“While he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” (Lk 15:20). 

Here the Gospel takes us to the heart of the parable, showing the father’s response at seeing the return of his son. Deeply moved, he runs out to meet him before he can even reach home. A son long awaited. A father rejoicing to see him return. 

That was not the only time the father ran. His joy would not be complete without the presence of his other son. He then sets out to find him and invites him to join in the festivities (cf. v. 28). But the older son appeared upset by the homecoming celebration. He found his father’s joy hard to take; he did not acknowledge the return of his brother: “that son of yours”, he calls him (v. 30). For him, his brother was still lost, because he had already lost him in his heart. 

By his unwillingness to take part in the celebration, the older son fails not only to recognize his brother, but his father as well. He would rather be an orphan than a brother. He prefers isolation to encounter, bitterness to rejoicing. Not only is he unable to understand or forgive his brother, he cannot accept a father capable of forgiving, willing to wait patiently, to trust and to keep looking, lest anyone be left out. In a word, a father capable of compassion. 

At the threshold of that home, something of the mystery of our humanity appears. On the one hand, celebration for the son who was lost and is found; on the other, a feeling of betrayal and indignation at the celebrations marking his return. On the one hand, the welcome given to the son who had experienced misery and pain, even to the point of yearning to eat the husks thrown to the swine; on the other, irritation and anger at the embrace given to one who had proved himself so unworthy.

What we see here yet again is the tension we experience in our societies and in our communities, and even in our own hearts. A tension deep within us ever since the time of Cain and Abel. We are called to confront it and see it for what it is. For we too ask: “Who has the right to stay among us, to take a place at our tables and in our meetings, in our activities and concerns, in our squares and our cities?” The murderous question seems constantly to return: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (cf. Gen 4:9).

At the threshold of that home, we can see our own divisions and strife, the aggressiveness and conflicts that always lurk at the door of our high ideals, our efforts to build a society of fraternity, where each person can experience even now the dignity of being a son or daughter.

Yet at the threshold of that home, we will also see in all its radiant clarity, with no ifs and buts, the father’s desire that all his sons and daughters should share in his joy. That no one should have to live in inhuman conditions, as his younger son did, or as orphaned, aloof and bitter like the older son. His heart wants all men and women to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4).

It is true that many situations can foment division and strife, while others can bring us to confrontation and antagonism. It cannot be denied. Often we are tempted to believe that hatred and revenge are legitimate ways of ensuring quick and effective justice. Yet experience tells us that hatred, division and revenge succeed only in killing our peoples’ soul, poisoning our children’s hopes, and destroying and sweeping away everything we cherish.

Jesus invites us, then, to stop and contemplate the heart of our Father. Only from that perspective can we acknowledge once more that we are brothers and sisters. Only against that vast horizon can we transcend our shortsighted and divisive ways of thinking, and see things in a way that does not downplay our differences in the name of a forced unity or a quiet marginalization. Only if we can raise our eyes to heaven each day and say “Our Father”, will we be able to be part of a process that can make us see things clearly and risk living no longer as enemies but as brothers and sisters.

“All that is mine is yours” (Lk 15:31), says the father to his older son. He is not speaking so much about material wealth, as about sharing in his own love and own compassion. This is the greatest legacy and wealth of a Christian. Instead of measuring ourselves or classifying ourselves according to different moral, social, ethnic or religious criteria, we should be able to recognize that another criterion exists, one that no one can take away or destroy because it is pure gift. It is the realization that we are beloved sons and daughters, whom the Father awaits and celebrates.

“All that is mine is yours”, says the Father, including my capacity for compassion. Let us not fall into the temptation of reducing the fact that we are his children to a question of rules and regulations, duties and observances. Our identity and our mission will not arise from forms of voluntarism, legalism, relativism or fundamentalism, but rather from being believers who daily beg with humility and perseverance: “May your Kingdom come!”

The Gospel parable leaves us with an open ending. We see the father asking the older son to come in and share in the celebration of mercy. The Gospel writer says nothing about what the son decided. Did he join the party? We can imagine that this open ending is meant to be written by each individual and every community. We can complete it by the way we live, the way we regard others, and how we treat our neighbour. The Christian knows that in the Father’s house there are many rooms: the only ones who remain outside are those who choose not to share in his joy.

Dear brothers and dear sisters, I want to thank you for the way in which you bear witness to the Gospel of mercy in this land. Thank you for your efforts to make each of your communities an oasis of mercy. I encourage you to continue to let the culture of mercy grow, a culture in which no one looks at others with indifference, or averts his eyes in the face of their suffering (cf. Misericordia et Misera, 20). Keep close to the little ones and the poor, and to all those who are rejected, abandoned and ignored. Continue to be a sign of the Father’s loving embrace.

May the Merciful and Compassionate One – as our Muslim brothers and sisters frequently invoke him – strengthen you and make your works of love ever more fruitful.

[Pope Francis, homily Rabat 31 March 2019]

(Lk 18:9-14)

Mechanism of retribution denies the essential experience of the life of Faith: ‘allowing oneself to be a saved person, living from Mystery’ - instead of the closed circle of narrow “justices” that have nowhere to go.

To introduce oneself into the newness of Christ it’s enough to have met oneself and to be sincere: a strange holiness, accessible to all.

It comes to reality, even the most intimate: we are not omnipotent in goodness; we cannot do much good, from sophistication, from ideas, from muscles.

By leaving room for the Father's intervention, we learn to trust in what we receive, more than relying on the expectations even of others, or on what is proposed and imposed.

Our concrete history can be reflected in the form of Prayer. But if dialogue with God doesn’t emerge from a penetrating perception and is satisfied with external goals, Listening becomes empty.

The spirit of “greatness” (also moral and spiritual) sinks inexorably - and into true misery: the epidermal one.

It doesn’t see the Father's exceptionality: He who transmits life.

Those who live by comparisons and have a contemptuous evaluation of the considered inferior ones, do not enjoy openings.

They remain without space or time for the action of the multifaceted being, in the variety of situations.

They misplace themselves in front of God and neighbor - denying themselves the joy of Gratis and Novelty.

In this way, they never trust in what’s more reliable than a worldview, or in their own leadership initiatives.

They do not grasp anything they do not already know, because they do not read inside.

They are in constant monologue: with themselves [but never reaching the self’s bottom] and those of their own circle.

So they don't pour out happiness - which comes from amazement.

In all circumstances, they find only a theater, an echo’s rumble of others’ voices, and around them.

Not the intimacy of exceptional and beloved person as it is.

