(Mk 9:38-43.45.47-48)

The concept of closure and inquisition

(Mk 9:38-40)

It is not strange that the Holy Inquisition arose in the time of an absent ecclesiology.

The sickness of caste - always prone to kidnapping Jesus - and the sense of absolute monopoly... were already temptations of the first communities, particularly of the leading Apostles.

The super Apostles pretended to fix the typology of church members, including authorisations, deferences, characteristics.

On the other hand - albeit in simplicity - there is no trivial criterion that gives the imprimatur of being able to discriminate 'faithful' and 'not'.

It applies: how much does the Person of the Son of Man count for our lives and in our daily choices?

Feeling - or not - a friend to anyone who is committed to annihilating evil (perhaps by resorting to his free way of perceiving God) makes us reflect even today.

Are we only on the threshold of a journey in the Spirit? The sign of a de facto separation from God's plan for woman and man is perhaps concealed by epidermal expressions.

We have probably not properly understood that every step of liberation - wherever it comes from - brings us closer to the Father and also humanises our heads.

The leaven of the Pharisees and Herod (Mk 8:14) also leads Christ's direct disciples to a sealed mentality - according to which if someone "is not of ours" ("did not follow us" v.38) he must be marginalised.

The difference between religiosity and Faith: there is no longer any need to adhere to a recognised way of thinking or be a member of an official club.

Spiritual wisdom and Openness are the same thing. Every vital gesture opens up happy possibilities: being "drawn to God" is all of this.

In order to do good (casting out demons, v.38) it is not the badge (e.g. the name on the Baptism register) or being confirmed in exclusive circles that counts.

In the personal adventure of genuine Faith, there is no monopoly - not even for the Apostle John. No one is qualified to judge in the name of the assembly!

Holiness as separation concerns the criteria, the mentality, the concatenation of principles (or their reversal): not the election-predestination of a 'people of the pure'.

For Christ, what counts is not formal belonging - which tends to homologate - but what to do in the concrete (obviously on a vocational basis and of unrepeatable inclination).

It is not the feeling of being a disciple that counts, but being a disciple in fact. Love for the 'truth' does not exclude, but includes all those with high values (even supernatural ones, which we do not understand).

Authentic adherence is about the good - the only Victory of the people reborn in the Risen One. Work of life that even the official Church is called upon to build, without squeamish attitudes.

On the contrary, we see that precisely the situations outside the lines become a goad: they urge the dull and opaque 'Christians' to become seeds.

The 'community' is not important because it sees itself as such.

The universal call to the promotion of humanity is divine: a wealth that overcomes obstacles, a heritage of joy from wherever it comes.

If relegated and squeezed into filing cabinets, salvation history does not become a life of the saved.

The Mystical Body of the Lord shuns the ideology of power and the opinionated style of manipulators (spiritual grabbers) who imagine they are who knows what.

"But Jesus said, Do not hinder them. For there is no one who does a mighty wonder in my name and immediately afterwards can speak evil of me" (v.39).

To train disciples, Christ does not tickle self-love by setting up a festival or promoting fictions.

With his intimates, the Master does not use diplomatic language (expressions careful not to offend their susceptibility as experts).

The training of disciples is essential to the building of the Kingdom with wide boundaries, primarily mental.

In esoteric religions, there are models. Here no, only charisms, even personal ones - a condition of true love.

We are governed by God alone - the only one who knows what arouses in each one, and where to go.

Jesus is the revelator and pivot of this joyful, unthinkable News: but in the sense of motive and intimate motor, entirely non-external.

The Lord calls the person in a way that seems incomprehensible to others.

Christ marks his Friendship in the lives of believers, as centre and axis. Yet there are so many gestures and sensitivities that the new world arouses, and equally mark his Presence.

Interior education and the challenge of Faith reflected in activities prepare us for daily life, as well as for the great mission.

By training us in the straightforward Word-event, the resigned Messiah conveys his own experience of the Father.

He involves us with incredible and undeserved confidence in the work of evangelisation.

Nor does he tire of repeating what we do not wish to understand.

The Son of Man only commands us to perceive well the reality (Mk 8:27-29) where God's secret lurks (which conformist thinking cannot even begin to imagine: Mk 8:30-35).The Rule only applies to standardised devotion, which always poses more (already ancient) answers than questions.

The standard has no specific weight for the excess of the adventure of Faith.

The imbalance of love is personal: it serenely admits diversity and the eccentric increase of life that follows.

Such is the new awareness of the Mission made in listening, and in respect not only for the intelligence and culture of others, but also for oneself.

Even now in a thousand ways and finally with the help of a wiser ecclesial Magisterium, Providence encourages us to better position ourselves - in support of those excluded from the 'round'.

The work of 'evangelical conversion' comes to us loud and clear, overriding any considerations made from the standpoint of a triumphant Church or ancient right.

No one has a monopoly on Grace, which is why we do not shrink our hearts from canons or fashions.

In the truth of Good, a sense of ownership is out of place. 

To internalise and live the message:

What weight do the material interests, the empty rigidity, or the fleshless fantasies, of those who (without even having a title) ape small hierarchies and fulminate the different with mediocre impersonal sentences have on you?

How do you live the Word: 'He who is not against, is for'?

The relationship with the excluded and their (modest) needs

(Mk 9:41-50)

In language typical of the lively East, Jesus' exhortations to coexistence overturn the hierarchy between the strong and the weak.

In religions, we find droves of marginalised people who cannot access or participate in the set-ups of those who deceive the crowds (even themselves) using pyramid religion.

The cowardice of the wealthy classes produces the hesitation of the voiceless, indefinitely.

In the Church of God - a sign of an alternative society - there must be no doubt, starting with small deprivations.

Especially in the well-structured sphere of roles, the wretched would wait to see (I won't say their hopes for redemption realised, but simply) their modest needs fulfilled, for the sake of justice.

Unfortunately, they are still rather mocked and chastised - by those who fear losing visibility, privileges and roles.

On the contrary, those who, like Jesus, are able to give everything, must not forget the small gestures, which speak of a gratuitousness that is not 'exemplary' and therefore authentic (limited in the day-to-day).

It is this coming together in the summary - little praised - that enhances the climate and does not drive the weak to resentment and evil.

The new 'doctrine' of Jesus is wise and decision-oriented, because it does not lose enthusiasm. On the contrary, it already makes us experience the same quality of life as the Eternal, turning away from that which corrupts.

He who is all about the great and does not notice the detail, never has a sense of the value of things, and sooner or later will end up despising everything.

Jesus identifies with us (v.41) because he inhabits us: we are his real, incarnate Victory.

A stumbling stone or even just in the shoe (v.42) turns the "mikròi" away from the path of Faith.

The 'incipients' - precisely, the ones with little energy and relationships - begin to take their first steps... they are still outside the cliques and the (even internal) ranks.

