no? [The people: No!] So we agree then: no gossiping! Jesus offers the perfection of love to those who follow him: love is the only measure that has no measure, to move past judgements.

Love of neighbour is a fundamental attitude that Jesus speaks of, and he says that our relationship with God cannot be honest if we are not willing to make peace with our neighbour. He says: “So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (v. 23-24). Therefore we are called to reconcile with our neighbour before showing our devotion to the Lord in prayer.

In all of this we see that Jesus does not give importance simply to disciplinary compliance and exterior conduct. He goes to the Law’s roots focusing, first and foremost, on the intention and the human heart, from which our good and bad actions originate. To obtain good and honest conduct, legal rules are not enough. We need a deep motivation, an expression of a hidden wisdom, God’s wisdom, which can be received through the Holy Spirit. Through faith in Christ, we can open ourselves to the action of the Spirit which enable us to experience divine love.

In the light of Christ’s teaching, every precept reveals its full meaning as a requirement of love, and they all come together in the greatest commandment: to love God with all of your heart and to love your neighbour as yourself.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 16 February 2014]

God bless us and may the Virgin protect us! 

First Sunday in Lent (year C) 9 March 2025 

*First Reading from the Book of Deuteronomy (26:4 - 10)

Moses orders an offering gesture, as is the case in all religions, but for Israel it is a real profession of faith: "He shall take the basket from your hands and place it before the altar of the Lord your God, and you shall speak these words". Then follows a whole discourse on God's work for his people, which could be summed up in a simple sentence: everything we have, everything we are, is a gift from God. This is the great novelty of the entire Bible, especially of the book of Deuteronomy. If in religions the rite of offering is a gesture of asking the deities for benefits that they possess, for Israel there is a reversal of the meaning of the rite because this offering is an act of gratitude. To offer gifts is not to grant God something that belongs to us, but to recognise that everything is His gift and we do not present ourselves to Him with hands full of our own riches; rather, we recognise that without Him our hands would remain empty. In this spirit, bringing one's offerings becomes a gesture of remembrance. The book of Deuteronomy insists on this practice perhaps because the people seemed to have partly forgotten God and His benefits. In the desert, Israel had well understood that its survival depended on God and Him alone. However, having arrived in the Promised Land (the land of Canaan, the Israel of today) they ran the risk of forgetting the true God as there were widespread cults of the local Baal-worshipping peoples and the serious risk of contamination by idolatry posed a threat to the true faith. The prophets always sought to maintain fidelity to the Sinai Covenant (cf. Ex 20:2), repeating that there is only one God, the God of Moses, who delivered his people from the hand of the Egyptians, accompanied them throughout their history and, finally, gave them the promised land. It seems that the concern of our text is to preserve the memory of what God has accomplished and, indeed, the book of Deuteronomy could be called the book of memory. The rite of the offering of the firstfruits is therefore above all a gesture of remembrance, accompanied by the enumeration of the works performed by God on behalf of his people. The word 'firstfruits' contains the idea of 'first', the first fruits of the new harvest, the first sheaves of wheat, the first bunches of grapes, the first born of the new litter. All of this constitutes the beginning and the promise: by weighing the first sheaf, the first bunch, one could tell if the harvest would be abundant, and the ritual of offering already existed in the days of Cain and Abel to obtain the blessings of divinity. Moses had transformed its meaning: from then on, everything was lived in function of the Covenant and that is why one understands the discourse that accompanies the offering. One does not ask God for benefits for the future, but acknowledges the benefits one has had since Abraham's call, and the rite becomes a profession of faith that constitutes a summary of Israel's history: "My father was a wandering Aramean...". It all began with Abraham, the Aramean chosen by God to become the father of the people of the Covenant: a "wandering" nomad in the sense that, before his call by God, he had not yet discovered the one God, wandering therefore in a spiritual sense. The following sentence "My father was a wandering Aramean, who went down to Egypt" no longer refers to Abraham, the progenitor, but to his descendant Jacob: he and his sons settled in Egypt. The whole story follows, up to the entry into the promised land. At this point, the gesture of the offering takes on its full meaning: by offering the first sheaf, the first cluster, it is as if one were presenting the entire harvest to God.  The offertory in the Mass has the same meaning: to recognise that everything is God's gift: "Blessed are you, Lord, God of the universe, from your goodness we have received these gifts: from your goodness we prepare and offer gifts to God that are not ours but his.

