Jn 6:1-15 recounts the parable of the multiplication of the loaves and the fish. Seeing that a large crowd had followed him to Lake Tiberias, Jesus turned to the Apostle Philip and asked him: “How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” (v. 5). The few denarii that Jesus and the apostles had were in fact not enough to feed that multitude. And then came Andrew, another of the Twelve, leading a young lad to Jesus, who made all that he had available to them: five loaves and two fish. But certainly, Andrew says, this is not enough for that crowd (cf. v. 9). He was a good lad! Courageous. He too could see the crowd and the five loaves but he says: “I have this: If you need it, take it”. This boy makes us think.... What courage.... Young people are like this. They have courage. We must help them express this courage. And yet, Jesus ordered his disciples to ask the people to sit down. He then took the bread and the fish, gave thanks to the Father and distributed it (cf. v. 11) and everyone was able eat their fill. Everyone ate as much as they wanted.

With this Gospel passage, the liturgy inspires us to keep our gaze on Jesus, who, in last Sunday’s Gospel passage according to Mark, upon seeing “a great throng ... had compassion on them” (Mk 6:34). That boy too with the five loaves had understood this compassion and said: “Poor people! I have this...”. His compassion moved him to offer what he had. Indeed today, John shows us again that Jesus is attentive to people’s primary needs. The parable describes a concrete fact: the people were hungry and Jesus engaged his disciples so that this hunger could be satisfied. This is the concrete fact. Jesus did not only offer this to the crowd — he offered his Word, his solace, his salvation, ultimately his life —, but he certainly did this too: he took care of the food for the body. And we, his disciples, cannot ignore this. Only by listening to the peoples’ most simple requests and being close to their practical existential situation can one expect to be listened to when speaking about higher values.

God’s love for a humanity that is hungry for bread, freedom, justice, peace and, above all, his divine grace, never fails. Even today, Jesus continues to feed, to make his presence alive and comforting, and he does so through us. So the Gospel invites us to be available and hard working, like that youth who, realizing he had five loaves, says: “I contribute this, then you will see [to it] ...”. Faced with the cry of hunger — all types of “hunger” — of many brothers and sisters in every part of the world, we cannot be detached and calm spectators. The proclamation of Christ, Bread of eternal life, requires a generous commitment of solidarity toward the poor, the weak, the least ones, the defenceless. This action of closeness and charity is the best test of the quality of our faith, both at the personal level and at the community level.

Then at the end of the story, Jesus, when everyone had eaten their fill, Jesus told the disciples to gather up the leftovers so that nothing would be wasted. And I would like to suggest to you this sentence that Jesus uttered: “Gather the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost” (v. 12). I am thinking about the many hungry people and how much leftover food we throw away.... Let each of us think about this: where does the food that is left over from lunch go, from dinner, where does it go? What is done with the leftover food in my house? Is it thrown away? No. If you have this habit, I will give you some advice: speak to your grandparents who lived through the post war period and ask them what they did with the leftovers. Never throw away leftover food. Either heat it again or give it to someone who can eat it, to someone who needs it. Never throw away leftover food. This is a piece of advice and also an examination of conscience: what do we do with leftovers at home?

Let us pray to the Virgin Mary so that programmes dedicated to development, food and solidarity may prevail in the world and not those of hatred, weapons and war.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 29 July 2018]

1 January 2025 on the eighths of Christmas, Most Holy Mary Mother of God 

First Reading from the Book of Numbers (6,22-27)

*The Lord bless you

To open the new calendar year that follows the Gregorian civil calendar, in use almost all over the world, the beautiful blessing was chosen, which in Israel the priests, starting with Aaron and his sons, used to bless the people during liturgical ceremonies in the Temple of Jerusalem. It is a formula that is now also part of the Christian heritage: taken from the Book of Numbers, it is in fact included among the solemn blessings proposed for the conclusion of the Mass. Notice how this blessing closes: "So they shall put my name on the Israelites and I will bless them" (v.27). On closer inspection, this is a way of expressing oneself, since, in reality, God's name is never pronounced out of respect for him. The name represents the person himself and pronouncing his name is a legal act that implies a taking of possession, but also a commitment to protection. For instance, when a warrior conquers a city, he is said to pronounce his name on it; similarly, on the Jewish wedding day, the husband's name is pronounced on the wife even if she does not bear her husband's name, and this implies ownership and a promise of vigilance.  When God reveals his name, he makes himself accessible to the prayer of his people, and invoking God's name normally constitutes a guarantee of blessing. There is such a strong bond between God and his people that offences directed against God's people constitute blasphemy against his name, they are a personal insult. This is why we better understand Jesus' words: 'As often as you did these things to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me' (Mt 25:40). With this blessing, then, we want to say today that on all the people we will meet throughout the year that is beginning, God has placed his name on them and, because of this blessing, we are invited to look at them with new eyes. 

With regard then to the blessing of the Book of Numbers, here are some points for reflection: 

1. This formula of blessing is in the singular: "May the Lord bless you" and not "May the Lord bless you". In reality, it refers to the entire people of Israel and is therefore a collective singular, and in time, Israel realised that this protection of God was not reserved for him alone, but for the whole of humanity.

2. "The Lord bless you" (v. 24) is in the subjunctive as well as "the Lord make his face to shine upon you ... The Lord turn his countenance upon you" (v.25,26)). We wish to be blessed, but we may ask ourselves: is it possible that the Lord does not bless us, he who makes the sun rise on the bad and the good, that is, on all men, and who asks us to love even our enemies...? Of course, we know that God blesses us continually, that he accompanies us and is with us in all circumstances. Yet, this subjunctive, like all subjunctives, expresses a desire that concerns us and not him. God blesses us continually, but we are free not to receive his blessing... like the sun that shines even when we seek the shadow and we are free to seek the shadow... In the same way, we are free to remove ourselves from God's beneficial action... Those who shelter themselves from the sun lose all possibility of benefiting from its light and warmth, and not because of the sun! Thus, the formula 'God bless you' is a wish that invites us to place ourselves under his blessing. In other words, God offers us his blessing, but it is up to us to accept it, and this subjunctive serves to manifest our free adherence.

3.In what does God's blessing consist? Benedire is a Latin term meaning to say well, so God says well of us. We should not be surprised that God says well of us because he loves us and therefore thinks and says well of us. Indeed, he only stops to see in us what is good. His Word, however, is also action: "He said and all things were" (Gen 1). Therefore, when God says good of us, he acts in us with his word, he transforms us, he does good to us.And so, when we ask for his blessing, we offer ourselves to God's transforming action

4. Beware! This blessing is not something magical.  Being blessed means choosing to live in God's grace, in harmony with Him and in His covenant, without this sparing us difficulties and trials. Whoever lives in God's blessing will go through the hardship of life always hearing God say to me, as Isaiah writes, "I hold thee with my victorious right hand"... "I hold thee by the right hand, and say unto thee, Fear not, I will come to thy help" (Isaiah 41:10-13).  

5. Moses promises the people: "You shall be blessed more than all peoples" (Deut 7:14).  Israel therefore is blessed, but this has not prevented it from going through terrible times; Nevertheless, in the midst of trials, the believer knows that God does not abandon him and indeed accompanies him with persevering patience. On today's feast of Mary, Mother of God, all this takes on a special significance. The angel Gabriel, sent to announce the birth of Jesus, said to her: "I greet you, full of grace" (Lk 1:28). Mary is par excellence the one on whom the name of God has been pronounced and she remains under his sweet protection. Elizabeth will rightly proclaim: 'Blessed art thou amongst women' (Lk 1:42).

5. Unfortunately, the Italian text fails to render all the richness of the original Hebrew formula for two reasons. Firstly, the name of God, YHWH, transcribed here as "the Lord", is the name that God revealed to Moses and in itself represents a promise of protective presence, the same that has always accompanied the children of Israel since their exit from Egypt. Secondly, translating Hebrew verbs with a subjunctive into Italian is an inevitable impoverishment. Since the Hebrew verbal system is very different from the Italian one, for greater precision experts suggest translating it as follows: "The Lord blesses you and keeps you". that is, God blesses you and keeps you now and will bless you and keep you forever." after all, this is our faith!

Responsorial Psalm 66 (67)

*Our God blesses us 

Psalm 66 resonates like an echo of the first reading, where the Book of Numbers offered us the well-known and splendid formula of blessing: 'May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee! May the Lord turn his countenance upon thee, and grant thee peace!". Here, too, are just a few considerations:

1 Let us begin with the very meaning of the term blessing. The prophet Zechariah says: "In those days, ten men of every tongue and nation shall seize a Jew by the hem of his cloak and say to him, 'We wish to go with you, for we have heard that God is with you'" (Zech 8:23). This is an interesting definition of blessing: to say that God blesses us is to say that God is with us, that he is with us. This, moreover, is the meaning of the very Name of God revealed at Sinai: YHWH, an unpronounceable Name that we translate as Lord. Although it is not translatable literally, the Jews understand it as a promise of God's constant presence alongside his people.

2. Here it is the people who invoke God's blessing upon themselves: 'God have mercy on us and bless us'. Regarding the priestly formula in the Book of Numbers, we are constantly assured of God's blessing, but we are free not to receive it. When the priest says 'The Lord bless you', he is not expressing the wish that God chooses to bless us because he could not but bless us, but he is wishing that we open our hearts to his blessing, so that he can transform us and act in us. The Psalm makes this clear: 'God have mercy on us and bless us... God, our God, blesses us'. These two phrases are not contradictory: God blesses us constantly, this is a certainty ("God, our God, blesses us", v. 7), but in order to welcome his action, we only need to desire it ("God have mercy on us and bless us", v. 2).

3. The certainty of being granted even before making a request is characteristic of prayer in Israel. The believer knows that he lives constantly immersed in the blessing, in the beneficent presence of God. Jesus himself says: "I knew that you always listen to me" (Jn 11:42).