However, those who pretend and stand in the way, or who give shabby and lousy testimony, have but a stone in store: a millstone around their neck and an unworthy end (deadly existence: v.42).

"Better" than the further mortification of all, from the top of the class forced to live badly.

Not because God makes them pay, but because they throw away their lives and ruin others, who finally turn away, rightly repulsed - while the adventure of sharing could be wonderful for everyone.

This non-sense (to use a euphemism) is the trait that drives crowds to seek a more authentic Christianity than the one lived only in signs, catwalks and formulas, or in the structures provided.

The choice - if there is one - is either radical, or no longer convincing. And the smell that is given off is worse than smelly (v.43).

By dint of professing, many are left without God and without humanity; they do not even realise that there are others - different and legitimate life aspirations (towards themselves well recognised and restrained).

Instead, the community in which one experiences joy is like that pinch of wisdom that makes the spontaneous life wave of people full - beautiful.

Ferment that does not leaven is of no use.

All the more so to the small and shaky ones who approach the Church in order to feel good, or finally no longer exposed to the ludicrousness of society's all external competitions.

An artificial atmosphere, good only to reduce the defenceless to silence, despised and reduced to obedience - and which makes a mockery of acceptance.

This was customary in the religions of the empire, even in the name of 'divine' law... so what is the difference?"Having salt in ourselves" (v.50) means that in Christ we are made capable of giving to the smallest and most ordinary things that hue and taste capable of transmitting also to our neighbour the flavour of a saved life - starting from "within".

In the culture of the ancient Middle East, salt was related to God and therefore also had religious importance: a symbol of durability (to preserve food) and of courage (savouriness, seasoning, purification).

Salt had the power to drive out demons, which corrupted life and caused stench. That is why it was widely used in cultic sacrifices and in sanctioning 'covenants'.

In short, salt was a guarantee of genuine durability.

But Christian salt is only... love for one's neighbour and the ability to correspond to one's vocation.

Without it, the very character of life in Christ would disappear.

So the 'salt pact' is essential for credibility, for the proclamation, for the standard of living; for the very survival of communities, and their unmistakable touch. 

Listening to the Spirit and to each other thus remains an indispensable ingredient of 'Shalôm'.

No other work of defence from outside - inquisition, prevention or repression - can guarantee the survival of the Church.

Difference between Religion and Faith? The norm, used to promote or legitimise situations (of marginalisation and domination).

For our human, spiritual and whole-life progress, Jesus takes sides (perhaps not as one would expect) - because no one is given exclusivity.

To internalise the message:

In your community, it is the little ones who have to conform to the big ones and their circles... or vice versa, is there serious listening to the new ones with low energy and relationships, shaky and maladjusted?

Once again, therefore, let us look to Christ as a model of humility and of giving freely: let us learn from him patience in temptation, meekness in offence, obedience to God in suffering, in the hope that the One who has invited us will say to us: "Friend, go up higher" (cf. Lk 14: 10). Indeed, the true good is being close to him. St Louis IX, King of France […] put into practice what is written in the Book of Sirach: "The greater you are, the more you must humble yourself; so you will find favour in the sight of the Lord" (3: 18). This is what the King wrote in his "Spiritual Testament to his son": "If the Lord grant you some prosperity, not only must you humbly thank him but take care not to become worse by boasting or in any other way, make sure, that is, that you do not come into conflict with God or offend him with his own gifts" (cf. Acta Sanctorum Augusti 5 [1868], 546).

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 29 August 2010]

The Church asks for forgiveness for the sins of her sons

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

1. "Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our fathers.... For we have sinned and transgressed by departing from you, and we have done every kind of evil. Your commandments we have not heeded or observed" (Dn 3: 26, 29-30). This is how the Jews prayed after the Exile (cf. also Bar 2: 11-13), accepting responsibility for the sins committed by their fathers. The Church imitates their example and also asks forgiveness for the historical sins of her children.

In our century, in fact, the Second Vatican Council gave an important impetus to the Church's renewal, so that as a community of the saved she might become an ever more vivid image of Jesus' message to the world. Faithful to the teaching of the most recent Council, the Church is more and more aware that she can offer the world a consistent witness to the Lord only through the continual purification of her members. Therefore, "at once holy and always in need of purification, [she] follows constantly the path of penance and renewal" (Lumen gentium, n. 8).

2. Recognition of the community implications of sin spurs the Church to ask forgiveness for the "historical" sins of her children. She is prompted to do this by the valuable opportunity offered by the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 which, following the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, intends to turn a new page of history by overcoming the obstacles that still divide human beings and Christians in particular.

In my Apostolic Letter Tertio millennio adveniente, I therefore asked that at the end of this second millennium "the Church should become more fully conscious of the sinfulness of her children, recalling all those times in history when they departed from the spirit of Christ and his Gospel and, instead of offering to the world the witness of a life inspired by the values of faith, indulged in ways of thinking and acting which were truly forms of counter-witness and scandal" (Tertio millennio adveniente, n. 33).

3. The recognition of historical sins presupposes taking a stand in relation to events as they really happened and which only a serene and complete historical reconstruction can reveal. On the other hand, the judging of historical events cannot prescind from a realistic study of the conditioning caused by individual cultural contexts, before attributing specific moral responsibilities to individuals.

The Church is certainly not afraid of the truth that emerges from history and is ready to acknowledge mistakes wherever they have been identified, especially when they involve the respect that is owed to individuals and communities. She is inclined to mistrust generalizations that excuse or condemn various historical periods. She entrusts the investigation of the past to patient, honest, scholarly reconstruction, free from confessional or ideological prejudices, regarding both the accusations brought against her and the wrongs she has suffered.

When they have been established by serious historical research, the Church feels it her duty to acknowledge the sins of her members and to ask God and her brethren to forgive them. This request for pardon must not be understoood as an expression of false humility or as a denial of her 2,000-year history, which is certainly richly deserving in the areas of charity, culture and holiness. Instead she responds to a necessary requirement of the truth, which, in addition to the positive aspects, recognizes the human limitations and weaknesses of the various generations of Christ's disciples.

4. The approach of the Jubilee calls attention to certain types of sin, past and present, for which we particularly need to ask the Father's mercy.

I am thinking first of all of the painful reality of the division among Christians. The wounds of the past, certainly not without sins on both sides, continue to scandalize the world. A second act of repentance concerns the acquiescence given to intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of truth (cf. Tertio millennio adveniente, n. 35). Although many acted here in good faith, it was certainly not evangelical to think that the truth should be imposed by force. Then there is the lack of discernment by many Christians in situations where basic human rights were violated. The request for forgiveness applies to whatever should have been done or was passed over in silence because of weakness or bad judgement, to what was done or said hesitantly or inappropriately.