 * Responsorial Psalm 90 (91) 1-2, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15

The psalm is presented as a dialogue with three voices.  Israel says: "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will spend the night in the shadow of the Almighty. I say to the Lord: 'My refuge my fortress, my God in whom I trust'. The priests at the entrance to the Temple proclaim: "No misfortune shall befall you, no blow shall fall on your tent". Finally, God himself intervenes: "I will deliver him, for to me he has bound himself; I will put him in safety, for he has known my name."  In the first verses, if one pays attention, four different names are given to God: the Most High (Elyôn), the Almighty (El Shaddai), the Lord (YHWH) and finally God (Elohim). The deities of other peoples use three of these names: the Most High, the Almighty and Elohim. Israel uses these common terms to designate its God, but is the only people in the world who can call him by the fourth, the famous Name revealed to Moses in the burning bush: YHWH. As God himself says in the book of Exodus: "I revealed myself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty (El Shaddai), but by my name, YHWH, I did not make myself known to them" (Ex 6:3). These first verses develop the theme of the believer's security with the embrace of the Most High in the shadow of the Almighty.  In the language of the psalms, the embrace of the Most High recalls the Temple of Jerusalem and the shadow is that of the wings of the statues of the cherubim above the ark of the covenant. However, there is also an allusion to God's protective presence throughout the Exodus. As exegetes note, the "wings" recall those of the eagle that encourages the first flights of its young (Deut 32:10-11; cf. Ex 19:4). And the angel Gabriel will say to the Virgin of Nazareth: "The power of the Most High will spread its shadow over you" (Lk 1:35). The terms "my refuge, my fortress, my God in whom I trust" express a profession of faith and indicate a resolution against idolatry that always demands a commitment not to abandon the embrace of the Most High. Jesus is the one who never ceases to take refuge in God, as we see today in the gospel of Jesus' temptations. In short, the fight against idolatry is a theme that runs throughout the Bible and is a central point in the preaching of the prophets. Even in our time, there is food for thought because idolatry takes on different and ever new faces. Two stanzas follow in the psalm, which are a kind of catechesis addressed by the priests to every pilgrim in the Temple of Jerusalem: "no misfortune shall befall you, no blow shall fall on your tent" if you remain under the shadow of the Most High, for he will give orders to his angels to guard you in all your ways. Thou shalt tread upon lions and vipers, thou shalt crush lions and dragons. The message is twofold: certain is the victory - you shall trample down lions and dragons - and guaranteeing it is God who will never cease to protect his people who will give orders to his angels to guard all the pilgrim's steps, indeed they will carry him with their hands, so that his foot will not stumble over stones. At the end, in the last verse, God speaks: 'I will deliver him, for to me he has bound himself; I will make him safe, for he has known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him" Note the final verse "in distress I will be with him, I will deliver him and make him glorious" which shows how Israel understood that God does not remove every trial with a magic blow, but is "with" us in difficulty and trial. In distress, 'I will be with him' is exactly the meaning of the name 'Emmanuel', which means God-with-us. Proposed at the beginning of Lent, this psalm invites us to find refuge in the embrace of the Most High, attending the liturgy in our churches where there is no longer the ark of the Covenant, nor the two statues of the cherubim - those winged beings with the head of a man and the body of a lion, whose wings joined together formed a throne for God -, but something much greater: the Presence of the Holy Trinity

* Second reading from the Epistle of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Romans (10:8-13)