4. The people of Israel do not ask this blessing only for themselves, and the blessing pronounced on Israel is poured out on the other peoples: "In you shall all the families of the earth be blessed" God said to Abraham (Gen 12:3). In this Psalm we find, intertwined as always, the two great themes: on the one hand the election of Israel, on the other the universality of God's plan. The work of salvation of humanity is accomplished through the election of Israel. The election of Israel is evident in the expression 'God, our God', which recalls the Covenant God made with the people he chose. But the universalism of the divine plan is equally clear: 'On earth let your way be known, your salvation among all nations', or: 'Let the nations rejoice with joy'. Moreover, in this Psalm, the refrain that is repeated twice foreshadows the day when all peoples will welcome God's blessing: "Let the peoples praise thee, O God, let all peoples praise thee". Israel knows that he is chosen to be the witnessing people: the light that shines on him is a reflection of the One whom Israel is to make known to the world. This understanding of Israel's election as a vocation was not immediate for the men of the Bible and is understandable: at the beginning of biblical history, each people imagined that deities ruled over specific territories: there were the deities of Babylon, those of Egypt, and those of every other country. It was not until around the 6th century that the people of Israel realised that the God with whom they had made the Covenant at Sinai was the God of the whole universe; Israel's election was not annulled, but took on a new meaning as the prophet Zechariah, quoted above (Zech 8:23), well shows. We too are a witnessing people: when we receive God's blessing, we are called to become a reflection of the divine light in the world, and this is the wish we can wish each other at the beginning of this new year: to be bearers of God's light for all those we meet

5. "The earth has yielded its fruit; God, our God, blesses us". Because the Word of God is action, it produces fruit. God promised a fertile land flowing with milk and honey, and He kept His promise by bringing Israel to the promised land. All the more reason for Christians to read this psalm with the birth of the Saviour in mind: when the fullness of time came, the land bore its fruit. St John of the Cross writes: "Since he (God) has given us his Son, who is his one and final Word, in this Word he has said everything and has nothing more to reveal" (Ascent of Mount Carmel. Book II, ch.22, par.3)

Second Reading from the letter of St Paul the Apostle to the Galatians ( 4, 4-7)

*"When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son". 

In this short text we find a theme very dear to St Paul: the fulfilment of God's plan. For believers, both Jews and Christians, this is a fundamental element of faith: history is not an eternal beginning, but a progressive journey of humanity towards its fulfilment, towards the realisation of God's project of merciful love. This theme is central to St Paul's letters and is a key not only to understanding them, but also to reading the entire Bible, starting with the Old Testament.  In the New Testament, it is continually emphasised that the life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth fulfil the Scriptures. Paul states before his judges: "I have said nothing apart from what Moses and the prophets foretold" (Acts 26:22). And the evangelist Matthew likes to repeat: "All this came to pass that what was spoken by the prophet might be fulfilled". Should one then think that everything was already written in advance? To better understand, it should be noted that "so that" in Italian is a final subordinating conjunction with two different meanings: one of finality and one of consequence. If we mean finality, then events would have occurred according to a predefined plan, predetermined from eternity. But if we understand it as consequence, it means that events unfold in a certain way and, in retrospect, we recognise how, through them, God fulfilled his plan. God's plan, then, is not a rigid programme in which everyone's role is predetermined. God takes the risk of our freedom and, throughout the ages, men have often obstructed his plan. That is why the prophets complained, but never lost hope. On the contrary, they continually promised that God would not grow weary. Isaiah, for example, announces from God: "I say, my plan shall be fulfilled, and I will accomplish all that I desire" (Isaiah 46:10). And Jeremiah adds: "I know the plans I have made for you, O oracle of the Lord: plans of peace and not of misfortune, to grant you a future full of hope" (Jer 29:11).

In the New Testament, the fulfilment of God's promises is always contemplated in Jesus. "God sent forth his Son: born of a woman, born under the Law". In a few words, Paul encapsulates the whole mystery of the person of Jesus: Son of God, man like other men, Jew like other Jews. The expression 'born of woman', first of all, is common in the Bible and simply means 'a man like other men'. For example, to avoid repetitions of the term man in the same sentence, the expression "son of the woman" is used (cf. Sir 10:18; Job 15:14; Job 25:4). Jesus himself uses this expression when speaking of John the Baptist: "Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen one greater than John the Baptist" (Matt 11:11).

The statement "born under the Law" indicates that Jesus accepted the condition of the men of his people. Paul continues: "To redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive adoption as sons". One often encounters the term "redeem" in the Bible, which means to free, to enfranchise. In the Old Testament, the redeemer was the one who freed the slave. Being under the Law, therefore, is not the same as being in the condition of sons: there is therefore a transition to be made. The one who lives under the Law acts as a servant, submitting to orders. The son, on the other hand, lives in love and trust: he can obey his father - that is, listen to his word - because he trusts him and knows that his every word is dictated by love. This means moving from the dominion of the Law to the obedience of children. The transition to a filial and trusting attitude is possible because "God sent into our hearts the Spirit of his Son, who cries out, 'Abba, Father'. This cry, which calls out to the Father, is the only one that saves us in all circumstances because it is like the desperate, trusting cry of the child who trusts his father. Whatever happens, we know that God is our Father and that he has only loving tenderness towards us. This is the filial attitude that Christ came to live among us, on our behalf. Paul concludes: "Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, you are also an heir". The term heir is to be understood in the full sense: what belongs to God is promised to us, but we must have the courage to believe it. And that is precisely our problem. When Jesus calls us "people of little faith", perhaps this is what he is referring to: we dare not believe that God's Spirit is in us, that his power belongs to us, that everything that is his is ours, including his ability to love. And all this is not because of us! If we are heirs, it is only by God's grace. That is why we can say, despite our human frailty, with St Therese of the Child Jesus: "Everything is grace, everything is gift: everything God does is for our good" (Manuscript C, 4r of The Story of a Soul)

Gospel according to Luke (2.16-21)

We are in the presence of an apparently secondary tale, yet it is in fact profoundly theological, which means that every detail has its weight, and for this reason it is worth going over it together:

1.The shepherds, first of all: they were little considered, indeed marginal because of their work which prevented them from attending synagogues and observing the Sabbath. Yet, they were the first to be informed of the event that changed the history of humanity: the birth of the awaited Messiah. The shepherds thus become the first apostles and the first witnesses: they tell, they are heard, and they arouse wonder. They speak of the extraordinary announcement they received in the middle of the night from the angels and the miracle is that they are believed as the evangelist Luke recounts (Lk 2:8-14). They tell all that they have seen and heard in their own words and this brings to mind an expression of Jesus that is often quoted: "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to the little ones" (Lk 10:21; Mt 11:25). It is not the learned and the wise whom God chooses as his messengers. 

2. The whole event that Luke relates takes place in Bethlehem. It was known at the time that the Messiah would be born in the line of David right there, yet people's interest was for other events and for the arrival of the Messiah, awaited for thousands of years, no one had prepared a home. Joseph and Mary found shelter outside the town and it was in a poor cave or stable: the only detail on this that the gospel specifies is this: "While they (Joseph and Mary) were in that place...Mary gave birth to her first-born son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the lodging" (Lk 2:6-7) . Bethlehem literally means 'the house of bread' and the newborn lying in a manger is an evocative image of the one who will give himself as nourishment to mankind. The link between Christmas and the Eucharist is obvious.

3. 'Mary, for her part, kept all these things, pondering them in her heart ... she kept these things and pondered them in her heart' (Lk 2:19). While the shepherds, made loquacious by the event, recount, Mary contemplates and ponders in her heart. Luke here might want to recall a passage from the vision of the Son of Man in Daniel, where we read: 'I kept these thoughts in my heart' (Dan 7:28). For Luke, this would be a way of already outlining the grandiose destiny of that child.

4. "The name Jesus was given to him" (Lk 2:21).  The name "Jesus" reveals the mystery: it means "God saves". Although Luke does not specify its etymology like Matthew, a few verses earlier he reports the announcement of the angel: "Today a Saviour is born to you" (Lk 2:11). At the same time, Jesus lives in full solidarity with his people: like every Jewish child, he is circumcised on the eighth day. Paul will say to the Galatians: "Born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law" (Gal 4:4). The other Gospels do not mention circumcision, but it was such a common act that there was no need to emphasise it. However, Luke insists on showing how Mary and Joseph fully respected the Mosaic Law. Not only that, he also recounts the presentation in the Temple. "When the days of their ritual purification were completed, according to the Law of Moses, they took the child to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord" (Lk 2:22). Here the whole solidarity of Jesus with his people emerges: a theme that culminates in his own words at the Last Supper: "This word of Scripture must be fulfilled in me: 'He was numbered among the ungodly'" (Lk 22:37).

5.One last remark: the discretion of the figure of Mary is striking, despite the fact that this liturgical feast is dedicated to her as "Mary, Mother of God". Luke merely says: "Mary, for her part, kept all these things, pondering them in her heart".  Perhaps, her silence is already a message for us: Mary's glory lies in having accepted to be the mother of God, humbly putting herself at the service of the project of salvation. She is not the centre of the project, but Jesus, the one whose name means 'God saves'.

+Giovanni D'Ercole 

God bless us and may the Virgin protect us! Best wishes for these Christmas holidays and for the new year 2025. 

Feast of the Holy Family [29th December 2024]

First Reading (1 Sam 1:20... 28)

 *Life is a gift from God 

Samuel is a child of a miracle! We are around 1200 BC, a period in Israel's history that is rarely spoken of. It is the end of the time of the Judges and there was still no king to rule over all the people. When Moses died and the people entered the Promised Land, the tribes settled in the territory, which they conquered progressively during about one hundred and fifty years. There was still no centralised administration and the tribes were led by chiefs called Judges, in the sense of 'governors', a kind of military, political and religious leaders capable of settling all disputes. This was before the time of the monarchy so that neither Jerusalem nor the Temple existed and the Ark of the Covenant, which had accompanied the people throughout the Exodus, stood in a sanctuary at Silo, in the centre of the country, some thirty kilometres north of present-day Jerusalem. Because Silo housed the Ark, the town had become a centre of annual pilgrimage and the custodian of that sanctuary was a priest named Eli. Near Silo lived a man named Elkanah, who had two wives: Anna and Peninna. Anna was Elkanah's favourite wife, but she was barren while Peninna had children of whom she was very proud and lost no opportunity to insinuate that Anna's barrenness was a curse from God. The most difficult time of the year for Anna was the pilgrimage to Silo: Elkanah went there with both wives, and everyone could see Anna's sadness, which contrasted with Peninna's joy as she felt like an accomplished mother. In those moments, Anna felt the weight of her infertility even more acutely. In her grief and humiliation, she could do nothing but weep and whisper with trembling lips her prayer, always the same: Please Lord, give me the gift of a son, so much so that the priest Eli, thinking she was drunk, one day rebuked her: Go somewhere else to dispose of the wine!