On this and other points "the consideration of mitigating factors does not exonerate the Church from the obligation to express profound regret for the weaknesses of so many of her sons and daughters who sullied her face, preventing her from fully mirroring the image of her crucified Lord, the supreme witness of patient love and of humble meekness" (ibid.).

Thus the penitent attitude of the Church in our time, on the threshold of the third millennium, is not intended as a convenient historical revisionism, which at any rate would be as suspect as it is useless. Instead, it turns our gaze to the past and to the recognition of sins, so that they will serve as a lesson for a future of ever clearer witness.

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 1 September 1999]

And then in the Gospel there is Jesus’ exhortation : instead of judging everything and everyone, let us be attentive to  ourselves! Indeed, the risk is to be inflexible towards others and indulgent towards ourselves. And Jesus urges us not to make a deal with evil, with striking images: “If something in you causes you to sin, cut it off!” (cf. vv. 43-48). If something harms you, cut it off! He does not say, “If something is a reason for scandal, stop, think about it, improve a bit…”. No: “Cut it off! Immediately! Jesus is radical in this, demanding, but for our own good, like a good doctor. Every cut, every pruning, is so we can grow better and bear fruit in love.

Let us then ask ourselves: what is in me that is contrary to the Gospel? What, in concrete terms, does Jesus want me to cut out of my life?

Let us pray to the Immaculate Virgin, that she may help us be welcoming towards others and vigilant over ourselves.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 26 September 2021]

May the Lord bless us and may the Virgin protect us!

7th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C (23 February 2025)

Reading from the First Book of Samuel (26,2.7-9.12-13.22-23)

Saul was the first king of the people of Israel, around 1040 BC. The texts say that "no son of Israel was more handsome than he, and he surpassed from the shoulder upwards anyone else of the people" (1 Sam 9:2). He was a peasant from a simple family in the tribe of Benjamin, chosen by God and anointed king by the prophet Samuel, who initially hesitated because he distrusted monarchy in general, but had to obey God. Saul was anointed with oil and bore the title 'messiah'.  After a good start, Saul unfortunately proved Samuel's worst fears right: his personal pleasure, love of power and war prevailed over loyalty to the covenant. It was so bad that, without waiting for the end of his reign, Samuel, at God's command, set out to find his successor and chose David, the little shepherd from Bethlehem, the eighth son of Jesse. David was received into Saul's court and gradually became a skilful war leader, whose achievements were the talk of the town. One day, Saul heard the popular song that circulated everywhere: "Saul has slain his thousand, and David his ten thousand" (1 Sam 18:7) and was seized with jealousy that became so fierce towards David that he went mad. David had to flee several times to save himself, but contrary to Saul's suspicions, David never failed in his loyalty to the king. In the episode narrated here, it is Saul who takes the initiative: the three thousand men spoken of were gathered by him for the sole purpose of satisfying his hatred for David. "Saul went down into the wilderness of Zif with three thousand chosen men of Israel to seek David" (v. 2) and his intention was clear: to eliminate him as soon as possible. But the situation is reversed in David's favour: during the night David enters Saul's camp and finds everyone asleep, thus a favourable opportunity to kill him. Abisai, David's bodyguard, has no doubts and offers to kill him: 'Today God has put your enemy in your hands. Let me therefore nail him to the ground with my spear in one stroke and I will not add the second" (v 8). David surprises everyone, including Saul, who can hardly believe his eyes when he sees the proof that David has spared him. Two questions arise: why did David spare the one who wanted his death? The only reason is respect for God's choice: "I would not stretch out my hand against the messiah of the Lord" (v.11).  Why does the Bible recount this episode? There are certainly several reasons. Firstly, the sacred author wants to paint a portrait of David: respectful of God's will and magnanimous, refusing vengeance and understanding that Providence never manifests itself by simply delivering the enemy into one's own hands. Secondly, because the reigning king is untouchable and it should not be forgotten that this account was written in the court of Solomon, who had every interest in passing on this teaching. Finally, this text represents a stage in the biblical story, a moment in God's pedagogy: before learning to love all men, one must begin by finding some good reason to love some of them. David spares a dangerous enemy because he was, in his time, God's chosen one. The last stage will be to understand that every man is to be respected everywhere because the image of God is marked in him. We are all created in the image and likeness of God.

*Psalm 102 (103) 1-2, 3-4, 8. 10. 12-13

This psalm is encountered several times in the three liturgical years and we can admire the parallelism of the verses, a kind of alternation of verses that answer each other. It would be good to recite or sing it in two voices, line by line or in two alternating choirs. First chorus: "Bless the Lord, my soul" ... Second chorus: "May all that is in me bless his holy name" ... First chorus: "He forgives all your sins ... Second chorus: "He does not treat us according to our sins". And so on. Another characteristic is the joyful tone of the thanksgiving. The expression 'Bless the Lord, my soul' is repeated as an inclusion in the first and last verses of the psalm. Of all the blessings, the verses chosen for this Sunday insist on God's forgiveness: "He forgives all your faults... Merciful and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger and great in love; he does not treat us according to our sins nor repay us according to our faults. As far as the east is from the west, so he turns away our faults from us." Several times we have noted this: one of the great discoveries of the Bible is that God is only love and forgiveness. And that is precisely why he is so different from us and constantly surprises us. When the prophet Isaiah says: "My thoughts are not your thoughts, says God; your ways are not my ways" (55:6-8), he invites us to seek the Lord while he is being found, to call upon him while he is near. He invites the ungodly to forsake his way and the perverse man his thoughts, and adds: 'Return to the Lord who will have mercy on him, to our God who graciously forgives' - and adds - 'because my thoughts are not your thoughts'. Precisely the conjunction 'because' gives meaning to the whole sentence: it is precisely his inexhaustible mercy that makes the difference between God and us. Some five hundred years before Christ, it was already understood that God's forgiveness is unconditional and precedes all our prayers or repentance. God's forgiveness is not a punctual act, an event, but is its very essence. However, it is only we who can freely make the gesture of going to receive this forgiveness of God and renew the Covenant; he will never force us and so we go to him with confidence, we take the necessary step to enter into God's forgiveness that is already acquired. On closer inspection, this is a discovery that goes back to very ancient times. When Nathan announced God's forgiveness to King David, who had just gotten rid of his lover's husband, Bathsheba, David in truth had not yet had time to express the slightest repentance.  After reminding him of all the benefits with which God had filled him, the prophet added: "And if this were little, I would add still more" (2 Sam 12:8). Here is the meaning of the word forgiveness, made up of two syllables that it is good to separate "for - gift" to indicate the perfect gift, a gift beyond offence and beyond ingratitude; it is the covenant always offered despite infidelity. Forgiving those who have wronged us means continuing, in spite of everything, to offer them a covenant, a relationship of love or friendship; it means accepting to see that person again, to extend our hand to them, to welcome them at our table or in our home anyway; it means risking a smile; it means refusing to hate and to take revenge. However, this does not mean forgetting. We often hear people say: I can forgive but I will never forget. In reality, these are two completely different things. Forgiveness is neither forgetting nor erasing what has happened because nothing will erase it, whether it is good or bad. There are offences that can never be forgotten because the irreparable has happened. It is precisely this that gives greatness and gravity to our human lives: if a wipe-out could erase everything, what would be the point of acting well? We could do anything. Forgiveness therefore does not erase the past, but opens up the future. It breaks the chains of guilt, brings inner liberation and allows us to start again. When David had Bathsheba's husband killed, nothing could repair the evil committed. But David, forgiven, was able to raise his head again and try not to do evil any more. When parents forgive the murderer of one of their children, it does not mean that they forget the crime committed, but it is precisely in their grief that they find the strength to forgive, and forgiveness becomes a profoundly liberating act for themselves. Those who are forgiven will never again be innocent, but they can raise their heads again. Without arriving at such serious crimes, everyday life is marked by more or less serious acts that sow injustice or pain. By forgiving and receiving forgiveness we stop looking at the past and turn our gaze to the future. This is how it is in our relationship with God since no one can claim to be innocent, but we are all forgiven sinners.