St Paul makes an important point: whether you are Jews or pagans there is no difference because what you have in common is that you are Christians and you all invoke the same Lord, generous to those who seek him. The problem existed in Rome as elsewhere and the question was whether Jews and pagans should be treated equally. Although Paul wanted all Jews to accept Jesus as the Messiah, nevertheless only a minority of the Jewish people adhered to Jesus Christ, while it was the pagans who constituted the largest part of the Christian communities. One understands then that the coexistence of Christians of such different origins, Jewish or pagan, posed quite a few difficulties and endless discussions arose on issues such as the Law, circumcision and dietary rules. The problem was deeper as some Jewish converts to Christianity reluctantly accepted the entry of what they called 'the uncircumcised', Israel being the chosen people from whom the Messiah would be born.  The question was: is not accepting the non-Jews a betrayal of the Covenant and the election of the Jewish people? For Paul to prevent the Gentiles from receiving baptism meant that Jesus only saves the Jews, whereas in the Old Testament the prophet Joel had already said of the Messiah: "I will pour out my Spirit on every man. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your elders will dream dreams, your young men will have visions. On the servants and maidservants also will I pour out my Spirit in those days... Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Gl 3:1-5). Moreover, Paul's contemporaries found it strange that to be saved it was enough to invoke the name of Jesus while they believed one had to be circumcised and scrupulously observe the Law. The Apostle responds that since Jesus Christ is Lord (God), henceforth anyone who invokes him is saved as Christ himself told Nicodemus: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life," specifying precisely: "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him." (Jn 3:16-17) and the term "world" clearly means "all mankind". The Apostle does not hesitate to repeat: "If with your mouth you proclaim, "Jesus is Lord!", and with your heart you believe that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes to obtain righteousness, and with the mouth one makes the profession of faith to obtain salvation'.  In the Old Testament, 'to obtain righteousness' and 'to be saved' meant the same thing.  Moreover, the verb 'to believe' does not here have the sense of a personal opinion, and the parallel between 'mouth' and 'heart' on which he insists indicates that faith is a deep and total commitment of the person. Thus, according to Paul, what we read in the book of Deuteronomy is fulfilled: "This word is very near you: it is in your mouth and in your heart." While Deuteronomy speaks of the Law to be observed, now this word is the message of faith in Jesus Christ, and Paul reminds those who have received baptism: salvation is freely given to us by God without any merit of our own; we only have to accept it with faith and freedom: "If with your mouth you proclaim that Jesus is Lord, and if with your heart you believe that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. With the heart one believes to obtain righteousness, with the mouth one makes profession of faith to obtain salvation

* From the Gospel according to Saint Luke (4:1 - 13)