And it was here that the miracle took place. God, who knows people's hearts, saw Anne's tears and heard her prayer. A few months later a child was born, whom Anna named Samuel - one of the meanings of this name is God hears, God hears. In her grief, Anne had made a vow: "Almighty Lord, if you deign to look upon the humiliation of your servant and give me a son, I will consecrate him to you all the days of his life" (1 Samuel 1:11). When the child was weaned, at the age of about three years, Anna took him to the sanctuary in Shiloh and entrusted him to the priest Eli, saying to him: 'I am that woman who stood here next to you praying to the Lord. It was to obtain this child that I prayed, and the Lord gave him to me in response to my request. Now, in my turn, I give him to the Lord: he will remain consecrated to the Lord all the days of his life'. Samuel grew up in Shiloh, and there he heard God's call and later became a great servant of Israel. Why is this text proposed on the occasion of the feast of the Holy Family, and what links the two children, Jesus and Samuel, the two mothers, Mary and Anna, and the two fathers, Joseph and Elkanah? We can make a few observations about these two families separated from each other by more than a thousand years. First of all, God listens. Samuel means God listens, God hears, and this is the fundamental religious experience of Israel: God hears the cry of the poor and humble. Anne, at the moment of her deepest humiliation, cried out to the Lord and He heard her. The Canticle of Anna, after the birth of Samuel, is very reminiscent of Mary's Magnificat, which flowed from the lips of a humble young woman from Nazareth. Secondly, God acts through human families. God's project is fulfilled through human events, through normal and imperfect families, and the mystery of the Incarnation goes so far: God has the patience to accompany our maturation and our journey. Moreover, these are two miraculous, extraordinary births. Jesus was born of a virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit, Samuel of a barren mother. In the Bible there is a long series of miraculous births: Isaac from Sarah, Abraham's wife, barren and continually humiliated by her rival Hagar, Ishmael's mother. God took pity on Sarah, and Isaac was born; Samson, Samuel, John the Baptist and Jesus.  These miraculous births are a reminder that every child is a miracle, a gift from God, and parenthood means transmitting life, but without being able to say 'giving life' because it is only God who can give it.  Whether physical or spiritual parenthood, we can all lend our bodies and lives to the divine plan and we are instruments of this divine gift

Responsorial Psalm 83 (84), 3. 4. 5-6. 9-10

*Blessed is he who dwells in your house

When the pilgrim is on his way to Jerusalem, from the depths of his devotion and toil he can exclaim: "My soul yearns and longs for the atria of the Lord, my heart and my flesh exult in the living God".  Pilgrimage is indispensable for a life of faith, because when we are on our way to God, we can experience that we are a people journeying towards a goal, and in the difficulties of the journey experience physical weariness and the demands of the heart, discovering in this often tiring experience the wonders of faith. It is only when we recognise that our own strength is not enough that a new strength can take possession of us, enabling us to continue our journey to the goal. But for this to happen, the pilgrim, having reached the limit of his strength, must recognise himself as fragile and helpless as a bird. Then he will be given new wings: "Even the sparrow finds a home and the swallow a nest to lay her young, by your altars, Lord of hosts, my King and my God! (v.4)

In our life, which is also a pilgrimage towards the heavenly Jerusalem, how often one is tempted to abandon everything, discouraged by small efforts that seem futile. It is enough, however, to invoke help, to recognise our powerlessness, and we receive a new strength, which is not our own: "Blessed is the man who finds his refuge in you" (v.6). And once the pilgrimage has been completed, it is necessary to set out again, facing the fatigue of returning to daily life, with its difficulties and the impossibility of fully sharing the spiritual experience just lived with those who remained behind. And here the pilgrim dreams of never having to leave again: "Blessed is he who dwells in your house: without end he sings your praises" (v.5). The reference is to the Levites, whose life is entirely consecrated to the service of the Temple in Jerusalem and even before the Temple was built, as we saw in the first reading, there were sanctuaries where priests had the privilege of dwelling, such as the priest Eli and the young Samuel.

In a broader sense, the 'inhabitants of the house of God' are the members of the chosen people, and pilgrimages are always marked by gratitude and wonder for this gratuitous choice of God on behalf of his people. The Jews know that, eventually, with the arrival of the Messiah, all men will be called to be inhabitants of the house of God and this messianic dimension is present in the psalm: "Look, O God, on him who is our shield, look on the face of the anointed one" (v.10). One glimpses here the dream of the final ascent to Jerusalem, announced by the prophets, when the whole of humanity will be gathered in joy on the holy mountain, around the Messiah. The verses read on this Sunday express above all the pilgrim's toil and prayer. In other verses, however, the love for the Temple, the love for Jerusalem, is sung, together with the deep joy and confidence that dwell in the believer. Twice God is called our 'shield', the one who protects us. There are also two "beatitudes": "Blessed is he who dwells in your house: without end he sings your praises" (v.5) and "Blessed is the man who finds his refuge in you and has your ways in his heart" (v.6). And the last verse of the psalm is again a "beatitude" that we do not read today: "Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in you" (v.13). It is the fortune of the poor and humble, of the 'bent' (in Hebrew anawim), to discover the only thing that really counts: our only true good is in God.

Jesus repeated it this way: "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned and revealed them to the little ones" (Mt 11:25). It is really worthwhile, if you have time, to reread this psalm in its entirety:

2 How lovely are your dwellings, Lord of hosts!

3 My soul yearns and desires the atria of the Lord, my heart and my flesh

exult in the living God.

4 Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest to lay her young:

At thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.

5 Blessed is he who dwells in your house: Endlessly he sings your praises.

6 Blessed is the man who finds his refuge in you, and has your ways in his heart.

7 Passing through the valley of weeping He changes it into a spring; Even the first rain

clothes it with blessings.

8 It grows in strength along the way, until it appears before God in Zion.

9 Lord, God of hosts, hear my prayer, give ear, God of Jacob.

10 Behold, O God, he who is our shield, behold the face of your anointed one.

11 Yea, it is better one day in thy atria than a thousand in my house; To stand upon the threshold of the house of my God, It is better than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.

12 For sun and shield is the Lord God; The Lord giveth grace and glory, He refuseth not good to him that walketh in integrity.13 Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who in you 

Second Reading: from the First Letter of St John the Apostle (1, 3,1-2.21-24)

 * To know how to contemplate 

"Beloved, see ...": John invites to contemplation, because the key to the life of faith of every believer is knowing how to look, that is, the whole of human history is an education of man's gaze. "They have eyes but they do not see": how many times does this exclamation recur in the Bible! But what is there to see? St Paul would answer that it is necessary to contemplate God's love for mankind, his plan of infinite merciful love, and St John basically speaks of this alone in today's second reading. Let us pause to reflect on the theme of the gaze and God's plan that the Apostle John contemplates. learning to see means discovering the face of God who is love, while the opposite can happen when the gaze becomes distorted as it did with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Well known is the story that begins by describing the garden with many trees: "The Lord God caused to spring up out of the ground all kinds of trees that were pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Gen 2:9). The tree of life is in the middle of the garden, but the position of the tree of knowledge is not specified and God allows the fruits of all trees, including the tree of life, to be eaten except the tree of knowledge. The serpent, with an apparently innocent question, changes Eve's perception: "Is it true that God said, "You must not eat of any tree in the garden?" (Gen 3:1) and Eve answers, but by then her gaze has already changed: it was enough to listen to the serpent to become confused so that she sees the forbidden tree in the centre of the garden, instead of the tree of life. From that moment on, his gaze is drawn to the forbidden. The serpent continues: "You will not die at all. On the contrary, God knows that the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil' (3:5)". Eve sees that the tree is good to eat, beautiful to look at and desirable to acquire wisdom. Her gaze is now transformed and leads her to disobey. Once Eve and Adam ate the fruit they "realised they were naked", they did not become like God, but discovered their own vulnerability. What connection can this account have with John's text? The story of Adam and Eve explains the drama of humanity: a distorted image of God. John, on the contrary, invites us to see: 'See', that is, learn to look because God is not man's rival, but pure love. This is John's central theme: 'God is love' and the true life of man consists in never doubting this. Jesus says to the apostles in the Upper Room: "This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ" (John 17: 3) 

"See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God, and truly are so": we read this in today's text from John. Baptism has grafted us into Christ, making us children of God, as the evangelist writes in the prologue of the Fourth Gospel: "To all those who received him, however, he gave power to become children of God" (1:12), placing them under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who teaches them to call him "Abba, Father!". If for believers this is clear, for non-believers it is incomprehensible, unbelievable or even scandalous, as St John points out. Indeed, he writes that the world does not recognise us because it has not come to know God. That is, the world has not yet opened its eyes and it is up to us to reveal God through our words and our testimony. When the Son of God manifests himself, all mankind will be transformed into his image. Then we understand why Jesus said to the Samaritan woman: "If you knew the gift of God!" (Jn 4:10), while here St John invites: "Beloved, see". John invites us to contemplation, because it is the key to the life of faith: knowing how to look; he invites us to rectify our gaze on God, recognising him as a Father full of tenderness and mercy, and it is up to us to reveal him with our lives to those who do not yet know him.

Gospel ( Lk 2:41-52)

* Like Mary and Joseph, called to grow in faith

"He came among his own, and his own did not receive him" (Jn 1:11): this phrase from the prologue of John's gospel seems to find an illustration in today's account of Luke's gospel. An episode from Jesus' childhood that shows us both the manifestation of the mystery of Christ and the incomprehension on the part of his family. That his family had travelled to Jerusalem for the Passover is not surprising, nor is the fact that they stayed there for eight days, since the two feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread, now combined, lasted precisely eight days. It is surprising that the twelve-year-old son stays at the Temple without notifying his parents, who set off from Jerusalem with their caravan, as they do every year, without checking whether he was with them. This separation lasts three days, a number that Luke intentionally indicates. When they finally reunite, the three are not on the same wavelength: Mary's affectionate rebuke, still shaken by the anguish of those days, clashes with her son's sincere astonishment: 'Why did you look for me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?"(Lk 2:49). 