The subject of archaic religious life is in fact “the our" - the ego.

If Jesus had asked which of the two could return home justified, everyone would have pointed to the pharisee, the reserved one apart.

In the life of Faith, the Subject is instead the Mystery, the Eternal, the Living One.

It’s He who works, by creating: and only He acts here too.

He justifies, that is, He places justice where there is none. The self-sufficient person has no need.

This is the real and royal Principle, engine of our realization and of authentic prayer-hearing, stripped of merits and pride, but capable of recovering the ‘opposite sides’.

God fears flawless liturgies and individual prayers in which nothing happens and from which one comes out without having experienced his «Creative Action» and his forgiveness.

Work not ours. Energy and sting that even in our innermost being brings us an Alliance of ‘faces’, a conviviality of differences.

In the spiritual and social life of the "polyhedron" and of the daily brief, we are enabled to translate the need for a ‘jointing-sentiment’, which the Father communicates in a broad manner, and giving us time.

Much more than a struggle between opposing worldviews: divine Justice is unprecedented, and growing - it cannot be bought by manner deeds.

To internalize and live the message:

When do I see myself as a pharisee and when publican?

How can I meet myself, by contemplating God? And while I meet others?

[Saturday 3rd wk. in Lent, March 29, 2025]

Pharisee-publican: the two souls, and the essential Mystery

(Lk 18:9-14)

Says the Tao Tê Ching (x): "Preserve the One by dwelling in the two souls: are you able to keep them from separating?".

The many conventional depictions and interpretations of the episode lead us astray.

The one parable set in the Temple is a volcano of paradoxical, extraordinary scope that you would not expect.

The Jews pray standing, a sign of their readiness to immediately put into action what the Lord asks.

For us, standing means that we celebrate as risen children.

But here the phenomenon of religiosity and morality "standing, he prayed thus to himself" (v.11): he does not converse with God, nor does he realise anything!

Perhaps he is convinced he is praying, but he is doing something else entirely: he does not listen, he does not pay attention, he does not perceive the message and the meaning of the presence, he just distances himself from it.

I remember in the great hall of the Apostolic Penitentiary the epigraph 'Pax omnium rerum tranquillitas ordinis'.

A mentality that, if mediated by approximate moralisms, does not stay with us; it does not bring us or infuse us with depth and relationships.

On this basis, if the two protagonists of the passage had presented themselves in confession, I would have sentenced: the Pharisee lacks humility, the other repays the damage.

Even the head of L'Osservatore Romano reiterates the motto-epigraph 'Unicuique Suum' - a fundamental principle of property law in the Latin world.

Isn't Justice enough? [Would Jesus be needed?]

The point is: to know Love, a rich reality: not to exchange favours with God. And take the position that does not pollute or corrupt life. That is the whole game.

"I renounce, I leave everything, I leave, I think, I say, I plan, I will be impeccable and faithful by always making others see me "in my way" [i.e. as I am not]": this is the ideal nursery rhyme that overturns the adventure of Faith.

The subject of the religious man is himself and what he does for God - as well as how he acts (in an artificial way); so on.

Ridiculous - not just deeply reductive. But from this idea springs the consideration of the other and the different as irredeemable.

Instead, one's life is full of inner antinomies and counterfactuals.

Let us try to turn the parable around from a moralistic level to a theological one, because Lk - mind you - stages the best of spirituality and the worst of the morality of the time.

Here is his boomerang: he wants to start a reflection on ourselves.

"Thieves": Jesus defines as such precisely the religious leaders and the "Pharisees" [back], inside full of robbery, although on the outside they look like who knows what.

"Unjust": [just to make a long story short] St Theresa said that God is just because he takes our difficulties into account.

"Adulterers": but theological adultery is precisely queuing up to an idol (here the father-ego contemplating the external self).

In the biblical concept, 'adultery' properly means an improper devotional relationship, as with an inauthentic deity.

In this way, even an impeccable formal relationship - and vice versa - takes the side of the fetish.

In short, the 'saint' does not address the Father, but the God-form he has in mind - although he even wants to impress him with exaggerations (v.12).

But he does not agree with the thought of the Eternal.

He does not perceive the plan of the Most High: to build up the human family. To help and enrich one another.

So he will never allow himself to be changed - even convinced that he is exactly reproducing his tutelary genius.

For the professionals of the sacred mania for false perfection, Salvation is the final prize of an individual climb.

Not the re-creative and gratuitous Work of a Parent who ferries our complex vicissitudes, leaving space and way for them to evolve into a saved life.

Thus, both personal and communal experience is inculcated, because standard 'religion' inculcates and retains a deformed image of one's character, and of the Ideal.

The Almighty in Love takes on in the unconscious the guise of the Master of Heaven, earth, and the underworld - distributor of rewards and punishments.

Here, devotion will sooner or later rhyme with 'separation'.

Instead, Justification alludes to a sharper, more respectful, wise arrangement.

Position towards God [who is not a notary] and towards humanity, which is all ours; it would be puerile to have contempt for it.

Genuineness and Spirit go in synergy.

No one is recommended by Christ to "make himself holy" or "separate", as recommended by the ancient Law (Lev 19:2) and by a whole archaic spirituality.

The new criterion is inclusive: the conviviality of differences and the fruitful recovery of opposites. Precisely, the Love that flourishes in naturalness.

If we really want, the meaning of the journey in the Spirit could be identified in the critical passage from the First to the New Testament.

But it would still be too banal to imagine that in the Old God is forensic Judge and in the New "judge of the heart". 

The Justification that the Father works concerns the intimate form of what 'moves', and the sense of what motivates and prods us.

The misguided scientists of the pious life have always portrayed Salvation as the ultimate prize of a gruelling climb.

A poor, well-motivated, yet plagued, harassed and misguided soul used to tell me: 'the more you climb the more you acquire'.

Instead, when God works, He creates, placing us in the right attitude and leading us in a fruitful direction - not said uphill.

All for the purpose of fulfilling and completing us, not to exhaust and annihilate the bearing lines of our personality, unrepeatable, incomparable.

A configuration of balances that we well know is not ordinary, not mechanical, not predictable.

The Father is not a coach who only delights in the strongest of his forwards.

He is not attracted by the virtues of a few, but by the many needs of all.

While waiting for unresolved solutions, he does not look at the merits of people, but at their need to be completed.

Therefore he who does good deserves absolutely nothing: he only has to thank Providence, which has led him early on the road to an experience of fullness of being, on the Path of Joy.