If we read this Gospel page in the light of today's responsorial psalm, we recognise the inner attitude with which Jesus began his public mission: "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will spend the night in the shadow of the Almighty. I say to the Lord: My refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust'.  Jesus places himself in the shadow of the Most High, while temptation drives him to leave this refuge, to doubt his security and to seek shelter and security elsewhere: these are precisely the three temptations that have always marked the history of Israel and also our lives. The devil - in Greek 'diabolos', that is, he who divides - tempts him by instilling doubt and distrust. If you truly are the Son of God, you can do whatever you want and are able to provide for your own happiness. Tell this stone that it may become bread and so satiate your hunger immediately after such a long fast (first temptation); adore me and you will surely be able to realise all your plans and projects (second temptation). Finally, "if thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down; for it is written: "To his angels he will give orders concerning thee that they may guard thee"; and "they will carry thee on their hands that thy foot may not stumble over a stone (third temptation). Jesus, however, does not give in to satanic enticements because he is certain that only God satisfies man's true hunger and he has chosen to trust, in other words, to dwell in the shelter of the Most High, as the psalm says. In more detail in the first temptation, when the Tempter provokes him Jesus replies: "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone', an expression known to all the Jewish people because it is contained in chapter 8 of Deuteronomy, as a meditation on Israel's experience during the exodus under the leadership of Moses: "Remember all the way that the Lord your God made you walk these forty years in the wilderness...He made you experience hunger, then He fed you with manna that neither you nor your fathers knew, to make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that comes out of the mouth of the Lord." (Deut 8:2-3). The people know from experience what the blessedness of poverty means: Blessed are those who hunger, for they trust only in God to be filled, and Deuteronomy continues: "Acknowledge therefore in your heart that the Lord your God was educating you as a man educates his son." (Deut 8:5). In this way the Son of God, who now begins to lead his people, relives in his flesh the experience of Israel in the wilderness. In other words, when the Tempter challenges Jesus saying: "If you are the Son of God, prove it!", his answer is clear: My food is to do the will of the One who sent me and to do his works, as he will say to the disciples in the encounter with the Samaritan woman (cf. Jn 4:32-34). In the second temptation, to the Tempter who promises him all the kingdoms of the earth, Jesus replies: "The Lord your God you shall worship: to him alone you shall render worship", quoting this text among the best known of the Old Testament, which follows the Shema Israel, the Jewish profession of faith (Dt 6:10-13). In the third temptation, the devil provokes Jesus to throw himself down being the Son of God, for it is written that angels will come to guard him by carrying him on their hands, but he replies: "It has been said, 'You shall not test the Lord your God (Deut 6:16). Christ knows that he is always in the shelter of the Most High, no matter what happens. Faced with the provocations of the Tempter, Jesus draws from the word of God the strength to resist those who want to separate him from the Father; he never argues with him and his three answers are exclusively quotations from Scripture. In this he shows himself to be the authentic heir of his people and the phrase from Deuteronomy, taken up by St Paul in the Letter to the Romans (see the second reading), applies to him: "The Word is near you, it is on your lips and in your heart." (Deut 30:14). The three answers refer to the book of Deuteronomy, written precisely to remind the Israelites that God is their Father. Jesus, in his life, retraces the experience of his people in the desert, from Baptism, where he is revealed as the Son, to Gethsemane where the Tempter will return for the final attack. We read at the end of our text: "After he had exhausted all temptation, the devil departed from him until the opportune moment, but Jesus will always remain under the shadow of the Most High and, with this episode, Luke shows that Jesus is the only true model to follow.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

Incessant struggle with ourselves and God

(Mt 7:7-12)

Sometimes we put the Father in the dock, because he seems to let things go as our freedom directs them.

But his Design isn’t to make the world work perfectly with transistors (of the past) or integrated circuits (in their respective "packages") or "chips" [various "pieces"]…

God wants us to acquire a New Creation mentality. His Action shapes us on the Son, transforming projects, ideas, desires, words, standard behaviors.

At first, perhaps prayer may seem tinged with only requests. The more one proceeds in the experience of prayer in Christ, the less one asks.

Questions are attenuated, to the point of almost entirely ceasing - in an ever more conscious welcome, which becomes real contemplation and ‘union’.

We do not know how long, but the "result" takes over suddenly: not only certain, but disproportionate.

As extracted from a continuous incandescence process, where there are no logical networks, nor easy shortcuts.

We receive the maximum and complete Gift. And we can host it with dignity. A new Creation in the Spirit, a different aspect.

Unusual destination - not simply one that’s fantasized or well arranged (as transmitted or expected).

God allows events to take their own course, apparently distant from us;  therefore prayer can take on dramatic tones and arouse irritation - as if it were an open dispute between us and Him.

But the Lord chooses not to vouch for our external dreams. He doesn’t allow himself to be introduced into small limits.

The Eternal wants to involve us in something other than our goals, which are often too similar with what we have under our noses.

He invents expanded horizons, and makes us dialogue with our deep states, so that we give up the rigid point of view and are introduced into another kind of programs.

Reading from a totally "inadequate" point of view can open minds - and change feelings, transform us inside.