Let us now see in what the manifestation of the mystery of Jesus resides: first of all, in the admiration of all, especially the doctors of the Law, before the light that dwells in him. It also resides in the mention of the three days, which in the Bible represent the time needed to meet God: three days will also be those between the burial and the Resurrection, the definitive victory of life. Finally, it resides in Jesus' extraordinary statement: 'I must be about my Father's business'.  With this statement, he clearly reveals himself as the Son of God. At the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel had already presented him as 'Son of the Most High', a title that could be understood as that of the Messiah; but now the revelation goes further: the title of Son, referring to Jesus, is not only royal, but expresses his divine filiation. It is not surprising that this was not immediately understood! Even his parents find it difficult to understand: and Jesus dares to ask them: "Did you not know?"  Even deep and fervent believers like Joseph and Mary are bewildered by the mysteries of God. This should reassure us: we should not be surprised if we too struggle to understand! We must never forget the words of Isaiah: 'My thoughts are not your thoughts, your ways are not my ways - oracle of the Lord. As much as heaven overhangs the earth, so much my ways overhang your ways, my thoughts overhang your thoughts" (Is 55:8-9). The gospel makes it clear that Mary did not understand everything immediately either: she kept everything in her heart and tried to understand it by meditating on it. After the shepherds' visit to the Bethlehem grotto, we already read: 'Mary kept all these things by pondering them in her heart' (Lk 2:19). Luke proposes an example for us to follow here: accepting not to understand everything right away and letting meditation dig into us. Mary's faith, like ours, is a journey not without difficulties. All this takes place in the Temple of Jerusalem, which for the Jews was the sign of God's presence among his people. For Christians, on the other hand, the true Temple of God is now the body of Christ himself, the place par excellence of his presence. Today's account is one of the stages of this revelation. Luke is probably thinking of the prophecy of Malachi: "And immediately the Lord whom you seek, the angel of the covenant whom you long for, will enter his temple; behold, he comes, says the Lord of hosts" (Ml 3:1).

The last sentence of Luke's account is significant: "Jesus grew in wisdom, age, and grace before God and man" . This indicates that Jesus, like every child, needed to grow. The mystery of the Incarnation goes so far: Jesus is fully man, and God is patient with our spiritual growth. For Him, a thousand years are like a day (Ps 89/90). Finally, an apparent contradiction may come as a surprise: Jesus tells his parents "I must attend to the things of my Father", but immediately afterwards he returns with them to Nazareth. He does not remain in the stone Temple, just as Samuel did not remain there, consecrated to the Lord but then called to serve the people outside the Temple. This too is a teaching: "To be occupied with the things of the Father means to dedicate one's life to the service of others, not necessarily within the walls of a temple. To be with the Father means, first of all, to be in the service of his children. Finally, it should be noted that Luke's gospel begins and ends in the Temple of Jerusalem: it is there that the announcement to Zechariah of the birth of John the Baptist (which means 'God has done grace') takes place. It is in the Temple that Simeon, on the day of the Presentation of Jesus, proclaims the arrival of God's salvation. And it is also in the Temple that the disciples return after Christ's ascension, at the end of Luke's Gospel. A concrete lesson for us to cherish. We are called, like Mary and Joseph, to know how to meditate and grow in faith in order to be able to occupy ourselves unceasingly with the things of our heavenly Father. And this translates in practice into the commitment to serve men without always remaining in the temple. Basically, this is the message that Luke will reveal in the course of his gospel and that is to know how to combine contemplation with apostolic action, a harmonious synthesis of faith and life.

+ Giovanni D’Ercole

God bless us and may the Virgin protect us!

On 24 December 2024 at 7 p.m. the Jubilee 2025 will officially begin, with the rite of the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter's Papal Basilica by the Holy Father.  Following this, Francis will preside the celebration of Holy Mass on the night of the Lord's Christmas inside the Basilica.  And here is the commentary on the biblical texts of the Christmas Mass: the Midnight Mass and the Day Mass with our best and heartfelt wishes for a holy Christmas of Christ.

Christmas of Christ 2024 Midnight Mass 

First Reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah 9,1-6

*An announcement of salvation

It is a splendid messianic hymn dedicated to the Emanuel, the long hoped-for Messiah-King, which is illuminated with two images: the harvest and the military victory. As often happens, in order to understand the message of the biblical text that the liturgy proposes to us, it is necessary to consider it in context, and here it is good to read the verse that precedes this passage from Isaiah: "At first, the Lord covered the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with shame; but afterwards, he covered the way of the sea, the land beyond Jordan and Galilee of the Gentiles with glory" (Is 8:23). We can thus date the prophet's words and understand whether they date from the very time of the events narrated, or, on the contrary, whether they were written later, and thus know with certainty to which political context he is referring (even in the case that the text dates much later). Secondly, like every prophetic word, this too is a message that God addresses to revive the hope of the people. Let us see the historical context: after David and Solomon had ruled over the whole of Israel, upon Solomon's death in 933 B.C., the so-called schism of Israel gave rise to two often conflicting kingdoms: to the north, the kingdom of Israel with capital Samaria, and to the south, the kingdom of Judah, with capital Jerusalem, a direct descendant of David and considered the rightful bearer of the divine promises. Isaiah preached in the southern kingdom, but Zebulun, Naphtali, the sea route, the land beyond the Jordan and Galilee are all places in the northern kingdom, all regions conquered by the Assyrian king Tiglat-Pileser III in 732 BC. In 721 BC, the capital Samaria was also annexed and Assyrian and then Babylonian rule began. It is in this context that Isaiah foresees a radical change, announcing that the humbled lands will see glory: 'The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; on those who dwelt in the land of darkness, a light shone. The people who dwelt in the land of darkness brings to mind the many deported to Babylon often blinded by the rulers. The southern kingdom, with its capital Jerusalem, was not indifferent to events in the north, both because it feared occupation and above all because there was a great desire for reunification to bring Israel back to unity under the Davidic throne. This is why the arrival of a new king was regarded as the dawn of a new day: 'A child has been born to us, a son has been given to us ... he will be called the Prince of Peace'. These expressions are part of the ritual of consecration of the new king and Isaiah states with certainty that God will not abandon his people to slavery, because his faithfulness is unwavering and he cannot deny himself.  He adds: 'For you have broken the yoke that oppressed him, the bar on his shoulders, and the rod of his tormentor as in the day of Midian'. Midian and the Midianites: the prophet assures that God will intervene to liberate his people, and cites as an example Gideon's victory over the Midianites when in the middle of the night with 300 men armed only with trumpets, torches and earthen pitchers, and above all faith in God, he defeated an immensely larger army (Judges 7). Thus the prophet's message is clear: Do not be afraid little flock, for it is in the darkness that you must believe the light. Despite the difficulties that continue to mark these times, Isaiah invited to keep hope alive, based on the certainty that the Lord, as in the past, never fails in his plan of love for all mankind. And just then, when Isaiah was formulating this promise, the young king Achaz of Jerusalem had sacrificed his son, the heir to the throne, to an idol out of fear of war. The Davidic descendants seemed doomed to extinction and it is at such a moment that Isaiah reawakens confidence by saying that a new heir will be given since nothing can deter the faithfulness of God who fulfils all his promises. This certainty rests on the memory of what God has done for his people. In this regard, it is sufficient to recall that Moses often renewed to Israel the invitation to "not forget" the wonders of the Lord because when our trust fails, it is we who lose.  And Isaiah also told King Ahaz: "If you do not believe, you cannot endure" (Is 7:9). Every time has its share of trials and sufferings, of darkness and misfortune, but to be convinced that God does not fail in his word is always a prophecy of victory, and no matter how great the difficulties in our families and communities, the challenge is to keep hope alive: God does not give up or abandon his plan of love for all. 

Responsorial Psalm 95/96)

*Proclaiming the good news from the rooftops 

It is a pity that today's liturgy provides only seven verses of this wonderful psalm 95/96, which should be read in its entirety because it invites enthusiasm and joy, and because in a time of great difficulty it is sung in the Temple of Jerusalem. It is a psalm that communicates the vigour of faith, indeed of hope; in other words, the joy that is born of faith and the hope that makes one believe certain even that which one does not possess. We are thus already projected to the end of the world, when all humanity will recognise God as the one true God and place its trust in Him alone. It is necessary to imagine with imagination the scene that the psalm describes: in Jerusalem, or rather in the Temple, the nations, the races of the world throng, the esplanade is packed with cheering heads that even invade the steps of the Temple courtyard. By now Jerusalem is no longer enough and everywhere you look you see people from all over the planet continuing to arrive. It is a symphony of voices singing: "The Lord reigns!", an incredible ovation similar to the joy at the coronation of a new king. Now, however, it is not the people of Israel that acclaims its king, but the whole of humanity that rejoices for its true king: the earth quivers with joy, the seas join in the symphony and the trees dance with the countryside all in celebration. It will then become clear that men have allowed themselves to be deceived for a long time, have abandoned the true God to resort to idols, and that the prophets' struggle has always been against idolatry. It will then seem incredible that it has taken men so long to recognise their Creator, their Father, despite the fact that a hundred times the cry has resounded: the Lord is "terrible above all gods", it is He, the Lord, and no one else has made the heavens. At last the time of celebration will come: in Jerusalem people will flock to acclaim God having heard the good news proclaimed for centuries: "day after day Israel has proclaimed its salvation". day after day it has told of God's work, of his wonders, that is, of his unceasing work of deliverance; day after day it has testified that God has delivered it from Egypt and from all forms of slavery: the most terrible of slavers is putting one's trust in false values, in false gods, in idols that can only disappoint. To Israel falls 

 the fate and the extraordinary honour of proclaiming that the Lord our God, the Eternal, is the only God, as the Shema Israel recites: 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is the only Lord'. The psalm refers to Israel's vocation, already evoked in the book of Deuteronomy: "You have witnessed these things, so that you may recognise that the Lord is God: there is none other than he" (Deut 4:35), and the time comes when this astonishing news is heard to the ends of the earth... and all flock to enter the House of the Father of all. We are here in full anticipation! While waiting for this dream to be realised, the people of Israel resound this psalm to renew their faith and their hope, and to draw the necessary strength to make the good news of which they are the depositary heard.

Second Reading from the Letter of St Paul the Apostle to Titus (2:11-14). This reading is also present in the Dawn Mass (3, 4-7 ).