*Second Reading from the First Epistle of St Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians (15:45-49)

St Paul's meditation on Christ's resurrection and ours continues and is addressed to Christians of Greek origin who would like to have a clear and precise answer on the resurrection of the flesh, when and how it will take place. Paul has already explained last Sunday that the resurrection is an article of faith whereby not believing in the resurrection of the dead means not believing in the resurrection of Christ either. Now he addresses the question: How do the dead rise and with what body do they return? In truth he acknowledges that he does not know what the resurrected will look like, but what he can say with certainty is that our resurrected body will be completely different from our earthly one. If we consider that Jesus who appeared after the resurrection was not immediately recognised by his disciples and Mary Magdalene mistook him for the gardener, this shows that he was the same and, at the same time, completely different. Paul distinguished an animal body from a spiritual body, and the expression spiritual body surprised his listeners who knew the Greek distinction between body and soul. However, being Jewish, he knew that Jewish thought never contrasts the body and the soul, and his Jewish training led him instead to contrast two types of behaviour: that of the earthly man and that of the spiritual man, inaugurated by the Messiah. In every man, God has insufflated a breath of life that makes him capable of spiritual life, but he still remains an earthly man. Only in the Messiah fully dwells the very Spirit of God, which guides his every action. To argue, Paul refers to Genesis, in which he reads the vocation of mankind, but does not interpret it historically. For him, Adam is a type of man or, rather, a type of behaviour. This reading may seem unusual to us, but we must get used to reading the creation texts in Genesis not as an account of events, but as accounts of vocation. By creating humanity (Adam is a collective name), God calls it to an extraordinary destiny. Adam, the earthly being, is called to become the temple of God's Spirit. And it must be remembered that in the Bible, Creation is not considered an event of the past because the Bible speaks much more of God the Creator than of Creation; it speaks of our relationship with God: we were created by Him, we depend on Him, we are suspended from His breath and it is not about the past, but about the future. The act of creation is presented to us as a project still in progress: in the two accounts of creation, man has a role to play. "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it" in the first account (Gen 1:28). "The LORD God took man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it" in the second account (Gen 2:15). And this task concerns all of us, since Adam is a collective name representing the whole of humanity. Our vocation, Genesis goes on to say, is to be the image of God, that is, inhabited by the very Spirit of God. "God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness...God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them." (Gen 1:26-27). Adam is also the type of man who does not respond to his calling; he allowed himself to be influenced by the serpent, who instilled in him, like a poison, distrust of God. This is what Paul calls earthly behaviour, like the serpent crawling on the ground. Jesus Christ, the new Adam, on the other hand, allows himself to be guided only by the Spirit of God. In this way, he fulfils the vocation of every man, i.e. of Adam; this is the meaning of Paul's sentence: "Brothers, the first man, Adam, became a living being but the last Adam (i.e. Christ) became a life-giving spirit."

The message is clear: Adam's behaviour leads to death, Christ's behaviour leads to life. However, we are constantly torn between these two behaviours, between heaven and earth, and we can make Paul's expression our own when he cries out: 'Wretched man that I am! I do not do the good that I want, but do the evil that I do not want." (Rom 7:24, 19). In other words, the individual and collective history of all mankind is a long journey to allow ourselves to be inhabited more and more by the Spirit of God.  Paul writes: "The first man from earth is made of earth, the second man is from heaven. As the earthly man is, so are those of the earth; and as the heavenly man is, so are the heavenly". And St John observes: 'Beloved, even now we are children of God, but what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We know, however, that when he is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2). The perfect image of God in Jesus Christ, the apostles saw it on the face of Christ during the Transfiguration.

Note: the serpent crawling on the ground tempts mankind (Adam - adam man related to adamah earth, is not the name of a person but indicates the whole of mankind made of earth Gn1,26-27) and the name of the serpent is nahash a word that can mean either serpent or the dragon of Revelation: Gn3,15; Rev 12)

*From the Gospel according to Luke (6:27-38)