When someone believes they have understood the world, they already condition other, more intense expectations, that would like to invade our space.

Prayer then must be insistent, because it’s like a look placed on oneself; not as we thought.

The inner eye creates a sort of clear space, inside, to welcome the Presence that does not pull the essential self of the person elsewhere.

By dwelling for a long time in the House of our very special essence.

The conscious emptying out of the piled-up junk is as if filled by the interpersonal dialogue-Listening with the Source of being.

In it, is nested our special Seed: there the ‘difference of face’ that belongs to us is as if seated and in the making.

Without the definitions and aspirations of nomenclature, in a "discharged" state but full of potential energies - our characteristic and unmistakable Plant touches the divine condition.

Through incessant dialogue with the Father in prayer, we make room for the Roots of Being, for a different fate.

This in the conscious gap of that part of us that seeks certainties, approvals.

Continuous prayer (unceasing listening and perception) excavates and disposes of the volume of trivial redundant thoughts.

In this space opportunities open up, inner cleansing is created so that the Gift - even extravagant - comes. Not second hand.

[Thursday 1st wk. in Lent, March 13, 2025]

Failing without failing: unceasing struggle with ourselves and with God

(Mt 7:7-12)

Sometimes we put the Father in the dock, because he seems to let things go as our freedom directs them.

But his design is not to make the world work to the perfection of transistors (of yesteryear) or integrated circuits (in their respective 'packages') or 'chips' [various 'bits']...

God wants us to acquire a New Creation mindset. His Action moulds us to the Son, transforming projects, ideas, desires, words, standard behaviour.

At first, prayer may perhaps seem tinged with mere requests. The more one proceeds in the experience of prayer in the Spirit of Christ, the less one asks.

The demands diminish, until they almost cease.

Desires for accumulation, or revenge and triumph, give way to listening and perception.

The penetrating eye becomes aware of what is at hand and of the unusual - in the increasingly conscious acceptance, which becomes real contemplation and union.

We do not know how long, but the 'result' comes suddenly: not only certain, but disproportionate.

But as if extracted from a process of continuous incandescence, where there are no logical networks, no easy shortcuts.

We receive the ultimate and complete Gift. And we can host it with dignity. A new Creation in the Spirit, a different Face.

An unexpected Face - not simply the fantasised or well-arranged one (as passed on by the family or expected on the side).

God allows events to take their own course, seemingly distant from us; therefore prayer can take on dramatic overtones and provoke irritation - as if it were an open dispute between us and Him.

But He chooses not to be the guarantor of our outer dreams. He does not allow Himself to be introduced into petty limits.

He wants to involve us in more than just our goals, which often conform too much to what is right under our noses.

It invents expanded horizons, but in this labour it must be clear that we must not fail ourselves. That is, to the character of our essence and vocation.

All this, precisely by failing ourselves - that is, by surrendering the rigid point of view and dialoguing with our deepest layers.

This process shifts the conditional emphasis.

It is not that God is pleased to be incessantly prayed to and reprayed by the poor.

It is we who need time to meet our own souls and allow ourselves to be introduced to another kind of agenda that is not conformist and predictable.

Reading events according to totally 'inadequate', eccentric or excessive views, less contracted within the usual armour (and so on) can open the mind.

The expansion of the gaze increases intuition, modifies feelings, transforms, activates.

It grasps other designs, opens up different horizons - with intermediate results that are already prodigious, certainly unpredictable.

When someone believes he has understood the world, he already conditions further, more intense desires that would like to invade our space.

This artificial 'nature' of spurious, external, or other people's arrangements blocks the path towards the nature of character, the true personal call and mission.

Prayer must be insistent, because it is like a view laid upon oneself; not as we thought: authentically. 

The inner eye serves to make a kind of uncluttered, individual space within, which opens to our and others' Presence, all to be seen. In the way that counts.

It will be the wisest, strongest and most reliable travelling companion... carrying our identity-character and not pulling the essential self of the person elsewhere.