 *Baptism immerses us in the Grace of God 

The letter to Titus contains the advice that Paul, the founder of the community, dispenses to Titus, who assumes responsibility for it. For reasons of style and even chronology, many experts on the Pauline letters believe that the letter to Titus, like the two to Timothy, were only written at the end of the first century, some thirty years after the apostle's death, following his thought and to support his work. In the absence of certainty, we continue to speak of St Paul as the author of the letter to whom it is addressed: they are the inhabitants of Crete, the Cretans, who had a very bad reputation in Paul's time, as Epimenides of Knossos, a local poet already in the 6th century BC, described them: 'Cretans, perennial liars, wicked beasts, idle bellies'. And Paul, quoting him, confirms: "This testimony is true!". However, it was precisely to the flawed Cretans that Paul proclaimed the gospel and this was not easy. He then left it to Titus, who remained on the spot, to organise the young Christian community.  Regardless of when the letter was written, it is clear that the difficulties of the Cretans persisted. The letter to Titus is very short, only three pages of which we read in the Night Mass the end of chapter 2, while the beginning of chapter 3 is proposed for the Dawn Mass and the whole passage for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, year C. All that precedes and follows this passage consists of practical recommendations directed to the members of the community: old and young, men and women, masters and slaves including those in charge, to whom he recommends that they be blameless: "The bishop must be blameless as a steward of God: not arrogant, not violent, not stingy with illicit gains. He must be hospitable, a lover of good, thoughtful, just, holy, self-possessed, firm in the Word'. In short, it is not difficult to understand that there is a lot of work to be done and as a good pedagogue, St Paul does not venture to give superfluous advice. One must keep in mind the link between the moral advice he dispenses and the passage that interests us today, which is a theological exposition on the mystery of faith. The message is clear: for Paul, it is Baptism that makes us new men, and all the advice he dispenses is justified on the sole grounds that 'the goodness of God our Saviour and his love for mankind appeared'.  Indeed, the biblical text actually begins with 'when' and some editions place 'why'. So: 'when the goodness of God, our saviour, and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us, not because of any righteous works we had done, but because of his mercy'. In other words, behave well, because God's grace has been manifested for the salvation of all men. This means that Christian morality is rooted in the central event of world history: the birth of Christ. When Paul writes: 'the grace of God has appeared to bring salvation to all men', he means that God became man. And from that moment, our way of being men is transformed "with water that regenerates and renews in the Holy Spirit" (3:5). Since that moment, everything has changed and consequently our behaviour must also change and we must allow ourselves to be transformed because the world awaits our testimony. It is not a matter of gaining merits (he saved us not because of righteous works performed by us, but because of his mercy), but of testifying with our lives that God wants the salvation of all mankind also through us: "the goodness of God, our Saviour, and his love for mankind appeared". God's plan, foreseen from eternity, envisages the uniting of all around Jesus Christ so as to become one with Him, overcoming divisions, rivalries, hatred, making us all one in Him. Certainly there is still a long way to go and for many it is a utopia, but as believers we know that every promise of God is a certainty. Paul says it clearly: "looking forward to the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ". and the use of the verb wait indicates the conviction that sooner or later it will happen.  In the celebration of the Eucharist, the priest repeats this after the Lord's Prayer: 'While waiting for the blessed hope and the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ'. It is a true act of faith that becomes hope: we dare to affirm that Christ's love will have the last word in every situation. This certainty and this expectation are the beating heart of the entire liturgy: during the celebration, we Christians do not have our eyes turned to the past, but are already in Christ 'one man' who peers into the future, and when the end of time comes, those who look at us will be able to write: 'behold, they are all like one man, and this man is Jesus Christ', what we call the total Christ.  

Gospel according to Luke ( 2:1-14)

*In the poverty of the manger lies the secret of the Incarnation

The night of Bethlehem echoes with a marvellous proclamation: 'Peace be to men who are loved by the Lord', to be well understood because there are no people whom God does not love. After all, it is God's plan, expressed once again: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (John 3:16) and there is nothing to fear. "Do not be afraid", the angels say to the shepherds, and after all, why should one be afraid when a child is born? Let us try to believe that God has probably chosen to make himself a newborn child to awaken love for him in our hearts, abandoning all fear and shame. Like Isaiah with Achaz, the angel also announces the birth of a king: 'Today, in the city of David, a Saviour has been born to you, who is Christ the Lord. Behold, the one who had been awaited for many centuries was born at last, and at that time the prophecy of Nathan to King David was on everyone's mind: 'The Lord announces to you that he will make you a house. When thy days are fulfilled, and thou restest with thy fathers, I will raise up a descendant of thee out of thy womb, and will make his kingdom established' (2 Sam 7:11-12).

This is why Luke specifies the origins of Joseph, the father of the child: 'Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem: for he belonged to the house and family of David'. Moreover, according to Micah's prophecy, the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem: "And you, Bethlehem of Ephratah, so small to be among the villages of Judah, out of you shall come forth for me the one who is to be ruler in Israel... He shall rise and feed with the power of the LORD, with the majesty of the name of the LORD his God... and he himself shall be peace" (Mi 5:1, 4). 

So the angels announce good news, great joy to the shepherds, and one can understand why the heavenly hosts sing the glory of God. What is always surprising, however, is the contrast between the greatness of the destiny promised to the Messiah and the littleness of a child, born in the most humble and precarious circumstances. "the strength of God's arm", which liberates his people, of which Psalm 88/89 speaks, lies mysteriously in the small hands of a child born into one poor family among many others. How extraordinary is the poverty of a manger! Yet it is precisely there that the sign of God is manifested: we encounter Jesus in the simplest everyday life, even in poverty, and this is the mystery, indeed the secret of the Incarnation.

"The heir of all things", as we read in the letter to the Hebrews (1:2), is born among the poor; he whom St John calls "the light of the world" finds his cradle in the manger of an obscure stable; he who is the Word of God, who created the world, came into the world like every other creature and, like everyone else, will in time have to learn to speak. One can then understand and not be surprised that "his own did not welcome and recognise him" and we are not surprised that it was precisely the poor and the little ones who most readily accepted his message. He is the God of Mercy who goes out to meet all kinds of poverty and has compassion on our misery. This holy night invites us not to be afraid to turn our gaze on a poor manger, for it is here that we discover the truest way to resemble Jesus and thus receive as a gift the power to "become children of God" (Jn 1:12).

The great joy of Christmas that the angels bring to the shepherds, the outcasts of society, has resounded in every corner of the world for over two millennia now. Faced with such joy and such a great mystery of renewed life, many questions arise in the heart: why is it that in some parts of the world where this proclamation has resounded, division and war persist? Why is it that so many communities seem tired of waiting and fall back on other interests that often lead away from waiting for the Saviour? Why is the amazement at the birth of a child no longer for some the sign of a love that opens up to life? So many whys for a Christmas of Christ that risks being suffocated by the noisy cry of a society preoccupied with a thousand different issues and threatened by sadness if not sometimes even despair. The story of Christ's birth then found many heedless because they were busy with everyday matters. A few shepherds, excluded and impure in society, were the first and only ones to rush in. A sign and a message: the triumph of a God who out of love becomes a small child is a comfort and support for those who continue to await his return and know that, beyond all human expectations, this humble king of glory wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger is our saviour, Christ the Lord. It is therefore "good news, great joy" that the angels announce to the shepherds, but it can only be transformed into peace in the heart of those who go out and meet him in the humble stable in Bethlehem. 

25 December Mass of the Day 

Reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah 52:7-10

*The Lord consoles his people 

"Break forth together in songs of joy, ye ruins of Jerusalem". The reference to the ruins of Jerusalem allows the text of Isaiah to be precisely placed. Jerusalem was devastated by Nebuchadnezzar's troops in 587 BC who did everything: looting, destruction, violence, desecration. Valuable men and women were deported to Babylon while leaving peasants to feed the occupiers, and the exile lasted fifty years, enough time to become discouraged and lose hope of ever seeing their land again. In this bleak picture, the prophet announces the return, he who had begun to preach as follows: "Console, console my people, says your God" (Is 40:1) and here, imagining the messenger announcing the great news in Jerusalem and the sentinel who, from the hills of the city, sees the deportees arriving, he uses the same verb console: "the Lord has consoled his people", meaning that the Lord has already acted and that the return is now imminent. He speaks of a foot-messenger and a sentinel, two figures that have disappeared in the age of telecommunications and fibre optics, but in those days a runner was entrusted with the task of transmitting news. The most famous example is that of the marathon: in 490 B.C., after the victory of the Athenians over the Persians at Marathon, a runner ran the 42 km to Athens to announce the victory, exclaimed Victory! and then collapsed. As the athletes/messengers ran, sentries posted on the city walls scanned the horizon. Here Isaiah imagines a sentry lurking on the walls of Jerusalem who sees the messenger approaching from hill to hill and announces: 'How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who proclaims peace, the messenger of good news, who proclaims salvation', and when the messenger arrives he cries out to Zion, the holy city: 'Your God reigns'. The people are finally saved and the city is rebuilt by those who return: that is why the ruins of Jerusalem are invited to exult with joy. In Israel, the defeats of the people were considered defeats of their God, but now the people are delivered and their God has shown his power, as the prophet says: 'The Lord has unfurled his holy arm. He has delivered his people as from Egypt, "with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm" (Deut 4:34). And this is not the end of the prophet's vision because behind the messenger, the sentinel sees the triumphal procession and "the return of the Lord to Zion", who walks in the midst of his people and will be present again in Jerusalem. Isaiah states that the Lord 'redeemed Jerusalem', a very strong term to describe God's action. In the Bible, to redeem, to redeem means to set free.  In the tradition of the Hebrew people, the Go'el is the next of kin who redeems a family member who has fallen into slavery or who has sold their house to pay debts, and the prophet applies this role to God, a way of emphasising that the Lord is the next of kin of his people and sets them free, redeems them. "The Lord has stretched out his holy arm before all nations; all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God". Something very important must also be emphasised here: during the Babylonian exile there was an important evolution in Jewish theology because Israel understood that God loves all mankind and not just the people he has chosen. Indeed, his people now know that their own election is a mission to serve the salvation of all. We hear this text at Christmas and the words of the prophet "The Lord has stretched out his holy arm before all nations; all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God" take on new meaning for us. We too have the mission to proclaim and bear witness to peace; we are messengers of the gospel that is for all, and on this day we cry out to the whole world: 'Your God is king, your God reigns'.