"Be merciful as your Father is merciful" and you will then be children of the Most High, for he is good to the ungrateful and the wicked.  This is the programme of every Christian, it is our vocation. The entire Bible appears as the story of man's conversion as he gradually learns to master his own violence. It is certainly not an easy process, but God is patient, because, as St Peter says, one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day (cf. 2 Pet 3:8) and he educates his people with such patience, as we read in Deuteronomy: "As a man corrects his son, so the Lord your God corrects you" (Deut 8:5). This slow eradication of violence from the human heart is expressed figuratively as early as the book of Genesis: violence is presented as a form of animality. Let us take the account of the Garden of Eden: God had invited Adam to name the animals, to symbolise his superiority over all creatures. God had in fact conceived Adam as the king of creation: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the wild beasts, and over all the reptiles that creep upon the earth" (Gen 1:26). And Adam himself had recognised that he was different, that he was superior: "Man gave a name to all the animals, to the birds of the air, and to all the wild beasts; but for man he found no helper to match him" (Gen 2:20). Man did not find his equal. But two chapters later, we find the story of Cain and Abel. At the moment when Cain is seized with a mad desire to kill, God says to him: "Sin is crouching (like a beast) at your door. It lurks, but you must master it' (Gen 4:7). And starting from this first murder, the biblical text shows the proliferation of vengeance (Gen 4:1-26). From the very first chapters of the Bible, violence is thus recognised: it exists, but it is unmasked and compared to an animal. Man no longer deserves to be called man when he is violent. The biblical texts thus embark on the arduous path of converting the human heart. On this path, we can distinguish stages. Let us pause on the first: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" (Ex 21:24). In response to the terrible boast of Lamech (Gen 4:23), great-grandson of Cain, who gloried in killing men and children to avenge simple scratches, the Law introduced a first limit: a single tooth for a tooth, and not the whole jaw; a single life for a life, and not a whole village in retaliation. The law of retaliation thus already represented significant progress, even if it still seems insufficient today. The pedagogy of the prophets constantly addresses the problem of violence, but comes up against a great psychological difficulty: the man who agrees not to take revenge fears losing his honour. The biblical texts then show man that his true honour lies elsewhere: it consists precisely in resembling God, who is 'good to the ungrateful and the wicked'. Jesus' discourse, which we read this Sunday, represents the last stage of this education: from the law of retaliation we have moved on to the invitation to gentleness, to disinterestedness, to perfect gratuitousness. He insists: twice, at the beginning and at the end, he says "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you"... "Love your enemies, do good and lend without hoping for anything in return". And so the ending surprises us a little: up to this point, although it was not easy, at least it was logical. God is merciful and invites us to imitate him. But here the last lines seem to change tone: 'Do not judge and you will not be judged; do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you: a good measure, pressed down, shaken and overflowing will be poured into your lap, for with the measure with which you measure, it will be measured to you in return' (Lk 6:37-38). Have we returned to a logic of 'quid pro quo'? Of course not! Jesus is simply pointing out to us here a very reassuring path: in order not to fear being judged, simply do not judge or condemn others. Judge actions, but never people. Establish a climate of benevolence. In this way, fraternal relations will never be broken. As for the phrase: "Your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High", it expresses the wonderment experienced by those who conform to the Christian ideal of meekness and forgiveness. It is the profound transformation that takes place in them: for they have opened the door to the Spirit of God, and he dwells in them and inspires them more and more. Little by little they see the promise formulated by the prophet Ezekiel fulfilled in them: "I will give you a new heart, I will put a new spirit within you; I will take away from you the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." (Ez 36:26).

+Giovanni D'Ercole

Summary on request: Short commentary.

Reading from the First Book of Samuel (26.2.7-9.12-13.22-23)

Saul was the first king of the people of Israel, around 1040 B.C. He was a peasant from a simple family of the tribe of Benjamin, chosen by God and anointed king by the prophet Samuel, who initially hesitated because he distrusted monarchy in general, but had to obey God. After a good start, Saul unfortunately proved Samuel's worst fears right: his personal pleasure, love of power and war prevailed over loyalty to the Covenant. It was so bad that, without waiting for the end of his reign, Samuel, at God's command, set out to find his successor and chose David, the little shepherd from Bethlehem, the eighth son of Jesse. David was received into Saul's court and gradually became a skilful war leader, whose achievements were the talk of the town. One day, Saul heard the popular song that circulated everywhere: "Saul has slain his thousand, and David his ten thousand" (1 Sam 18:7) and was seized with jealousy that became so fierce towards David that he went mad. David had to flee several times to save himself, but contrary to Saul's suspicions, David never failed in his loyalty to the king. In the episode narrated here, it is Saul who takes the initiative: the three thousand men spoken of were gathered by him for the sole purpose of satisfying his hatred for David. "Saul went down into the wilderness of Zif with three thousand chosen men of Israel to search for David" (v 2) and his intention was clear: to eliminate him as soon as possible. But the situation is reversed in David's favour: during the night David enters Saul's camp and finds everyone asleep, thus a favourable opportunity to kill him. Abisai, David's bodyguard, has no doubts and offers to kill him: 'Today God has put your enemy in your hands. Let me therefore nail him to the ground with my spear in one stroke and I will not add the second" (v 8). David surprises everyone, including Saul, who can hardly believe his eyes when he sees the proof that David has spared him. Two questions arise: why did David spare the one who wanted his death? The only reason is respect for God's choice: "I would not stretch out my hand against the messiah of the Lord" (v.11).  The sacred author wants to outline the portrait of David: respectful of God's will and magnanimous, who refuses revenge and understands that Providence never manifests itself by simply delivering the enemy into one's own hands. Secondly, because the reigning king is untouchable and it should not be forgotten that this account was written in the court of Solomon, who had every interest in passing on this teaching. Finally, this text represents a stage in the biblical story, a moment in God's pedagogy: before learning to love all men, one must begin to find some good reason to love some, and David spares a dangerous enemy because as king he is God's chosen one. The last stage will be to understand that every man is to be respected because we are all created in the image and likeness of God.

*Psalm 102 (103) 1-2, 3-4, 8. 10. 12-13

This psalm would be good to recite or sing in two voices, in two alternating choirs. First chorus: "Bless the Lord, my soul"... Second chorus: "Let all that is in me bless his holy name"... First chorus: "He forgives all your sins... Second chorus: "He does not treat us according to our sins". And so on. Another characteristic is the joyful tone of the thanksgiving. The expression 'Bless the Lord, my soul' is repeated as an inclusion in the first and last verses of the psalm. Of all the benefits, the verses chosen for this Sunday insist on God's forgiveness: "For he forgives all your faults... Merciful and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger and great in love; he does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our faults... "for my thoughts are not your thoughts". Precisely the conjunction 'because' gives meaning to the whole sentence: it is precisely his inexhaustible mercy that makes the difference between God and us. Some five hundred years before Christ, it was already understood that God's forgiveness is unconditional and precedes all our prayers or repentance. God's forgiveness is not a punctual act, an event, but is its very essence. However, it is only we who can freely make the gesture of going to receive this forgiveness of God and renew the Covenant; He will never force us and so we go to Him with confidence, we take the necessary step to enter into God's forgiveness that is already acquired. On closer inspection, this is a discovery that goes back to very ancient times. When Nathan announced God's forgiveness to King David, who had just gotten rid of his lover's husband, Bathsheba, David in truth had not yet had time to express the slightest repentance.  After reminding him of all the benefits with which God had filled him, the prophet added: "And if this were little, I would add still more" (2 Sam 12:8). Here is the meaning of the word forgiveness, made up of two syllables that it is good to separate "for - gift" to indicate the perfect gift, a gift beyond offence and beyond ingratitude; it is the covenant always offered despite infidelity. Forgiving those who have wronged us means continuing, in spite of everything, to offer them a covenant, a relationship of love or friendship; it means refusing to hate and to take revenge. However, this does not mean forgetting. We often hear people say: I can forgive but I will never forget. In reality, these are two completely different things. Forgiveness is not a blank slate. There are offences that can never be forgotten, because the irreparable has happened. It is precisely this that lends greatness and gravity to our human lives: if a wipe-out could erase everything, what would be the point of acting well? We could do anything. Forgiveness therefore does not erase the past, but opens up the future. It breaks the chains of guilt, brings inner liberation and allows us to start again. When David had Bathsheba's husband killed, nothing could repair the evil committed. But David, forgiven, was able to raise his head again and try not to do evil any more. When parents forgive the murderer of one of their children, it does not mean that they forget the crime committed, but it is precisely in their grief that they find the strength to forgive, and forgiveness becomes a profoundly liberating act for themselves. Those who are forgiven will never again be innocent, but they can raise their heads again. Without arriving at such serious crimes, everyday life is marked by more or less serious acts that sow injustice or pain. By forgiving and receiving forgiveness we stop looking at the past and turn our gaze to the future. This is how it is in our relationship with God since no one can claim to be innocent, but we are all forgiven sinners.