Sticking to his trunk, the arrogant veteran of the sacred and of discipline (and of respectable or veteran ways) remains there.

Mired in the self-satisfied 'his' - bent over the navel of the works of law with which he wanted to buy God's approval - artificially showing himself to be his friend.

And he returns home, that is, to the community (v.14), the same as before: one-sided, like a sphinx.

They are the whitewashed sepulchres before whom we must bow down to kiss the sacred slippers, otherwise we do not pass.

They are the separated from the rest of the crowd, because for them people can only be: helpful, or annoying.

There is nothing to do. Certain complacent, self-sufficient people, who have never experienced humus and gratis, God cannot make them right.

They are not accustomed to look at reality, not even their own - but to emphasise every separation he disdains. And only what is prescribed; from which there is no escape.

They seem to be men all of a piece and possess a high sense of divine exclusivity.

Yet there are no deep spiritual energies in them - those who know how to see beyond to the most varied fragrances.

The first not to know how to entrust themselves to the Mystery, they continue to plague the air, certain of their spiritual rank and accolades - claiming (of course) duties wherever they concede.

Not even the Father can justify them, that is, place them in the right place before Him and their brothers.

The sense of holiness by which they feel cloaked leads them to the disdain of others, and there is no way around it.

How can we also discern the traces of religious conceit in ourselves? This is the relevant theme of the parable (v.9).

From the Prayer itself, it is clear that our own face possesses a hammering, devilish image of the Eternal.

Like one who is an accountant, that is, who pays according to merit and punishes according to fault.

Whereas the biblical God gives in pure loss. Why?

In the Spirit we grasp an energy that must do its work in the moment [so frequently without equal], or in the even disjointed rhythm of multiple happenings and relationships.

Here we sense the partial and paradoxical deity of the 'fellow travellers' - such as the blameless and the sinner, who remind us of the Mission.

Co-present characters in the soul: unique deviations that complement and perfect, becoming our unrepeatable Originality.

Life of Faith and Prayer do bring healing, but sometimes they seem to disappear, as if we were approaching the transgressor of the Gospel.

They give answers, but sometimes they also seem fortuitous.

They have the same disorganised and interrupted pace (the real change comes unexpectedly) but the same symbiotic composition, structure, complex figure, of a shrub and love.

A beautiful lush plant has its seasons; not even it dreams of possessing a connotation without nuances and opposing sides.

It may be disconcerting, but the realities of nature do not dispense with the roots because they mingle with muck, slime, darkness and worms - creeping parasites; like the publican, immersed in sin up to his neck.

If a rose were to cut off the hidden, festering base from which it rises, the whole plant would collapse, losing even its spectacular individuality.

It is the confusion - even fetid and nauseating - that creates a fertile soil welcoming all roles, and the non-monochromatic ripening space open to every strand of life.

There are seemingly obscuring phases and presences to take note of, on which we are as if sitting.

Almost in a reversal of plans, it is the encounter with our shadows that makes us soar and affirm.

The Pharisee's merit, and the publican's need, are symbiotic aspects. 

By ancient upbringing of believing in codes, we are almost dazed by new things.

But we can only plant the seed of growth by embracing life without presumptuous expectations.

From discriminating certainties, induced maniacal intentions, obvious platitudes, we do not derive development, realisation, blossoming with exponential results - in all our sides.

Even in love, for example, we do not want to fixate on a false idea, made up of prejudices, ideological schemes, and divisions.

Then - but precisely in order to save ourselves - frailties surface.

They can lead us to dependence, but also to seeking new communication, for a better completeness.

If the past remains a primordial totem, as artificial as sophisticated, disembodied ideologies - everything becomes fantasy, regret, confusion, disaster.

On the spiritual path, woe betide the great artificial loves, with their enveloping and overflowing, yet aseptic charm.

Frenzy that invades and occupies life, blocks and repudiates every project; it does not free the soul from distinctions.

It does not allow new destinies to be noticed. It makes us abdicate. It settles us on the surface and does not overturn destinies (cf. v.14).

Thus our natural, emotional and supernatural organism: convinced only of something and unable to break those compartments.

It would die - if it lost the completeness of polarities, the most obvious spontaneity, and was sterilised. Transmitting its own death, all around.

As in created realities, in the spiritual vicissitude it is the contradictory sides that compose the wealth of faculties, inclinations, destinies, faces, and capacities.

Sometimes it is precisely the particular crises to be faced with special qualities and resources not in line with the usual or imperative inclinations - that bring us back on our true path.

It is in the ceaseless Encounter with the crowd of characters intimate to us, and in turning around to notice and perceive, that the limiting caducity is decanted, and man is unified.

All this so that he becomes solid and open, reliable and creative, capable of being both inside and outside the home.

And the Father gives us time for a varied formation, to wait until we encounter every facet in the ambivalence of the process.

Too many filters, too many censures, too many brakes, would not prepare the evolutionary metamorphosis that belongs to us: the one capable of overcoming difficult moments not with a laboured or sweaty opening, but with a dream, and with the caress of a real twist.

In the oration-monologue, the narcissist that we sometimes are, merely informs the motionless Principle of his achievements, because he sees nothing but himself.

But he neither rules nor regulates what is human or divine.

Nor does he wonder to which God he is addressing himself, and in what posture he stands.

He has not prayed, he has not tuned his thoughts to those of the Father. He has only wearied souls, extinguished and ruined relationships.

He is in a position of cynicism and inability to grasp the distance between the true man and the Creator.

This prevents him from surrendering to Him, and not surrendering makes the ability to receive a new Vocation within the Vocation [which is never 'right' and satisfactory] pale.

It believes perfection as a safe harbour; it imagines reflecting God on earth, having the same mentality and His same relationships...

After all, the unkind, resolute, closed-circle friends he associates with would be the same as his well-shaped but worthless Totem.

Like him, they too remain in the static sphere, devoid of desire - but with a mountain of scruples. Or without a reality principle.

A milieu of the petty and ridiculous: measured men, as infantile as their object (subject) of worship, namely the self - who can see no further than the pond of dead water at hand.

The drawing-room 'Pharisee' or devotee is not even touched by doubt.

A dangerous position, which will never allow one to reflect on the innermost paradoxes that start and restart the Exodus, activating new passions.

Fearing what ends, it will never experience the ineffable Joy of the Gift now, which ignites history and changes lives.

Nothing in terms of wonderment is inaugurated, based on an identity of characteristics or views.

This is especially so if the distinctive lines remain imprisoned in the past (or future). If they remain, in the way of living and understanding 'of before' (or 'of after') that returns to direct us.