Conscious emptying from the junk piled up [by ourselves or others] must be filled over time by an intensity of Relation.

Here is the interpersonal dialogue-listening with the Source of being.

In it is nested our particular Seed: there the difference of face that belongs to us is seated and in bloom.

It will be the radical depth of the relationship with our Root - perhaps lost in too many regular, even elevated or functioning expectations - that will confer another, more convincing Way.

And it will uncover the unique tendency and destination that belongs to us, for the Happiness we did not think of.

Goals, intentions, disciplines, memories of the past, dreams of the future, searches for points of reference, habitual evaluations of possibilities, piles of merit... are sometimes ballasts.

They distract from the soil of the soul, where our grain would like to take root to become what is in the heart.

And from the kernel make one understand the proposal of Mission received - not conquered, nor possessed - so that it grants another prodigious character (not: visibility).

Often the mental and affective system recognises itself in an album of thoughts, definitions, gestures, forms, problems, titles, tasks, characters, roles and things already dead.Such a morphology of interdiction loses the authentic present, where, on the contrary, the divine Dream that completes - realising us in specificity - takes root.

So, here is the therapy of the absolute present in Listening - of non-planning; starting with each one.

This in the conscious gap of that part of us that seeks security, approval, and panders to trivialities.

Through ceaseless dialogue with the Father in prayer, we make room for the roots of Being, which in the meantime is already filling us with views and opportunities for a different fate.

By reactivating the exploratory charge stifled in the gears, we create the right gap and start again in the Exodus.

To settle, to stop, to settle in one spot, would turn even qualitative conquests into a land of new slavery.

It would oblige us to recite and retrace milestones that have already been conquered - which conversely we are by vocation called upon to cross.

Exodus... within a springing, cosmic and identifying Relationship, singularly foundational.

Through prolonged Listening in prayer, we children acquire knowledge of the soul and the Mystery.

We dwell long in the House of our very special essence.

Thus we plant it or root it even deeper - to understand it and recover it completely, clear and full.

Now freed from the destiny mapped out in the narrow, already marked but dreamless environment.

When we are ready, Oneness will come into the field with a new solution, even an extravagant one.

It will give birth to what we really are, at our best - within that chaos that solves real problems. And from wave to wave it will leap to Goal.

Gone are the definitions and aspirations of nomenclature, in a kind of coming undone of ourselves - in a state of "discharge" but full of potential energy - we will give space to the new Germ that knows best.

Already here and now our distinctive and unmistakable Plant wants to touch the divine condition.

Continuous prayer [relentless listening and perception] excavates and disposes of the volume of trivial redundant thoughts in this space.

Opportunities open up in this interstice and 'emptiness'. Inner cleansing is created so that the Gift - not second-hand - arrives.

Do we desire a decisive conversion? Do we desire the call to the totality of humanising existence, without limitations and in our uniqueness?

Then divine action can reach anyone? Does it touch any face? And how can it not be broken?

Why not now the new beginning?

Prayer and the 'new fullness' of the Spirit become for us - growing children - the milk of the soul.

As Saint Augustine puts it: “Your prayer is the word you speak to God. When you read the Bible, God speaks to you; when you pray, you speak to God”. Origen, one of the great masters of this way of reading the Bible, maintains that understanding Scripture demands, even more than study, closeness to Christ and prayer. Origen was convinced, in fact, that the best way to know God is through love, and that there can be no authentic scientia Christi apart from growth in his love. In his Letter to Gregory, the great Alexandrian theologian gave this advice: “Devote yourself to the lectio of the divine Scriptures; apply yourself to this with perseverance. Do your reading with the intent of believing in and pleasing God. If during the lectio you encounter a closed door, knock and it will be opened to you by that guardian of whom Jesus said, ‘The gatekeeper will open it for him’. By applying yourself in this way to lectio divina, search diligently and with unshakable trust in God for the meaning of the divine Scriptures, which is hidden in great fullness within. You ought not, however, to be satisfied merely with knocking and seeking: to understand the things of God, what is absolutely necessary is oratio. For this reason, the Saviour told us not only: ‘Seek and you will find’, and ‘Knock and it shall be opened to you’, but also added, ‘Ask and you shall receive’”.