*Second Reading from the First Epistle of St Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians (15:45-49)

St Paul's meditation on Christ's resurrection and ours continues and is addressed to Christians of Greek origin who would like to have a clear and precise answer on the resurrection of the flesh, when and how it will take place. Paul has already explained last Sunday that the resurrection is an article of faith whereby not believing in the resurrection of the dead means not believing in the resurrection of Christ either. Now he addresses the question: How do the dead rise and with what body do they return? In truth he acknowledges that he does not know what the resurrected will look like, but what he can say with certainty is that our resurrected body will be completely different from our earthly one. If we consider that Jesus who appeared after the resurrection was not immediately recognised by his disciples and Mary Magdalene mistook him for the gardener, this shows that he was the same and, at the same time, completely different. Paul distinguished an animal body from a spiritual body, and the expression spiritual body surprised his listeners who knew the Greek distinction between body and soul. However, being Jewish, he knew that Jewish thought never contrasts the body and the soul, and his Jewish training led him instead to contrast two types of behaviour: that of the earthly man and that of the spiritual man, inaugurated by the Messiah. In every man, God has insufflated a breath of life that makes him capable of spiritual life, but he still remains an earthly man. In order to argue, Paul refers to Genesis and sees Adam as a type of behaviour because the creation account in Genesis is not an account of events, but the account of a vocation. By creating humanity (Adam is a collective name), God calls it to an extraordinary destiny. Adam, the earthly being, is called to become the temple of God's Spirit. And it must be remembered that in the Bible, Creation is not seen as an event of the past, but speaks of our relationship with God: we were created by Him, we depend on Him, we are suspended from His breath and it is not about the past, but about the future. The creative act is presented to us as a project still in progress: in the two accounts of creation, man has a role to play. "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it" (Gen 1:28). "The LORD God took man and put him in the garden of Eden that he might cultivate it and keep it" (Gen 2:15). And this task concerns all of us, since Adam is a collective name representing the whole of humanity. Our vocation, Genesis goes on to say, is to be the image of God, that is, inhabited by the very Spirit of God. "God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness...God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them." (Gen 1:26-27). Adam is also the type of man who does not respond to his calling; he allowed himself to be influenced by the serpent, who instilled in him, like a poison, distrust of God. This is what Paul calls earthly behaviour, like the serpent crawling on the ground. Jesus Christ, the new Adam, on the other hand, allows himself to be guided only by the Spirit of God. In this way, he fulfils the vocation of every man, i.e. of Adam; this is the meaning of Paul's sentence: "Brothers, the first man, Adam, became a living being but the last Adam (i.e. Christ) became a life-giving spirit."

The message is clear: Adam's behaviour leads to death, Christ's behaviour leads to life. However, we are constantly torn between these two behaviours, between heaven and earth, and we can make Paul's expression our own when he cries out: 'Wretched man that I am! I do not do the good that I want, but do the evil that I do not want." (Rom 7:24, 19). In other words, the individual and collective history of all mankind is a long journey to allow ourselves to be inhabited more and more by the Spirit of God.  Paul writes: "The first man from earth is made of earth, the second man is from heaven. As the earthly man is, so are those of the earth; and as the heavenly man is, so are the heavenly. 

*From the Gospel according to Luke (6:27-38)

"Be merciful as your Father is merciful" and then you will be children of the Most High, for he is good to the ungrateful and the wicked.  This is the programme of every Christian, it is our vocation. The entire Bible appears as the story of man's conversion as he gradually learns to master his own violence. It is certainly not an easy process, but God is patient and educates his people with such patience. This slow eradication of violence from the human heart is expressed figuratively as early as the book of Genesis: violence is presented as a form of animality. God had invited Adam to name the animals, to symbolise his superiority over all creatures.  And Adam himself had recognised that he was different, superior, and did not find his equal. But next we find the story of Cain and Abel. At the moment when Cain is seized with a mad desire to kill, God says to him: "Sin is crouching (like a beast) at your door. It lurks, but you must master it' (Gen 4:7). And starting from this first murder, the biblical text shows the proliferation of vengeance (Gen 4:1-26). From the very first chapters of the Bible, violence is thus recognised: it exists, but it is unmasked and compared to an animal. Man no longer deserves to be called man when he is violent. The biblical texts thus embark on the arduous path of converting the human heart. On this path, we can distinguish stages. Let us pause on the first: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" (Ex 21:24). In response to the terrible boast of Lamech (Gen 4:23), great-grandson of Cain, who gloried in killing men and children to avenge simple scratches, the Law introduced a first limit: a single tooth for a tooth, and not the whole jaw; a single life for a life, and not a whole village in retaliation. The law of retaliation thus already represented significant progress, even if it still seems insufficient today. The pedagogy of the prophets constantly addresses the problem of violence, but comes up against a great psychological difficulty: the man who agrees not to take revenge fears losing his honour. The biblical texts then show man that his true honour lies elsewhere: it consists precisely in resembling God, who is 'good to the ungrateful and the wicked'. Jesus' discourse, which we read this Sunday, represents the last stage of this education: from the law of retaliation we have moved on to the invitation to gentleness, to disinterestedness, to perfect gratuitousness. He insists: twice, at the beginning and at the end, he says 'Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you'.... God is merciful and invites us to imitate him. But here the last lines seem to change tone: 'Do not judge and you will not be judged; do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and you will be given (Lk 6:37-38). Are we perhaps back to a logic of 'quid pro quo'? Of course not! Jesus is simply pointing out to us here a very reassuring path: to not fear being judged, simply do not judge or condemn others. Judge actions, but never people. Establish a climate of benevolence. In this way, fraternal relations will never be broken.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

Absent Ecclesiology

(Mk 9:38-40)

It’s not strange that the holy Inquisition was born in the time of an absent ecclesiology.

The ‘leaven’ of the Pharisees and Herod (Mk 8:14) leads Christ's direct disciples to a sealed mentality - according to which if someone "is not one of us" [«he did not follow us» v. 38] he must be marginalized.

There is no trivial criterion that gives imprimatur of being able to discriminate “faithful” and “not”.

It’s worth: how important is the Person of the Son of man, for our life and in our daily choices?