And they do not trust the Love that prepares the fruit of the Spirit: it is coming; as it is.

He who has no lapidary certainties, does not let himself be led in an artificial manner.

Rather, he lets himself be taken as if by a current of insecurity, which will nevertheless lead him to know profound Happiness, the great flourishing.

The breaking of the waters of a further birth: life in the round.

In short, once habits, abstract ideas, identifications, common opinions, even glamorous fashions have been put in the background, the founding Eros of our personal Calling will still be able to take the field. 

Achieving migrations, manifesting all his Fire.

In life we have been victims, sometimes even executioners.

God knows this and allows our freedom to emerge: conversely, in any enclosure, in any cadenced choice, the possibilities of the inner world remain closed.

So - to question ourselves - we give the no-moments, the opposing presences and preferences, as well as the most unexpected voices from within.

Other profiles, which also belong to us; anything other than the ways of being we already know [they have not yet expressed themselves, but sooner or later they will want to find space].

Simply, it is good to take on their traits - and to house them in us in an absolutely honest way.

So that they do not become lacerating disorders, or to be supplemented with perversions, profiteering, the exercise of power, sectarian attitudes: bad habits, barely covered by affable stylistic features.

The buried and perhaps as yet undiscovered sides are not meant to disturb the fundamental option to goodness, but the useless, all-predictable existence.

They are as many Calls, surprising, but which by innate force know where to lead us.

There are paths that belong to us that have not yet emerged, or of which we have lost memory.

Thus, precisely by virtue of such inner congeries - phase after phase - the character that is pertinent to the person... spontaneously and providentially traces its course.

Only if we are imbued with that which is infinite and at the same time with that which lies at the base of the soul, will our Pharisee self not become detached from the publican self.

Mouldable energies, faces that correspond to us deeply and in fact; masters of practice and concept; not of manners.

They are in varying mixtures and according to the ages of life, the real facets of our variegated spiritual essence.

Binary tracks that run below or parallel, but sometimes intersect and outclass each other, creating a magma that waits moment by moment to be performed.

To realise the Destination that is all ours, there have already been many doors to open.

And we have frequently verified that the Flower we sought was hiding right among our ailments.

So much for already considering ourselves close to Paradise!

Well: God introduces us into another kind of coexistence, within and without: balance, serenity, Communion.

For in that which truly impels to the eternal, everything is recovered. In the Fullness, nothing is separated from nothing.

It is the authentic turning point, which gives dignity to what happens. And opens the door to Completion.

Reiterates the Tao (xxvii):

"That is why the saint always well helps men and therefore there are no rejected men, always well helps creatures and therefore there are no rejected creatures; this is called transfusing illumination. Thus the man who is good is master of the man who is not good, the man who is not good is profit to the good man. Whoever does not appreciate such a master, whoever does not cherish such a profit, even if he is wise falls into grave deception: this is called the essential mystery".

To internalise and live the message:

When do I meet myself as a Pharisee and when as a publican?

How can I meet myself contemplating God? And by encountering others?

When God comes close to you, do you abandon yourself or do you fear what will end?

What were the experiences of undeserved love that changed your life?

Have you found greater understanding within or outside the Church? From friends and acquaintances or from supertitles of the sacred? How so?

Almsgiving, prayer and fasting characterize the Jew who observes the law. In the course of time these prescriptions were corroded by the rust of external formalism or even transformed into a sign of superiority.

In these three practices Jesus highlights a common temptation. Doing a good deed almost instinctively gives rise to the desire to be esteemed and admired for the good action, in other words to gain a reward. And on the one hand this closes us in on ourselves and on the other, it brings us out of ourselves because we live oriented to what others think of us or admire in us.

In proposing these prescriptions anew the Lord Jesus does not ask for formal respect of a law that is alien to the human being, imposed by a severe legislator as a heavy burden, but invites us to rediscover these three pious practices by living them more deeply, not out of self-love but out of love of God, as a means on the journey of conversion to him. Alms-giving, prayer and fasting: these are the path of the divine pedagogy that accompanies us not only in Lent, towards the encounter with the Risen Lord; a course to take without ostentation, in the certainty that the heavenly Father can read and also see into our heart in secret.

[Pope Benedict, S. Sabina homily 9 March 2011]

6. "Two men went up to the temple to pray: one was a Pharisee and the other a publican" (Lk 18:10). However, only one returned home justified. And it was precisely the publican (cf. Lk 18:14). This means that only he reached the inner mystery of the temple, the mystery united to his consecration. Only he, although both had gone there to pray.

Thus it turns out that the same sacred space, the temple, the cathedral, must be further filled with another totally interior and spiritual space: "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you?" - writes St Paul (1 Cor 3:16).

In fact, your cathedral, like so many others in the world, is filled with an almost infinite number of those inner temples, which are the human 'hearts'. To whom do these human 'hearts' most resemble? The Pharisee or the publican? The temple is a sign of man's reconciliation with God in Jesus Christ. However, the reality of this reconciliation - which is indicated by the external sign of the temple - ultimately passes through the human heart, through this sanctuary of justification and holiness.

7. The Pharisee returned "unjustified" because he was "full of himself". In the "space" of his heart there was no room for God. The Pharisee was present in the material temple; but God was not present in the temple of his heart. Why, on the other hand, is the publican "justified" again? Because - unlike the Pharisee - he humbly acknowledges that he needs to be justified. He does not judge others. He judges himself.

The publican 'stands at a distance', yet - and perhaps he does not exactly realise it - he is closer than ever to the Lord, because 'the Lord, as the Psalm says (33:19), is close to the one whose heart is wounded'. God is by no means distant from the sinner, if this sinner has a 'wounded heart', i.e. is repentant, and trusts, like the publican, in divine mercy: 'O God, have mercy on me a sinner'. The publican, therefore, does not glory in himself, but in the Lord. He does not exalt himself. He does not put himself first, but recognises in God his majesty, his transcendence. He knows that God is great and merciful, and that he bends to the cry of the poor and humble.

The publican "stands at a distance", but at the same time he trusts. Here is the right attitude towards God. To feel unworthy of him, because of one's sins; but to trust in his mercy, precisely because he loves the repentant sinner.

[Pope John Paul II, homily Perugia 26 October 1986]

Jesus wants to show us the right attitude for prayer and for invoking the mercy of the Father; how one must pray; the right attitude for prayer. It is the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector (cf. Lk 18:9-14). Both men went up into the Temple to pray, but they do so in very different ways, obtaining opposite results.