[Pope Benedict, Verbum Domini n. 86]

1. With the incarnation of the Word of God, the history of prayer knows a decisive turning point. In Jesus Christ, heaven and earth touch each other, God is reconciled with humanity, the dialogue between the creature and his Creator is fully restored. Jesus is the definitive proposal of the Father's love and, at the same time, man's full and irrevocable response to divine expectations. He, the Incarnate Word, is therefore the only Mediator who presents to God the Father every sincere prayer that rises from the human heart. The question, which the first disciples addressed to Jesus, thus also becomes our question: "Lord, teach us to pray!" (Lk 11:1). 

2. As to them, so also to us Jesus "teaches". He does so first of all by example. How can we fail to recall the touching prayer with which He addresses the Father already in the first moment of the incarnation? "Entering the world, he says: You wanted neither sacrifice nor offering, a body instead you have prepared for me . . . Then I said: Behold I come - for of me it is written in the scroll of the book - to do, O God, thy will" (Heb 10:5). Subsequently, there is no important moment in Christ's life that is not accompanied by prayer. At the beginning of his public mission, the Holy Spirit descends upon him while "having received baptism, he stood praying" (Lk 3:21 f). From the evangelist Mark, we know that when he started preaching in Galilee, Jesus "got up in the morning when it was still dark and went out of the house and withdrew to a deserted place and prayed" (Mk 1:35). Before the election of the apostles "he went up on the mountain to pray and spent the night in prayer" (Lk 6:12). Before the promise of the primacy to Peter, Jesus, according to Luke's account, "was in a secluded place praying" (Lk 9:18). Even at the moment of the transfiguration, when on the mountain his glory radiated before darkness fell on Calvary, Jesus prayed (cf. Lk 9:28-29). Particularly revealing is the prayer in which, during the Last Supper, Jesus poured out towards the Father his sentiments of love, praise, supplication, and trusting abandonment (cf. Jn 17). They are the same sentiments that resurface in the Garden of Gethsemane (cf. Mt 26:39. 42) and on the cross (cf. Lk 23:46), from the height of which He offers us the example of that last, touching invocation: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Lk 23:34). 

3. Jesus also teaches us to pray with his word. To emphasise the "need to pray always, without tiring", He tells the parable of the unjust judge and the widow (cf. Lk 18:1-5). He then recommends: "Watch and pray, lest you fall into temptation. The spirit is ready, but the flesh is weak" (Mt 26:41). And he insists: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you; for whoever asks receives, and whoever seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened" (Mt 7:7-8). 

To the disciples, desirous of concrete guidance, Jesus then teaches the sublime formula of the Our Father (Mt 6:9-13; Lk 11:2-4), which was to become the typical prayer of the Christian community down the centuries. Tertullian already described it as "breviarium totius evangelii", "a compendium of the whole Gospel" (De oratione, 1). In it Jesus delivers the essence of his message. Whoever consciously recites the Our Father "commits himself" to the Gospel: he cannot in fact fail to accept the consequences for his own life deriving from the Gospel message, of which the "Lord's Prayer" is the most authentic expression.

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 23 September 1992]

"Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. For whoever asks receives, and whoever seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened". Prompted by the liturgical passage from the Gospel of Luke (11:9-10), in the Mass celebrated at Santa Marta on Thursday morning, 9 October, Pope Francis returned to meditate on the theme of prayer, dwelling on the condition of man who asks and on the love of God who responds and gives in superabundance.