For the Lord, what matters is not formal belonging - which tends to homologate.

In fact, we see that it’s precisely situations outside the lines that become a goad: they urge dull and opaque ‘christians’ to become a Seed.

Thus, even the "community" is not important because it considers itself as such.

The universal call to the promotion of humanity is divine: a wealth that flies over obstacles, a heritage of joy from wherever it comes.

If relegated and locked in the filing cabinets, the history of Salvation does not become life of the saved.

«But Jesus said: Do not prevent him. In fact, there is no one who does a powerful wonder in my name and immediately afterwards he can speak ill of me» (v.39).

With his intimates, the Master doesn’t use diplomatic language [expressions careful not to offend their susceptibility as experts].

The formation of the disciples is essential to the construction of the Kingdom with wide boundaries; above all, mental.

There are models in esoteric religions. Not here: only charisms, even very personal ones - a condition of true love.

We are ruled by God - the only one who knows what it arouses in each one, and ‘where to go’.

Jesus is the revelator and cornerstone of this happy, unthinkable News: but in the sense of intimate Motive and Motor, completely non-exterior - which calls the person in a way that seems incomprehensible to others.

Christ marks his friendship in the life of believers as the center and axis.  Yet there are many gestures and sensitivities that the new world arouses, and likewise make his Presence leak out.

Nor does He tire of repeating what we do not wish to understand.

He orders only to ‘perceive’ the reality well (Mk 8:27-29) where the secret of God is hidden - that conformist thought is not even remotely able to imagine (Mk 8:30-35).

‘Standard’ has no specific weight for the excess of the adventure of Faith.

The imbalance of love is personal: it serenely admits the diversity and eccentric increase of life, that follows.

Such is the new awareness of the Mission made in Listening, and in respect not only towards the intelligence and culture of others, but also towards oneself.

No one has a monopoly on Grace, which is why we do not shrink our hearts from canons or fashions.

In the truth of the Good, the sense of ownership is out of place.

To internalize and live the message:

What weight do material interests, the empty rigidity, or uninhibited fantasies of those who (without even having a title) ape petty hierarchies and fulminate the different with mediocre impersonal sentences have on you?

How do you live the Word: «Who is not against, is for»?

[Wednesday 7th wk. in O.T.  26 February 2025]

Gospel presents one of those episodes in Christ’s life which, even if they are noted, so to speak en passant, contain a profound meaning (cf. Mk 9:38-41). The event involved someone who was not a follower of Jesus but who had expelled demons in his name. The Apostle John, a young man and ardently zealous as he was, wanted to prevent him but Jesus did not permit this; on on the contrary, he drew inspiration from this circumstance to teach his disciples that God could work good and even miraculous things even outside their circle, and that it is possible to cooperate with the cause of the Kingdom of God in different ways, even by simply offering a missionary a glass of water (v. 41). St Augustine wrote in this regard: “as, therefore, there is in the Catholic — meaning the Church — something which is not Catholic, so there may be something which is Catholic outside the Catholic Church” (cf. On Baptism, Against the Donatists, PL 43, VII, 39, 77). 

Therefore if a stranger to the community does good works in Christ’s name, so long as he does so with upright intentions and with respect, members of the Church must not feel jealous but must rejoice. Even within the Church, people can find it difficult, in the spirit of deep communion, to value and appreciate good things achieved by the different ecclesial entities. Instead, we must all and always be able to appreciate one another, praising God for the infinite “creativity” with which he acts in the Church and in the world.

The stream of invective of the Apostle James against the dishonest rich who rely on wealth accumulated by abuse, rings out in today’s Liturgy (cf. Jas 5:1-6). St Caesarius of Arles says in this regard in one of his sermons: “riches can do no harm to a good man, so long as he gives them compassionately, just as they cannot help a wicked man, so long as he keeps them greedily for himself or wastes them in dissipation” (Sermons, 35, 4). While the Apostle James’ words put us on guard against the worthless desire for material goods, they are a powerful appeal to use them with a view to solidarity and the common good, always acting with fairness and morality at all levels.

Dear friends, let us pray through the intercession of Mary Most Holy that we may be able to rejoice in every act and initiative for good without envy or jealousy and that we may use earthly goods wisely, in the constant search for heavenly goods.

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 30 September 2012]

The text of this Way of the Cross was written by a Christian layman, a member of the Orthodox Church. This layman feels that he is an ordinary person, and he accepted the invitation with great emotion and gratitude for at least two main reasons.

First of all, because on the path to Golgotha there can be no more separation. Christ's death of love makes any attitude other than one of penitence and reconciliation derisory.

Secondly, because writing a Way of the Cross means meditating, through a strange mystical experience, on the words and gestures of God made man as he takes on our condition to the full, to know death from within and open it up to resurrection.

There are, as we have seen in recent years, two versions of the Stations of the Cross. The most recent one only quotes and comments on texts from the gospel. The older ones add stations born of medieval sensitivity, especially Franciscan: such as the three falls of Jesus, or his encounter with Veronica, scenes that are commented with texts from the Old Testament.

So many paintings or sculptures on the walls of churches, in Western Europe and now everywhere in the world, so many chapels and so many crosses erected along pilgrimage routes, in the mountains, have made the representations of these scenes of the Way of the Cross familiar to all. And this is why the commentator has preferred to follow the traditional form, in order to enter fully and without losing anything of his own vision of redemption, into the sensibility of the Catholic world.

It is often repeated that the Christian West put the emphasis on Good Friday and the East on Easter. This would be to forget that the Cross and the Resurrection are inseparable, as this commentary points out. The stigmatised of the Catholic world knew (and know) that the blood flowing from their wounds is a blood of light, and the Orthodox, by celebrating during Vespers on Good Friday the office of the "holy sufferings", or by affirming that every man of prayer and compassion is a staurophore, that is, a "bearer of the Cross", have always understood that only the Cross is the bearer of resurrection.

For an Orthodox, to enter into the Franciscan spirituality of the Way of the Cross was to attempt to underline its not only human but divine-human depth. For it is God himself who on Golgotha humanly suffers our desperate agonies in order to open up for us (perhaps unexpected) paths of resurrection.

The modern age, as we know, has waged a fierce and merciless trial against God, both He the Almighty, in the human sense of the word (so why is the world absurd and evil?), and He who created us free, but knowing what we would do with our freedom. It was necessary to show - try to show - that to the insoluble question of evil, the only answer is precisely the Way of the Cross.

God voluntarily descends into evil, into death, - an evil and a death for which he is not at all responsible, for which he perhaps does not even have the idea, as a contemporary theologian put it - he descends to place himself forever between nothingness and us, to make us feel, to make us live, that at the bottom of things, there is not nothingness, but love.