The pharisee stood and prayed using many words. His is yes, a prayer of thanksgiving to God, but it is really just a display of his own merits, with a sense of superiority over “other men”, whom he describes as “extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even,” for example, referring to the other one there, “like this tax collector” (v. 11). But this is the real problem: that pharisee prays to God, but in truth he is just self-lauditory. He is praying to himself! Instead of having the Lord before his eyes, he has a mirror. Although he is standing in the Temple, he doesn’t feel the need to prostrate himself before the majesty of God; he remains standing, he feels secure, as if he were the master of the Temple! He lists all the good works he has done: he is beyond reproach, observing the Law beyond measure, he fasts “twice a week” and pays “tithes” on all he possesses. In short, rather than prayer, he is satisfied with his observance of the precepts. Yet, his attitude and his words are far from the way of God’s words and actions, the God who loves all men and does not despise sinners. On the contrary, this pharisee despises sinners, even by indicating the other one there. In short, the pharisee, who holds himself to be just, neglects the most important commandment: love of God and of neighbour.

It is not enough, therefore, to ask how much we pray, we have to ask ourselves how we pray, or better, in what state our heart is: it is important to examine it so as to evaluate our thoughts, our feelings, and root out arrogance and hypocrisy. But, I ask myself: can one pray with arrogance? No. Can one pray with hypocrisy? No. We must only pray by placing ourselves before God just as we are. Not like the pharisee who prays with arrogance and hypocrisy. We are all taken up by the phrenetic pace of daily life, often at the mercy of feelings, dazed and confused. It is necessary to learn how to rediscover the path to our heart, to recover the value of intimacy and silence, because the God who encounters us and speaks to us is there. Only by beginning there can we in our turn encounter others and speak with them. The pharisee walked toward the Temple, sure of himself, but he was unaware of the fact that his heart had lost the way.

Instead the tax collector — the other man — presents himself in the Temple with a humble and repentant spirit: “standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast” (v. 13). His prayer was very brief, not long like that of the pharisee: “God, be merciful to me a sinner”. Nothing more. A beautiful prayer! Indeed, tax collectors — then called “publicans” — were considered impure, subject to foreign rulers; they were disliked by the people and socially associated with “sinners”. The parable teaches us that a man is just or sinful not because of his social class, but because of his way of relating to God and how he relates to his brothers and sisters. Gestures of repentance and the few and brief words of the tax collector bear witness to his awareness of his own miserable condition. His prayer is essential. He acts out of humility, certain only that he is a sinner in need of mercy. If the pharisee asked for nothing because he already had everything, the tax collector can only beg for the mercy of God. And this is beautiful: to beg for the mercy of God! Presenting himself with “empty hands”, with a bare heart and acknowledging himself to be a sinner, the tax collector shows us all the condition that is necessary in order to receive the Lord’s forgiveness. In the end, he is the one, so despised, who becomes an icon of the true believer.

Jesus concludes the parable with the judgment: “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted” (v. 14). Of these two, who is the corrupt one? The pharisee. The pharisee is the very icon of a corrupt person who pretends to pray, but only manages to strut in front of a mirror. He is corrupt and he is pretending to pray. Thus, in life whoever believes himself to be just and criticises others and despises them, is corrupt and a hypocrite. Pride compromises every good deed, empties prayer, creates distance from God and from others.

If God prefers humility it is not to dishearten us: rather, humility is the necessary condition to be raised by Him, so as to experience the mercy that comes to fill our emptiness. If the prayer of the proud does not reach God’s heart, the humility of the poor opens it wide. God has a weakness for the humble ones. Before a humble heart, God opens his heart entirely. It is this humility that the Virgin Mary expresses in the Canticle of the Magnificat: “he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden […] his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation” (Lk 1:48, 50). Let her help us, our Mother, to pray with a humble heart. And we, let us repeat that beautiful prayer three times: “Oh God, be merciful to me a sinner”.

[Pope Francis, General Audience 1 June 2016]

No forced surrender

(Mk 12:28b-34)

That of the ‘Great commandment’ was the most familiar catechism rule, even to infants.

Jesus is questioned only to retort: and why do you not keep the one commandment that even God fulfils - the Sabbath rest?

The only disposition in which the Father recognizes himself is Love, not some particular precept - because only profound Quality obliges.

The spiritual proposal of the Master makes the narrative of God's people and the practice of the Prophets its own: all heart, feet, hands - and intelligence.

Complete Love for God envelops the creature in every decision [heart], every moment and aspect of its concrete 'life', all its resources [strength].

Mt 22:37 does not explicitly mention this last aspect, perhaps to emphasize that the Father doesn’t absorb energies in any way, but transmits them.

And Jesus adds to the nuances of authentic understanding with God enumerated in the First Testament an unexpected side to those who think of love as a feeling only emotional.

The Lord suggests study, discernment and understanding of our perceptions (v.30) - the mental and deep intelligence aspect that complements Dt 6.

At first glance, it appears to be a secondary facet or even a frill for the qualitative leap from a common religious sense to the wisely and personally configured existence of Faith.

The exact opposite is true: we are children of a Father who does not supplant us, nor absorb our forces or potential, depersonalising us; not even from the mental point of view.

Practicality alone makes us fragile, not very aware; and when we are not convinced, we will not be reliable either, always at the mercy of changing situations and the conformist, fashionable, other people’s opinion.

Jesus doesn’t speak of love for God in terms of intimacy and feeling, but of a totally involving affinity, made less oscillating precisely by the development of our sapiential measure on issues.

Here is a decisive appointment, of the Love in the round.

It would be unnatural to recognise a Lord of Heaven who does not come to meet us and instead towers over us with an objective of his own, which is extrinsic to us and makes us marginal.

Loving «How [and Because] yourself»: it’s a new Genesis in the spirit of Giving.

The paradox suggested by Jesus is that we love for the care to meet - and because we love ourselves - by expanding the I into the You.

God’s «great command» affects real life and concerns not only the quality of relationship with the world and neighbour, but the reflexive global with oneself. 

We should not be afraid of other doctrines and disciplines, neglecting the challenges even intellectual ones that call into question beliefs, works, one’s worldview, language, style, and thought itself.

All added values.

Needless to complain, if the ecclesial realities that do not update or deepen, and remain in the inherited commonplaces [or vogues] slowly decay, then disappear.

Therefore to the ancient notes of true love, the Son of God adds the ‘quality of mind’: we are not gullible, clueless, one-sided.