After recalling the text of the Collect pronounced before the Liturgy of the Word - "O God, source of all good, who answers the prayers of your people beyond all desire and all merit, pour out your mercy upon us: forgive what conscience fears and add what prayer dares not hope for" - the Pontiff began his reflection by noting that "it is proper to God's mercy not only to forgive - we all know that - but to be generous and to give more and more...". Dwelling in particular on the invocation "and add what prayer does not dare to hope for", Francis emphasised: "We perhaps in prayer ask for this and this, and he always gives us more! Always, always more'.

Picking up the threads of the Gospel story, the Pope recalled how, a few verses before the passage proposed by the liturgy, the apostles had asked Jesus to teach them to pray as John had done with the disciples. "And the Lord," he said, "taught them the Lord's Prayer". After that, the Gospel moved on to speak of God's "generosity", of that "mercy that always gives more, more than what we believe can be done".

Pope Francis went into the heart of the text: 'If one of you has a friend, at midnight.... There are three words, three key words in this passage: the friend, the Father and the gift'. It is the cue to link up with the daily experience of each person: in our lives, said the Pontiff, there are golden friends, 'who give their lives for their friend', and there are also others who are more or less good, but some are friends in a deeper way. There are not so many: "The Bible tells us 'one, two or three... no more'. Then the others are friends, but not like these'.

Still along the lines of the Lucan passage, the Pope continued: "I go to his house and I ask, I ask, and in the end he feels bothered by the intrusiveness; he gets up and gives what the friend asks". It is precisely 'the bond of friendship that causes us to be given what we ask for'. But, he explained, 'Jesus goes a step further and speaks of the Father', asking his listeners these questions: 'What father among you, if a son asks him for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? Or if he asks him for an egg, will he give him a scorpion?". Hence the subsequent reassurance: "If you therefore who are evil know how to give good things to your children, how much more the Father in heaven!". This means that 'not only does the friend who accompanies us on the journey of life help us and give us what we ask for; also the Father in heaven, this Father who loves us so much', even to the point of caring - Jesus says - to feed the birds in the field.

In this way the Lord, Pope Francis noted, "wants to reawaken trust in prayer". And quoting Luke's Gospel again - "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. For whoever asks receives, whoever seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened" (11:9-10) - the Pontiff explained: "This is prayer: to ask, to seek the how and to knock on the heart of God, the friend who accompanies us, the Father" who loves all his creatures.

At the end of the passage, the Pope pointed out, there is a phrase that "seems a bit cryptic: "If you therefore, who are evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give what you ask?" Yes! He will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!". Precisely 'this is the gift, this is the more of God'. Because the Father, he emphasised, 'never gives you a gift, something you ask for, just like that, without wrapping it well, without something more to make it more beautiful'. And 'what the Lord, the Father gives us the most, is the Spirit: the true gift of the Father is what prayer does not dare to hope for'. Man knocks on God's door with prayer to ask for a grace. And 'he, who is Father, gives me that and more: the gift, the Holy Spirit'.

This, the Pope reiterated, is the dynamic of prayer, which 'is done with the friend, who is the companion of life's journey, it is done with the Father and it is done in the Holy Spirit'. The true friend is Jesus: it is he, in fact, 'who accompanies us and teaches us to pray. And our prayer must be like this, Trinitarian'. This is an important underlining for Pope Francis who, drawing to a conclusion, recalled a typical dialogue he had so many times with the faithful: "But do you believe? Yes! Yes! In what do you believe? In God! But what is God for you? God, God!'. A somewhat generic, abstract conception, which for the Bishop of Rome does not correspond to reality. Because, he affirmed, 'the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit exist: they are persons, they are not an idea in the air'. In short, he pointed out, 'this God spray does not exist: there are persons!

This in summary was the Pontiff's final message: "Jesus is the companion who gives us what we ask for; the Father who cares for us and loves us; and the Holy Spirit who is the gift, is that something more that the Father gives, that which our conscience dares not hope for".

[Pope Francis, St. Martha, in L'Osservatore Romano 10/10/2014]