Responsorial Psalm 97 (98),1-6

 *The People of the Covenant

"All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God". Singing is Israel, which claims the privileged relationship of a small people with the God of the universe, but has understood, little by little, that its mission is not to jealously guard this special relationship, but to proclaim God's love for all, so that the whole of humanity may gradually enter into the Covenant. It is a psalm that shows the two loves of God: his love for the chosen people, Israel, and his love for all mankind, whom the psalmist calls the nations. "The Lord has made his salvation known, in the eyes of the Gentiles he has revealed his righteousness" (v.2) and immediately afterwards, recalling Israel's election, "He has remembered his love, his faithfulness to the house of Israel" (v.3). The words love (chesed) and faithfulness (emet) recall the Covenant and are the same words with which the Lord made himself known in the desert to the people he chose: "The Lord, the merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, preserving his love for a thousand generations" (Ex 34:6-7). Here, God is defined by fundamental characters that are worth remembering: merciful (rachum); pitiful (chanun), rich in love (chesed) and faithfulness (emet). This description of God as 'love and faithfulness' becomes a pivotal point in Israel's faith, which is often found in the psalms and prophets to highlight the faithful and love-filled bond between God and his people along the desert journey. Israel is therefore truly the chosen people, but its election is not for selfish enjoyment, but to become the elder brother of humanity. As André Chouraqui said, 'the people of the Covenant is destined to become the instrument of the Covenant between peoples'. One of the great teachings of the Bible is that God loves all people of every race and culture, not just Israel, and this psalm - which we often find in the liturgy - demonstrates this also in its structure: verses 2 and 3 are constructed according to the pattern of inclusion, which is a literary technique used in the Bible. It is done as a frame to highlight the central text which is the verse concerning Israel: "He remembered his love, his faithfulness to the house of Israel", and the phrases that enclose it speak of the nations: "The Lord has made known his salvation, in the eyes of the Gentiles he has revealed his righteousness", all the ends of the earth - replacing the Gentiles - have seen the victory of our God". The election of Israel is central, set in a frame that emphasises Israel's universal mission: to be a light to all the peoples of the world. When the people of Israel, during the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem, acclaim God as king, they already know they are doing so on behalf of all humanity. As they sing, they imagine the day when God will be recognised as king by the whole earth.

Some further notes. This psalm highlights two themes: the first is the insistence on God's two loves: for Israel, the chosen people, and for all humanity; the second is the proclamation of God's kingship. In the Temple of Jerusalem, they sang: "Acclaim the Lord all the earth, shout, exult, sing hymns", even if the verb to sing is reductive: in Hebrew, the psalm uses language that recalls a cry of victory (teru'ah), like the one raised on the battlefield after a victory, and the term "victory" appears three times in the first verses: "His right hand and his holy arm gave him victory" (v.1); "The Lord has made his victory known, in the eyes of the nations he has revealed his righteousness"(v 2); "All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God"(v 3).

A twofold victory is emphasised: 1.the deliverance from Egypt: "he gave victory his right hand and his holy arm" recalls the divine enterprise of the deliverance from slavery in Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea. In Deuteronomy we read: "The Lord brought thee out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm" (5:15), a symbol of salvation, and the expression in the psalm "he did wonders" (v 1) is also a reference to the wonders of deliverance from Egypt.  2.The final victory over evil: The psalm also looks to the future final victory, when God will triumph over all the forces of evil and on that day he will be acclaimed king, not in the manner of earthly kings who disappoint, because his victory will be final and will never disappoint. We Christians can acclaim God with even greater vigour, because our eyes contemplate at Christmas the King of the world, the Incarnation of the Son, and we know that the Kingdom of God, the kingdom of love, has already begun. And contemplating the helpless Child in the crib, we cannot help but think that at this moment the saving power of God's arm is in the two tiny hands of a newborn baby. 

Reading from the letter to the Hebrews (1:1-6)

*God spoke to the fathers through the prophets 

"God spoke to the fathers through the prophets": thanks to this sentence, we can guess that the recipients of the Letter to the Hebrews are Jews who have become Christians because a characteristic feature of Israel is precisely the conviction that God has revealed himself progressively to the people he has chosen. Since God is not within man's grasp, it is necessary for him to take the initiative to reveal himself, as we also perceive from the Letter to the Ephesians: "God has made known to us the mystery of his will" (Eph 1:9) because on our own we could never have discovered and thus encountered him. And this happened in a progressive manner equal to the upbringing of a child to whom parents communicate according to his development and in a gradual manner how to understand reality, himself and the society around him. Moses similarly explains God's pedagogy in the book of Deuteronomy: "As a man educates his son, so the Lord your God educates you" (Deut 8:5). God entrusted this gradual education of his people in every age to the prophets who spoke on his behalf and used a manner comprehensible to the mentality of the people and the time because God used a very gradual pedagogy with his people by speaking to them "many times and in various ways" (Heb 1:1). The prophets were thus considered the "mouth of God", as we hear in the celebration of the Mass: "Many times you have offered men your covenant, and through the prophets you have taught them to hope for salvation" (Eucharistic Prayer IV). The author of the Letter to the Hebrews knows that salvation has already been accomplished and for this reason he divides human history into two periods: before Christ is all that he calls the past; after Christ are the days that we are living, the time of fulfilment, since in Jesus the new world has already begun and Christ is the fulfilment of God's plan, which we call the design of divine benevolence. Beginning with Christ's resurrection, which astonished the hearts of the first believers, the conviction of the Christians of the primitive communities gradually formed to the point of realising that Jesus of Nazareth is truly the Messiah awaited by the Jewish people, even if in a very different way from the idea they had had in the past. The entire New Testament hinges on this surprising discovery: there were those who awaited a Messiah-King, others a Messiah-Prophet, still others a Messiah-Priest, and in the Letter to the Hebrews, as we read in today's passage, it is said that Jesus Christ is all of this.

Christ is therefore truly Priest, Prophet and King

1. Jesus, the Messiah-Prophet. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews states: "God has spoken to us through his Son". Jesus is the prophet par excellence: if the prophets of the Old Testament were considered to be the "mouth of God", he is the very Word of God, the creative Word "through whom also the world was made" (Heb 1:2); indeed he is "the radiance of his glory", that is, of God (Heb 1:3) as it happened in the episode of the Transfiguration. Jesus said to the disciples in the Upper Room: "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9), thus the perfect expression of God's being.

2. Jesus, the Messiah-Priest. The High Priest had the role of intermediary between God and the sinful people and Jesus, in total and perfect filial relationship of love with the Father, re-establishes the Covenant between God and humanity. He is therefore the high priest par excellence, who accomplishes the 'cleansing of sins', a cleansing that Jesus accomplished, as the author will explain later in his letter, by living his entire life in a perfect dialogue of love and obedience with the Father.

3. Jesus, the Messiah-King. In the Letter to the Hebrews, titles and prophecies are attributed to Jesus here that related to the Messiah: the image of the royal throne, "he sat at the right hand of the majesty in the highest heaven", and above all "You are my Son, today I have begotten you", the title of Son of God was bestowed on the new king on the day of his consecration, an expression that we also find in Psalm number 2. The prophet Nathan had announced: "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son" (2 Sam 7:14). Unlike the kings of the earth, Jesus is king over all creation, even over the angels: "He became so much greater than the angels that the name he inherited was more excellent than theirs" (Heb 1:4), and "When he introduced the firstborn into the world, he said, Let all the angels of God worship him" (Heb 1:6). The author affirms that Christ is God Himself, since only God is entitled to the adoration of angels.

This biblical text not only reveals Christ's greatness, but also our vocation: through baptism we have become priests called to live in communion with God and to intercede for the world; prophets whose mission is to witness the gospel to all with our lives; kings committed to reign over sin and to contribute to the coming of God's Kingdom. Meditating on this biblical page on Christ's Christmas Day is an invitation to contemplate the mystery of Christ's birth and to become aware that the child lying in the manger is the eternal Word, who came to make us sons and daughters of God, priests, prophets and kings, called to share in the glory of the Father for all eternity. 

Gospel according to John (1:1-18)

 *Creation is the fruit of love 

"In the beginning". The evangelist John purposely takes up the first word of Genesis Bereshit and it is necessary to perceive its depth because it is not a mere chronological reference because "what began" is "what guides" all human history, that is, it is the origin and foundation of all things. "In the beginning was the Word": everything is placed under the sign of the Word, the Word of Love indeed, and the meaning of life: therein lies the origin and beginning of all things. "And the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God" (v. 2-3): in Greek it is "pros ton Theon" which literally means "turned towards God", the Word was turned towards God: it is the attitude of dialogue. If I say: 'I love you' I am really dialoguing with someone, I am face to face with you, facing the one I am talking to; if instead I turn my back the dialogue is interrupted and it is necessary to go back to re-establish it. St John states something essential: since nothing was made without the Word, all creation is the fruit of the dialogue of love between the Father and the Son. Each of us was created in this dialogue and for this dialogue: we are the fruit of a dialogue of love. Generated by love, we can say that we are the fruit of God's love and the vocation of humanity, of Adam, to use the Genesis term, is to live a perfect dialogue of love with the Father. However, human history proves otherwise as we read in the account of the fall of Adam and Eve. The second chapter of Genesis clearly shows that the dialogue was broken; the man and woman did not trust God, indeed they suspected that God did not have good intentions towards them: this is the opposite of the dialogue of love. We know from experience that when suspicion invades our relationships, the dialogue becomes poisoned. The whole story of each of us' personal relationship with God could be represented like this: sometimes we are turned towards Him, sometimes we turn away, and then we have to return so that He can re-establish the dialogue. This is exactly the meaning in the Bible of the word conversion 'shùv', which means to return, to turn back, to go home.