Our outstretched hands are the result of free and conscious choice. No forced surrender.

«Faith that does not become culture is a faith that is not fully accepted, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived» [John Paul II].

To internalize and live the message:

What is Great for you? Do you document and update yourself in order to better correspond to God’s Call?

[Friday 3rd wk. in Lent, March 28, 2025]

The commandment great: Love

(Mk 12:28b-34)

"What is the first commandment of all? Jesus answered [...] The first is: Listen Israel. The Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your life and with all your mind and with all your much" (vv.28-30; Deut 6:4-5).

Jesus turns what was the most banal of catechism questions into a crucial question: what is the 'great' commandment?

Despite the different theological schools, the answer was well known to all: the Sabbath rest, the only prescription observed (even) by God.

The question posed to the Master by the expert in the Law was not so innocent, but "to test him" (Mt 22:35; Lk 10:25) - that is, to answer him: how then do you not fulfil the Sabbath precept?

Christ simplifies the tangle of disputes, about widening or narrowing theoretical cases, and gets to the point.

Always allergic to bickering over doctrines, He makes a proposition of life as the unifying moment of the demands of the Covenant.

All norms have an essence, otherwise they remain a dispersive jumble. They find their spontaneous foundation and natural meaning in the gift of self - but motivated.

But what is the solid point and context of such an invitation? A vague feeling, one emotion among many, a passing motion? Philanthropy? Or an experience?

We are thirsty for affection and grant friendship in an alternating current, so much so that love becomes a source of misunderstandings, rooted in the need to complete each other.

This is why the second commandment appears as an explanation of the first, not a reduction of it [Mt 22:39; Mk 12:31; Lk 10:27].

In the ancient world it made no sense to speak of love towards God, the ineffable Mystery.

It was the Most High who favoured someone by giving him material fortune, and he acknowledged to him a duty of worship, and sacrifices.

Ditto for the unfortunate, at least to avoid retaliation (and keep him good).

With Jesus, one speaks openly of gratuitousness - not simple gratitude - as the unifying core, both of the person and of salvation history.

Gone is the idea of the exchange of favours.

The Father does not need anything; he does not enjoy seeing us submissive and feeling recognised [the pattern of pagan religiosity] as a sovereign would towards his subjects.

The relationship with the Eternal One remains concrete, but honour towards the Most High is manifested by making His plan of good and growth towards man our own, and recognising ourselves in it.

God's plan unfolds ... with a living demand. But there is a Departure, a Centre and an Arrival. In reality, a new Genesis.

In any case, only God's initiative brings out the best in us: more talent, more desire, more interests, more unexpressed capacities, more unseen - instead of soul-denying torments.

It is the difference between religiosity that weakens the personality, and Faith.

Through Faith a special creative relationship is triggered: that of the one who accepts the Calling by Name, as well as the proposals of the Source of being itself - wave upon wave.

They anticipate our initiatives and infallibly guide us to the perfect blossoming of our own and others' Seeds.

Especially in Mt (22:38-39) and Mk (12:29-31) it is clear that love for one's neighbour derives from the experience and awareness of being loved first and unconditionally by God - looked upon, accepted, valued, promoted, gladdened, completed.

One loves not by effort [force is a dirigiste lever: it produces episodes that make life worse] but on the basis of how much we feel loved - and with immediacy, repeatedly, unconditionally.

One loves on the argument of the 'forfeit' already experienced in one's favour by Providence, which gives meaning and value to human acts.

Not out of infatuation with external, induced, however other people's expectations.

Even in the spiritual field, not a few behaviours believed to be able to solve problems, often chronicle them.

In this way, they rely on an idea of permanence - not on the dynamic of vocational gratuitousness, on the unimaginable Gift, to be received.

So the point is to adjust according to resources that come, or the distortion of models, typical of the moralist mentality.

In fact the scheme of omnipotence in the good, paradoxically, folds the ego and its forces, and distorts its gaze.

But beyond all nuances, we are glad that the first and second commandments are about Love: what we most desire to do and receive. It is an urgency of life.

Yet we must be wise, so that the pattern of paradigms or the urges of natural affection and precipitation do not overwhelm and drag away - overturning - every good intention.

Love does not tolerate the excess of expectations, because it springs from an experience of Perfection that arrives; offered, unexpected, unpredictable. Not already set up according to concatenated and normal intentions. 

If authentic, we will experience blossoming in time; not in expectation of a return, but first and foremost in a Gift beyond time. Because it has already satiated and convinced us - with contemplative amazement - and made us rejoice.

Thus the vocational and foundational Eros will continue to mould us, with its perennially explorative virtue capable of activating new Births.

Personal energy - without the usual baggage of torment, reservations, outwardness... and (again) wrath.

Great Commandment: only profound Quality obliges

The only disposition in which the Father recognises Himself is Love, all-round and all-round; not some particular precept.

For Jesus there are no rankings in the things of God and man - in fact He showed a marked tendency to summarise the many dispositions - because only the profound Quality obliges.

The spiritual proposition of the Master appropriated the narrative of God's people and the practice of the Prophets: all heart, feet, hands - and intelligence.

Complete Love for God must envelop the creature in every decision [heart].

Likewise, in every moment and aspect of its concrete 'life', and involve all its resources [strength: cf. Mk 12:30; Lk 10:27].

Deut 6:5 (Hebrew text) reads in fact: "with all your 'much'", meaning a concrete participation in both cultic life and material fraternity - providing and helping with one's possessions.

Matthew does not explicitly mention the latter, perhaps to emphasise that the Father does not absorb energies in any way, but transmits them.

But Jesus adds to the nuances of authentic understanding with God enumerated in the First Testament an unexpected side to those who think of love as a delicate feeling only.

The Lord suggests the study, discernment and understanding of our perceptions [Mt 22:37; Mk 12:30; Lk 10:27] accompanied by the mental aspect and deep intelligence (excluded in Deut 6).

At first glance, this seems a secondary facet or even a frill for the qualitative leap from a common religious sense to the wise and personally configured existence of Faith.

The exact opposite is true: we are children of a Father who does not supplant us, nor does he absorb our potential or energy, depersonalising us.

It is a capital implication of our dignity and promotion - even human - and a specific discriminator in the discernment of Faith in Christ, as opposed to all devotional solutions in search of the Absolute (whatever).

Practicality alone makes us fragile, not very aware; and when we are not convinced, we will not be reliable either, always at the mercy of changing situations and the conformist, fashionable opinion of others.

We not infrequently flee the all-round confrontation that would enrich everyone - precisely because of incompetence.