God beyond God, this 'ocean of clarity', and this man covered in blood and spit who staggers and falls under the weight of all our crosses, is the same, yes indeed he is the same in his transcendence and in his 'madness of love'. Such antinomy makes the unimaginable originality of Christianity. The suffering of the body, the social mockery, the despair of the forsaken soul, all come together for God to reveal Himself here, not as the fullness that crushes, judges and condemns, but as the limitless openness of love in the limitless respect of our freedom.

Here the unthinkable distance between God and the Crucified - "My God, my God why have you forsaken me? " - is filled all of a sudden with the breath of the Spirit, the breath of the resurrection.

The last stage of human history and the becoming of the cosmos opens: in the blood that gushes forth from the pierced side of Christ, the fire that he came to cast upon the earth now burns, this fire of the Holy Spirit that fertilises our freedom so that it becomes capable of changing the long passion of history into resurrection. An outpouring of peace and light that cannot precisely manifest itself except through this freedom that he liberates and that sets him free

Hence undoubtedly the last feature of this Way of the Cross taken up in its traditional form: the greater role of women, the only ones left faithful, apart from John, the most exposed, the most capable of love. As demonstrated by the gesture of Veronica who wipes Christ's Face with a veil on which it is imprinted and transmitted to our churches: so many Holy Faces in which the face of God is shown in its human flesh, so that we may see in God every human face.

[Olivier Clément, presentation Via Crucis 10 April 1998]

The Gospel of today’s Liturgy recounts a brief dialogue between Jesus and the Apostle John, who speaks on behalf of the entire group of disciples. They saw a man who was casting out demons in the name of the Lord, but they stopped him because he was not part of their group. At this point, Jesus invited them not to hinder those who do good, because they contribute to the fulfilment of God’s plan (cf. Mk 9:38-41). Then he admonished them: instead of dividing people into good and bad, we are all called to be vigilant over our own hearts, lest we succumb to evil and bring scandal to others (cf. vv. 42-45, 47-48).

In short, Jesus’ words reveal a temptation, and offer an exhortation. The temptation is to be “closed off”. The disciples would like to hinder a good deed simply because it is performed by someone who does not belong to their group. They think they have the “exclusive right over Jesus”, and that they are the only ones authorised to work for the Kingdom of God. But this way, they end up feeling that they are privileged and consider others as outsiders, to the extent of becoming hostile towards them. Brothers and sisters, every closure tends in fact to keep us at a distance from those who do not think like we do, and this — we know —  is the root of many great evils in history: of  absolutism that has often generated dictatorships and of great violence towards those who are different.

But we need to be vigilant about closure in the Church too. Because the devil, who is the divider — this is what the word “devil” means, the one who divides — always insinuates suspicions to divide and exclude people. He tempts by using cunning, and it can happen as with those disciples, who ended up excluding even someone who had cast out the devil himself! Sometimes we too, instead of being humble and open communities, can give the impression of being the “top of the class” and keep others at a distance; instead of trying to walk with everyone, we can show off our “believer’s license”: “I am a believer”, “I am Catholic”, “I belong to this association, to that one”, and the others, poor things, do not. This is a sin. Showing off one’s “believer’s license” to judge and exclude. Let us ask for the grace to overcome the temptation to judge and to categorise, and may God preserve us from the “nest” mentality, that of jealously guarding ourselves in the small group of those who consider themselves good: the priest with his loyal followers, the pastoral workers closed off among themselves so that no one can infiltrate, the movements and associations in their own particular charism, and so on. Closed. All this runs the risk of turning Christian communities into places of separation and not of communion. The Holy Spirit does not want closure; He wants openness, welcoming communities where there is a place for everyone.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 26 September 2021]

[Institution's transience? What about compactness? What about expansion?]

(Mk 9:30-37)

"A little boy was playing at being a priest with a boy his age on the steps of his house. All went well until his little friend, fed up with just being an altar boy, climbed to a higher step and started preaching. The child rebuked him sharply: 'I can only preach! You can't preach! My turn! You spoil the game, you are bad!' Summoned by the shouts, his mother intervened and explained to the child that out of duty of hospitality he had to allow the other to preach. At this point the child sulked for a moment, then brightening up he climbed to the top step and replied: 'All right, he can continue preaching, but I will do God' [...]".

(B. Ferrero, La Scala, in: C'è Qualcuno Lassù?, p.24)

The mentality of precedence and supremacy was ingrained to the point that even in Paradise hierarchies were said to exist.

But «Son of Man» already designates in First Testament the character of a holiness that surpasses the ancient fiction of rulers, who would pile on top of one another reciting the same script.

Instead, in the Kingdom of Jesus there must be a lack of ranks - which is why the plan of the most ambitious Apostles does not match His.

«Son of man» is the person according to a criterion of humanisation, not a beast that prevails because it’s stronger than the others (Dan 7).

Every man with a heart of flesh - not of wild animal, nor of stone - spontaneously identifies himself with the «paidìon» (vv.36-37): a house servant, the shop boy.

The term [diminutive] designates the person who is always attentive to the needs of others, who makes himself available.

It alludes precisely to the dimension of holiness transmissible to anyone, but creative like love, therefore all to be discovered!

Jesus embraces an 8-12 year old boy who counted for nothing at that time - in fact, a house valet, an attendant.

It is the only identification Jesus loves and wishes to give us.

«If anyone wants to be first» (v.35): the Master does not exclude our right to do something great... but He doesn’t identify it with having, power and appearance.

Rather, it relies on our freedom to give, to go down and to serve - a work of emancipation entrusted first and foremost to the top of the class (vv.31-35).

The Lord makes us reflect on authentic fulfilment.

It is not an external conquest, but an intimate and made part of oneself.

It is thus able to sculpt our profound identity, in its richness of faces and in the time of a Path.

Aristotle stated that - beyond artificial petitions of principle or apparent proclamations - one only really loves oneself. This is no small question mark.

Granted and ungranted, the growth, promotion and blossoming of our qualities lies within a wise Way, an even interrupted journey that knows how to allow itself the right pace - even to encounter new states of being.

Genuine and mature love expands the boundaries of the ego-loving primacy of self, visibility and return, understanding the You in the I.

Itinerary and Vector that then expands capacities and life. Otherwise, in all circumstances and unfortunately at any age, we will remain in the puerile game of those who scramble up the steps to prevail.

As Pope Francis said about the mafia phenomena: «There is a need for men and women of Love, not honour!».

The Tao Tê Ching (XL) writes: «Weakness is what the Tao uses». And Master Wang Pi comments: «The high has the low for a foundation, the noble has the vile for a foundation».

Thus the ‘personal’ flows into the plural and global.

To internalise and live the message:

In the balance of nature, have you ever seen a plant that lives only in the light? Or a creature that did not have its shelter in the shade?

[Tuesday 7th wk. in O.T.  February 25, 2025]