Jesus lives this dialogue in a perfect way on a daily basis and takes it upon Himself to guide humanity: one could say that He is the 'yes' of the whole of humanity and it is precisely through Him that we are restored to the primordial dialogue with God: 'To all who received Him, however, He gave power to become children of God: to those who believe in His name'. "To 'become children of God' means to rediscover the filial, trusting, shadowless relationship with him, and Christ's sole purpose is to enable all mankind to enter into this dialogue of love; 'those who believe in his name' are those who entrust themselves to Christ and confidently place themselves in his footsteps. The thought goes to the Upper Room where Jesus expresses his ardent desire: "That all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me" (Jn 17:21) and I am reminded of what Kierkegaard writes: "The opposite of sin is not virtue, the opposite of sin is faith". "Believing" is trusting the Father; it is knowing in all circumstances, whatever happens, that God loves me; it is never suspecting Him and never doubting His love for us and for the world, and consequently being able to look at the world with God's gaze. This is the message that comes to us from the Christmas of the Word made flesh: to look at the world with God's eyes. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us": if He came to be here with us, it is not necessary to flee from the world to encounter God, indeed it is in the "flesh", that is, in everyday reality that we can read and experience His presence. Like John the Baptist, each of us is sent to be a witness to this presence. Each Christmas reminds us of this gift and encourages us to share it with as many people as we can.

+ Govanni D'Ercole

The complexities of existence.
Life is not always easy and the complexities of existence have always existed; they accompany us along the path of our daily lives.
In times gone by, it was often the family doctor who listened to them and associated them as related to the health of his patients and gave them advice.
When, on the other hand, the difficulties were of an ethical nature, people turned to the priest who, through accompaniment and confession, gave suggestions on how to redeem themselves.
Later, with the discovery of psychology in its various forms, people became concerned with human problems. The figure of the psychologist in the broad sense or the psychiatrist joined the previous figures. As far as the field of the psychiatrist is concerned more specifically, the problems are not visible illnesses.
People who are afflicted by life complications are not patients in the usual sense. They can be normal, productive people - as normal as one can be in our community.
Generally, these daily contrarieties may concern interpersonal relationships, the way one works, performance issues... but also the issue of living honestly, in line with one's principles and personal beliefs. Then there are the contrarieties of practical life, which can often accentuate the others.
A lot also depends on our typical behaviours with which we defend ourselves or construct our way of life, and which were formed at an early period - unconsciously imitating people who had meaning in our lives (the so-called character, very succinctly).
Jung argues that the child's unconscious depends on the parental unconscious.
Almost always in my long professional practice I encountered this construct, and I had to struggle to make people understand that it was the parents who triggered the behaviour.
Often when I encountered parents who did not want to accept certain responsibilities, the latter would resort to excuses that did not hold up in any way.
In relationships between individuals, the most annoying issue concerns how we experience our affections.
There are aggressive people who seek people to dominate. There are those who exploit the other (the unwary); and so on.
In love relationships, one has to pay attention to how each one stands towards the other. Let us give some examples.
A woman who suffers because of her spouse who hinders her every development (or vice versa) must understand or be helped to understand that she has somehow sought this situation, and that it is only by finding confidence in her own possibilities and ability to manage herself that she will find relief from her pains.
Otherwise, i.e. if he does not discover his own potential, not even by separating will he solve his problems - because he will unconsciously seek the same kind of spouse.
Only people who are able to respect each other's needs and interests are capable of adult love. We often confuse our own desire with that of the other.
How many times in counselling with couples have I encountered this.
In job difficulties we often find people who move from one job to another because they are not satisfied with the lack of recognition. It may be, for example, an individual with grandiose ideas about his or her aptitudes who has to seek admiration in the work environment .
Then there are people who do creative work and feel that they do not produce as they would like. Here we are often faced with an unachievable perfectionism. Often such individuals are unable to admit that they have limits, and are confronted with their real capabilities.
It then happens that many people turn to an analyst because although they do not have a form of depression, they are not happy with themselves.
In his Psychoanalysis of Contemporary Society, Erich Fromm argues that consumerism leads us to an 'alienation from self'. By 'alienation' he means that which in principle belongs to man and then becomes foreign to him - eventually dominating us.
We must be as others want us to be.
Advertising and fashion itself also consciously influence us, and in this way if we do not conform we can feel backward.
We often get into conflict between our beliefs and the need to 'please' people.
Of course we do not have to be isolationists, but even here a proper balance 'saves' us, since repudiating certain fundamental tenets of our way of being does a lot of damage.
May the coming Christmas enlighten us, show us the way. Not infrequently, here too, we match current population trends, and often forget its true meaning.

Francesco Giovannozzi Psychologist-psychotherapist

God bless us and may the Virgin protect us!

 From today, 17 to 23 December, the "major Advent holidays", "privileged Advent holidays", begin, characterised by a distinctive element which are the "O antiphons" recited or sung during Vespers. They all begin with the invocation "O" followed by a messianic title taken from the prophecies of the Old Testament to express the expectation of the Saviour: Today the 17th proclaims "O Wisdom", on the 18th "O Adonai" and so on each day culminating on 23 December with "O Emmanuel". On these days the liturgy is more solemn with specific readings and prayers that orient the faithful towards the birth of Christ. Happy preparation for the Holy Christmas of. Christ!

For this period I have prepared the commentaries for the Fourth Sunday of Advent 22 December, for the Christmas Masses (night and day), for the Feast of the Holy Family Sunday 29 December, for the Feast of the Mother of God, 1 January, for the Epiphany, 6 January, and for the conclusion of Christmas time on the Sunday of the Baptism of Jesus 12 January. Today I send the commentaries for 22 December 2024 IV Sunday of Advent.

First Reading from the book of the prophet Micah 5, 1-4a

 *In certain moments it becomes difficult to hope 

The prophets in the Old Testament always have recourse to two types of language: that of rebukes and warnings for those who forget the Covenant with God and its demands, because with their own hands they prepare for ruin; that of support for those who remain faithful to the Covenant so that they do not lose heart in the face of adversity. The first reading today clearly recalls the language of encouragement, and one senses that the people are going through a critical period, almost on the verge of throwing in the towel because they have the impression that they have been abandoned by God.  He even goes so far as to say that all the promises of happiness renewed over the centuries were just fine words, since the ideal king foretold and promised was never born and perhaps never will be. It is unclear whether the author of this text is the prophet Micah because it is not clear exactly in which historical period we are in. If it is Micah, a peasant prophet like Amos and a disciple of Isaiah, we are in the 8th century B.C. in the region of Jerusalem, at a time when the Assyrian empire posed a great threat and the kings of Israel bore little resemblance to the Messiah-king they were expecting: it was therefore easy to fall into the temptation of feeling abandoned. For reasons of language, style and vocabulary, one is inclined to believe that this is a much later text and inserted later in the book of Micah. In this case, the discouragement is motivated by the fact that, after the Babylonian exile and uninterrupted foreign domination, the throne of Jerusalem no longer existed and therefore there was no descendant of David. The prophet takes up the promise that a king will be born from David's descendants who will be a shepherd, will reign with justice and will bring peace; a peace that will cover the whole of humanity in time: 'His origins are from ancient times, from the remotest days' and in space: 'They will dwell securely, for then he will be great to the ends of the earth'. This emphasis on universalism (v. 3) suggests that this preaching (included in the book of Micah) does not belong to the prophet Micah, but to one of his later disciples, since the universalism of God's plan and the strict monotheism that characterises it were only understood during the exile in Babylon. All the more reason to remember the promises concerning the Messiah, and the prophet (whether it is Micah or another does not change the meaning) encourages God's people by saying that even if you feel forsaken, you must be certain that God's project will be fulfilled; 'the day will surely come when she who is to give birth will come' because God is faithful to his promises. Speaking of 'she who is to give birth', he insisted that that moment was only a time of apparent abandonment in the course of human history. Furthermore, by proclaiming: 'And you, Bethlehem Ephratah, so small to be among the villages of Judah, out of you shall come forth the one who is to rule Israel', the prophet recalled that the promised Messiah - prophecy from Nathan to David (2Sam.7) - would be a true descendant of David, because in Bethlehem the prophet Samuel, on God's command, went to choose a king from among the eight sons of Jesse (1Sam.16). For Jews accustomed to the sacred scriptures, Bethlehem immediately evoked the promise of the Messiah, and the prophet joins Bethlehem with the term 'Ephratah' meaning 'fruitful', the name of one of the clans in the Bethlehem region.  Later the whole of Bethlehem is identified with Ephratah and even so the prophet is keen to bring out the contrast between the great and proud Jerusalem and the humble hamlet of Bethlehem, 'the smallest among the clans of Judah' because it is in littleness and frailty that the power of God is manifested, who chooses the small to realise great projects. This prophecy of Micah about the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem was well known to the Jewish people, as is evident in the episode of the Magi visiting Jesus (Mt 2:6): the evangelist Matthew recounts that the scribes quoted Micah's passage to King Herod to direct them to Bethlehem.  At the time, Jesus' contemporaries knew that he was the Nazarene and it was inconceivable that a Galilean was the Messiah. The fourth evangelist also notes that when discussions began about the identity of Jesus, some said: 'Perhaps he is the Christ', but others replied: 'the Christ cannot come from Galilee, Micah said it clearly' (Jn 7:40-43). The short text of the first reading closes as follows: "He himself will be peace": shalom is the peace that only the Messiah can give to humanity

Responsorial psalm 79 (80) 2ac. 3bc, 15-16, 18-19

 *God takes care of his vineyard  

The mention of the cherubim, in Hebrew Kéroubim (Two cherubim towered over the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem), statues of winged animals with the head of a man and the body and legs of a lion, symbolise the throne of God.  "From thee nevermore shall we depart, make us live again and we shall call upon thy name": we are in a penitential celebration and "nevermore" constitutes a resolution: "From thee nevermore shall we depart" means that the people recognise their unfaithfulness and consider their evils as a consequence. The rest of the psalm will detail these misfortunes, but already here it says: "Awaken your power and come and save us", which indicates a deep need to be saved. In difficulties the people turn to their God who has never forsaken them and plead with him, invoking him with two titles: the shepherd of Israel and the vinedresser, images that evoke solicitude, constant attention, inspired by daily life in Palestine, where shepherds and vinedressers were central figures in economic life. The first metaphor is that of the Shepherd of Israel. In the court language of the countries of the ancient Middle East, the title of shepherd was attributed to kings; in the Bible, however, it is first and foremost attributed to God, and they called the kings of Israel 'shepherds of the people' only by proxy since the true shepherd of Israel is God. In Psalm 22/23 we read: "The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want. In the book of Genesis, when Jacob blesses his son Joseph, he invokes "the God in whose presence my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, walked, the God who has been my shepherd from the time I existed until now" (Gen 48:15). And when he blesses his twelve sons, he does so "in the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel" (Gen 49:24). Isaiah also uses this image: "Behold your God!... Like a shepherd, he shepherds his flock, with his arm he gathers the lambs, he carries them on his breast, he gently leads the mother sheep" (Isaiah 40:9-11). And the people of Israel are God's flock as we read in Psalm 94/95: 'Yes, he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock he leads with his hand'. It is a psalm that is a meditation on the Exodus where Israel first experienced God's solicitude because, without him, they would not have survived. For God gathered his people as a shepherd gathers his flock, enabling them to overcome every obstacle. And today in the responsorial psalm when it says: 'You, shepherd of Israel, listen', it is to the fundamental experience of the Exodus and the liberation from Egypt that we refer.