But we are not one-sided gullible. Being attentive and up-to-date, having the ability to think even critically is a required expansion in the development of one's human, moral, cultural and spiritual vocation.

Trivialities, identifications, impersonal scopiazzature, and half-hearted assembly repetitions get in the way of the tide of life, this divine cascade of perennial energy that pulses and does not go out.

On the contrary, it comes with stirring appeals: it calls to open us up to new relationship attractions and other interests, even intellectual; even denominational.

Jesus does not speak of love for God in terms of intimism and sentiment, but of a totally involving affinity, made less uncertain precisely by the development of our sapiential measure, regarding matters.

Devotion swallows up everything. Faith, on the other hand, does not allow itself to be plagiarised by local or external civilisation: it presupposes an ability to competently enter into personal evaluations or those inherent in the community and overall debate - historical and up-to-date.

The testimony of our Hope does not disdain to allow itself to be enriched by dialogue with those who have greater psychological or biblical expertise, specialised pastoral and social, as well as archaeological, bioethical, economic, scientific and so on.

A commitment that shows true interest in the Sacred [of course, all aspects to be evaluated not as school options].

But it must be admitted that one of the most organic expressions of great Catholic theology is what was once called the 'doctrine' of the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

In the existence of Love, the primacy (also relational) of the Gift of the Spirit was recognised, which completed the possibilities of 'natural' expression of the cardinal and theological virtues, bringing them to fullness.

As many as four of the seven Gifts were related to a character of profound knowledge: Wisdom, Intellect, Counsel and Science.

In short: there is still a decisive appointment here for all-round Love. 

To indulge in a few jokes along the lines of belief is everyone's domain [individualist or circle], but the ability to enter into the matter is only of those who have been willing to sift through and experience the issues - because they are more interested in understanding the Face of God and His Plan for humanity than in reiterating false narrative certainties.

It would be unnatural to recognise a Master of Heaven who does not come to meet us; as if he towers over us with 'his' objective (extrinsic to us) and thus makes everyone marginal.

[In sects - even those with a good-natured appearance - it is forbidden to delve deeper, to understand: the position is already there, the candidate must "only" adapt].

"As (and because) thou art thyself" [sense of the Greek text: Mt 22:39; Mk 12:31; Lk 10:27]: it is a new Birth of life, new Genesis in the spirit of Gift.

The paradox suggested by Jesus surpasses the ancient norm of Lev 19:18.

We love not only the children of our people, "by the fact that" we care to meet and want to enrich ourselves together, expanding the I into the Thou.

God's "Great Command" invests real life and concerns not only the quality of our relationship with the world and our neighbour, but the reflexive global with self.

One should not be afraid of other doctrines and disciplines, neglecting analytical challenges beyond the 'organic' ones - the long-term ones.

They all challenge beliefs, works, one's worldview; language, style, and thought itself.

We still have a great need to broaden our minds and become as vast as a panorama. And reharmonise the opposites we drag in.

Hidden Sides and Pearls to which we have not yet given breath, or visibility - and perhaps never considered Allies.

The troubled fate of the prophets remains unique, but it is not the certainties (ancient, or sophisticated, fashionable, à la page) that are the added value of the adventure of Faith in Love - but rather the risk of putting oneself in the balance and the all-round reworking.

It is then useless to complain, if the ecclesial realities that do not update, and remain in the inherited commonplaces, slowly decay, then disappear.

In spite of their resounding heritage and fabulous events.

In this way, the "doctor of the law" may already be close [Mk 12:34; Lk 10:28] but he still has to keep an eye on Jesus, to understand in Him the more dilated sense of the total gift, in the specifically personalising, which is not naive.

The Lord restores the sense of norms to their profound and original function: to become the viaticum of every encounter that raises events, people of all backgrounds, and creation.

In conclusion, experience and ritual have their fulcrum in the reciprocity of love.

Life in all its facets becomes Liturgy more meaningful than the accredited gesture of worship; its truly broken Bread becomes a convincing call to Communion and Mission.

Even if it does not make the headlines, the authentic thermometer of our journey will not be the volume or the pile of important things we do, but a pulsing of regenerated heart and mind.

That is why to the ancient notes of true Love the Son of God adds the quality of thought: we are not gullible, uninformed, one-sided.

Our outstretched hands are the fruit of free and conscious choice. No forced surrender.

"A faith that does not become culture is a faith that is not fully accepted, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived" [John Paul II].

To internalise and live the message:

What is Great for you? Titles? Having, power, appearing?

What in your experience of Love is the Starting Point, the Centre and the Arrival?

Do you document and update yourself in order to better correspond to God's Call?

Deep Relationship

Dear brothers and sisters!

The Gospel [...] re-proposes to us Jesus' teaching on the greatest commandment: the commandment of love, which is twofold: to love God and to love one's neighbour. The Saints, whom we have recently celebrated all together in one solemn feast, are precisely those who, trusting in God's grace, seek to live according to this fundamental law. Indeed, the commandment of love can be fully put into practice by those who live in a deep relationship with God, just as a child becomes capable of love from a good relationship with its mother and father. St John of Avila, whom I have recently proclaimed a Doctor of the Church, writes at the beginning of his Treatise on the Love of God: 'The cause,' he says, 'that most impels our heart to love God is to consider deeply the love He has had for us... This, more than benefits, impels the heart to love; for he who gives another a benefit, gives him something he possesses; but he who loves, gives himself with all he has, without anything else left to give' (No. 1). Before being a command - love is not a command - it is a gift, a reality that God makes us know and experience, so that, like a seed, it can also germinate within us and develop in our lives. 

If God's love has taken deep root in a person, that person is able to love even those who do not deserve it, just as God does towards us. A father and mother do not love their children only when they deserve it: they love them always, even if they naturally let them know when they are wrong. From God we learn to always and only want good and never evil. We learn to look at the other not only with our eyes, but with God's gaze, which is the gaze of Jesus Christ. A gaze that starts from the heart and does not stop at the surface, goes beyond appearances and manages to grasp the other person's deepest expectations: expectations of being listened to, of gratuitous attention; in a word: of love. But the reverse also occurs: that by opening myself to the other as he is, by going out to meet him, by making myself available to him, I also open myself up to knowing God, to feeling that he is there and that he is good. Love of God and love of neighbour are inseparable and stand in a reciprocal relationship. Jesus invented neither one nor the other, but revealed that they are, after all, one and the same commandment, and he did so not only with his words, but above all with his testimony: the very Person of Jesus and his entire mystery embody the unity of love of God and neighbour, like the two arms of the Cross, vertical and horizontal. In the Eucharist He gives us this twofold love, giving us Himself, so that, nourished by this Bread, we may love one another as He has loved us.

Dear friends, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, we pray that every Christian may know how to show his faith in the one true God with a limpid witness of love for his neighbour.

(Pope Benedict, Angelus 4 November 2012)

1. In acknowledging the centrality of love, Christian faith has retained the core of Israel's faith, while at the same time giving it new depth and breadth. The pious Jew prayed daily the words of the Book of Deuteronomy which expressed the heart of his existence: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might” (6:4-5). Jesus united into a single precept this commandment of love for God and the commandment of love for neighbour found in the Book of Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (19:18; cf. Mk 12:29-31). Since God has first loved us (cf. 1 Jn 4:10), love is now no longer a mere “command”; it is the response to the gift of love with which God draws near to us..

18. Love of neighbour is thus shown to be possible in the way proclaimed by the Bible, by Jesus. It consists in the very fact that, in God and with God, I love even the person whom I do not like or even know. This can only take place on the basis of an intimate encounter with God, an encounter which has become a communion of will, even affecting my feelings. Then I learn to look on this other person not simply with my eyes and my feelings, but from the perspective of Jesus Christ. His friend is my friend. Going beyond exterior appearances, I perceive in others an interior desire for a sign of love, of concern. This I can offer them not only through the organizations intended for such purposes, accepting it perhaps as a political necessity. Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give to others much more than their outward necessities; I can give them the look of love which they crave. Here we see the necessary interplay between love of God and love of neighbour which the First Letter of John speaks of with such insistence. If I have no contact whatsoever with God in my life, then I cannot see in the other anything more than the other, and I am incapable of seeing in him the image of God. But if in my life I fail completely to heed others, solely out of a desire to be “devout” and to perform my “religious duties”, then my relationship with God will also grow arid. It becomes merely “proper”, but loveless. Only my readiness to encounter my neighbour and to show him love makes me sensitive to God as well. Only if I serve my neighbour can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much he loves me. The saints—consider the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta—constantly renewed their capacity for love of neighbour from their encounter with the Eucharistic Lord, and conversely this encounter acquired its real- ism and depth in their service to others. Love of God and love of neighbour are thus inseparable, they form a single commandment. But both live from the love of God who has loved us first. No longer is it a question, then, of a “commandment” imposed from without and calling for the impossible, but rather of a freely-bestowed experience of love from within, a love which by its very nature must then be shared with others. Love grows through love. Love is “divine” because it comes from God and unites us to God; through this unifying process it makes us a “we” which transcends our divisions and makes us one, until in the end God is “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).

[Deus Caritas est, nn.1.18]

1. "If any one says, "I love God', and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also" (1 Jn 4: 20-21).

The theological virtue of charity, of which we spoke in our last catechesis, is expressed in two dimensions:  love of God and love of neighbour. In both these dimensions it is the fruit of the dynamism of Trinitarian life within us.

Indeed, love has its source in the Father; it is fully revealed in the Passover of the crucified and risen Son, and is infused in us by the Holy Spirit. Through it God lets us share in his own love.

If we truly love with the love of God we will also love our brothers or sisters as God loves them. 

This is the great newness of Christianity:  one cannot love God if one does not love one's brethren, creating a deep and lasting communion of love with them.

2. In this regard, the teaching of Sacred Scripture is unequivocal. The Israelites were already encouraged to love one another:  "You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself" (Lv 19: 18). At first this commandment seems restricted to the Israelites, but it nonetheless gradually takes on an ever broader sense to include the strangers who sojourn among them, in remembrance that Israel too was a stranger in the land of Egypt (cf. Lv 19: 34; Dt 10: 19).

In the New Testament this love becomes a command in a clearly universal sense:  it presupposes a concept of neighbour that knows no bounds (cf. Lk 10: 29-37) and is even extended to enemies (cf. Mt 5: 43-47). It is important to note that love of neighbour is seen as an imitation and extension of the merciful goodness of the heavenly Father who provides for the needs of all without distinction (cf. ibid., v. 45). However it remains linked to love of God:  indeed the two commandments of love are the synthesis and epitome of the law and the prophets (cf. Mt 22: 40). Only those who fulfil both these commandments are close to the kingdom of God, as Jesus himself stresses in answer to a scribe who had questioned him (cf. Mk 12: 28-34).

3. Abiding by these guidelines which link love of neighbour with love of God and both of these to God's life in us, we can easily understand how love is presented in the New Testament as a fruit of the Spirit, indeed, as the first of the many gifts listed by St Paul in his Letter to the Galatians:  "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal 5: 22).

Theological tradition distinguishes, while correlating them, between the theological virtues, the gifts and the fruits of the Holy Spirit (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, nn. 1830-1832). While the virtues are dispositions permanently conferred upon human beings in view of the supernatural works they must do, and the gifts perfect both the theological and the moral virtues, the fruits of the Spirit are virtuous acts which the person accomplishes with ease, habitually and with delight (cf. St Thomas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 70 a. 1, ad 2). These distinctions are not contrary to what Paul says, speaking in the singular of the fruit of the Spirit. In fact, the Apostle wishes to point out that the fruit par excellence is the same divine charity which is at the heart of every virtuous act. Just as sunlight is expressed in a limitless range of colours, so love is manifest in the multiple fruits of the Spirit.

4. In this regard, it says in the Letter to the Colossians:  "Above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony" (3: 14). The hymn to love contained in the First Letter to the Corinthians (cf. 1 Cor 13) celebrates this primacy of love over all the other gifts (cf. vv. 1-3), and even over faith and hope (cf. v. 13). The Apostle Paul says of it:  "Love never ends" (v. 8).

Love of neighbour has a Christological connotation, since it must conform to Christ's gift of his own life:  "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (1 Jn 3: 16). Insofar as it is measured by Christ's love, it can be called a "new commandment" by which the true disciples may be recognized:  "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn 13: 34-35). The Christological meaning of love of neighbour will shine forth at the second coming of Christ. Indeed at that very moment, it will be seen that the measure by which to judge adherence to Christ is precisely the daily demonstration of love for our neediest brothers and sisters:  "I was hungry and you gave me food ..." (cf. Mt 25: 31-46).

Only those who are involved with their neighbour and his needs concretely show their love for Jesus. Being closed and indifferent to the "other" means being closed to the Holy Spirit, forgetting Christ and denying the Father's universal love.

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 20 October 1999]