In the second metaphor, the psalm calls God the vinedresser: "God of hosts return! Look down from heaven and see: visit this vineyard, protect what your right hand has planted'. The psalm is inspired by Isaiah's Song of the Vineyard: "I want to sing for my beloved the song of my beloved for his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. He had spaded it, cleared it of stones, and planted fine vines in it. In the midst of it he had built a tower and he had also dug a vat' (Is 5:1-2). This is probably a popular song, which was sung at weddings as a symbol of the young bridegroom's care for his beloved, and this psalm takes up the image to describe God's solicitude as we read in verses (9-12) not taken up in the responsorial psalm: "You uprooted a vineyard from Egypt, you drove out the nations to plant it. You prepared the ground for it, you rooted it so that it filled the land. Its shadow covered the mountains, its branches the highest cedars; it extended its shoots as far as the sea and its buds as far as the River".  The Exodus, the entry into the Promised Land, the Covenant with God, the conquest of the land and the expansion under David's reign, in all these glories Israel recognises the work of God, of his continuous presence and care. The growth of Israel was so extraordinary that we can speak of an age of glory: "His shadow covered the mountains, his branches the highest cedars", thinking of David's conquests that extended the borders of the kingdom to unprecedented heights. 

The honeymoon did not last long because already in Isaiah the song recounted a happy love at the beginning, which ended badly because of the unfaithfulness of the beloved (cf. Is 5:2-4). And in the end, the vinedresser abandons his vineyard (cf. Is 5:5-6). In today's psalm we find the same adventure of a betrayed love: Israel is spoken of and its infidelities are idolatry with all kinds of transgressions of God's Law that bring consequences as one can well understand when reading the whole psalm.  I limit myself only to a few verses not found in the responsorial psalm. "Why have you cut down its hedge? Everyone who passes by plunders it; the boar of the forest devastates it, and the animals of the fields graze it' (Ps 80:13-14). And shortly afterwards:

"It is destroyed, set on fire" (v. 17). And again: "You have made us the mockery of our neighbours, our enemies laugh at us" (v. 7). In other words, we are in a period of foreign occupation and who the enemies are, the story does not say; they are, however, compared to the animals that ravage the vineyard - such as wild boars, considered unclean animals. Israel acknowledges the guilt for which it was punished by God and the psalm pleads for forgiveness, saying: 'How long wilt thou remain angry against the prayers of thy people? You have made us eat bread of tears, you have given us tears in abundance to drink' (v. 5-6). The psalm reflects the state of theology at the time when it was believed that everything, happiness as well as misfortune, was the work of God.  Certainly today, thanks to patient divine pedagogy, there has been progress in the understanding of revelation and we have understood that God respects human freedom and certainly does not control every detail of history. However, this psalm offers a magnificent lesson in faith and humility: the people recognise their infidelities and make a firm resolution never to repeat them again:

"From you never again shall we depart" and turns to God imploring the power of conversion:

"Let us live and we will call upon your name".

Second Reading from the Letter to the Hebrews 10, 5-10

 *Availability is worth more than all sacrifices

In these few lines, this expression occurs twice: "Behold, I come... to do your will, O God", taken from Psalm 39/40, a psalm of thanksgiving. A brief commentary on this psalm begins by describing the mortal danger from which Israel was delivered: "With patience I hoped in the Lord: he stooped over me, he heard my cry. He brought me out of the pit of death, out of the mud and mire; he established my feet on the rock, he made my steps sure'. After giving thanks for the deliverance from Egypt, he continues: "On my lips he has placed a new song, a praise to our God"; then: "You wanted neither sacrifice nor offering, but you gave me a body. You did not like either holocausts or sacrifices for sin. Then I said: 'Behold, I come, my God, to do your will'". The message is clear: the best way to give thanks is to offer God not sacrifices, but the willingness to do his will. The response that God expects is: 'Here I am', typical of God's great servants. Abraham, called by God at the time of Isaac's sacrifice, answered simply: 'Here I am' and his willingness is an example for the children of Israel (Gen 22): although Isaac was not immolated, willingness is worth more than all sacrifices. Moses answers 'Here I am' before the burning bush and his willingness transformed a simple shepherd even clumsy in speech into the great leader of Israel. Samuel, centuries later, in the time of the Judges, with his 'Here I am' became Israel's great prophet (1 Sam 3:1-9) who as an adult had the courage to say to King Saul: 'Does the Lord like holocausts and sacrifices as much as obedience to his word? No! Obedience is worth more than sacrifice, listening more than the fat of rams" (1 Sam 15:22).

In the Bible, the title 'servant' of God is the greatest compliment for a believer, just as in the first centuries of the Christian era, in Greek-speaking countries, it was common to give children the name 'Christodule' (Christodoulos), meaning servant of Christ. The insistence on availability becomes for everyone first of all encouraging because God only asks for our availability and all of us, despite our human limitations, can become useful for the Kingdom of God. At the same time, this insistence is demanding because if God calls us to serve Him, we cannot make excuses such as incompetence, ignorance, unworthiness, weariness, etc.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews applies Psalm 39/40 to Jesus Christ, who says: "You wanted neither sacrifice nor offering, but a body you have prepared for me. Thou hast pleased neither burnt offerings nor sacrifices for sin. Then I said: 'Behold, I come to do, O God, your will.  Total availability that did not begin on the evening of Holy Thursday, but embraces the whole of life, day after day, from the very beginning because "entering the world, Christ says ... a body you have prepared for me ... behold, I am coming" (vv5-7). 

To say that willingness is worth more than all sacrifices does not mean that sacrifices are abolished, but they lose their value when they are not accompanied by total willingness to serve God and man. Moreover, in Israel, in the context of the struggle against idolatries, the prophets insisted on the 'sacrifice of the lips', a prayer and praise to be addressed exclusively to the God of Israel, since it happened that, while offering costly sacrifices in the temple of Jerusalem, some continued to turn to other gods. Offering to God the "sacrifice of the lips" indicates the decision to belong to Him unreservedly, and this, as we read in Hosea, was worth more than all animal sacrifices: "Instead of bulls, we will offer you as a sacrifice the words of our lips" (Hos 14:3). Psalm 49/50 also reiterates this: 'Offer to God as a sacrifice your praise and make your vows to the Most High... He who offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies me' (Ps 49/50.14.23).

Jacob is regarded as an example of absolute availability to God, despite his wrongdoings, because his life bears witness to a profound inner transformation and an intense search for God. Jacob's journey represents the spiritual journey of every believer: from a life characterised by deceit and strife to a life of faith, of encounter with God and adherence to His plan. These are Jacob's misdeeds: from his youth, he commits several questionable actions: he deceives his brother Esau in order to obtain the birthright in exchange for a plate of lentils (Gen 25:29-34); he cheats his father Isaac in order to receive the blessing due to the first-born son, with the help of his mother Rebecca (Gen 27), he manipulates his uncle Laban to enrich himself during the time he works for him (Gen 30:25-43). This is his openness to God: despite these behaviours, Jacob is open to the encounter with God and shows an increasing readiness to allow himself to be transformed. His story is punctuated by episodes that show the change of his heart: the dream of Bethel (Gen 28:10-22): after deceiving his brother and fleeing, Jacob has a vision of a ladder connecting earth to heaven. In this dream, God renews to him the promises made to Abraham and Isaac. Here he promises: 'If God will be with me and protect me on this journey ... then the Lord will be my God' (Gen 28:20-21).

Then at Peniel (Gen 32:23-32) he wrestles all night with a mysterious man, who turns out to be God himself or one of his messengers and receives a new name, Israel, which means 'He who wrestles with God'. It is the symbol of a profound transformation: "I will not let you go unless you bless me!" (Gen 32:27). Here emerges his total willingness to depend on God, to recognise his need to be blessed and guided. Reconciliation with Esau follows (Gen 33) and this shows that inner change produces concrete fruits in human relationships. The thirst for God: what distinguishes Jacob is not his moral perfection, but his thirst for God: he always sought Him even when his actions were dictated by personal ambition and this constant search for God makes him an example of helpfulness because he appears to be a man who, despite his weaknesses and mistakes, always desired God's blessing and presence in his life. His story teaches that: God does not choose the perfect, but those who are willing to allow themselves to be transformed; our imperfections are not an obstacle to God's call, as long as we are willing to walk with Him; availability to God is more important than outward sacrifices or works, because God looks at the heart and the desire for conversion. In summary, Jacob is an example of absolute availability to God because, despite his misdeeds, he accepted the divine call, fought for God's blessing, and allowed himself to be transformed by that encounter, becoming one of the fundamental patriarchs of Israel's faith.Gospel according to Luke 1:39-45

*You are blessed among all women  

In Luke's gospel, after the two accounts of the Annunciation: to Zechariah for the birth of John the Baptist, and to Mary for the birth of Jesus, there follows the account of the "Visitation", which at first glance appears to be a simple family scene, but we must not be deceived: Luke writes a profoundly theological work, and to better understand it we must give due value to the central phrase: "Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she cried out with a loud voice" (Lk 1:41-42). It is therefore the Holy Spirit who speaks and announces from the very beginning the great news of the whole of Luke's Gospel: the one who has just been conceived is the 'Lord'. The Spirit inspires Elizabeth: 'Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb': this means that God acts in you and through you, God acts in your Son and through your Son. As always, the Holy Spirit is the one who enables us to discover, in our lives and in the lives of others, the signs of God's work. Luke is not unaware that this phrase from Elizabeth partly echoes one we find in the book of Judith (Jdt 13:18-19): when after beheading the general Holofernes, Judith returns from the enemy camp, she is greeted by Ozia who says to her: 'You are blessed among all women, and blessed is the Lord God'. Mary is here compared to Judith, a parallelism that suggests two things: the expression 'Blessed art thou among all women' makes it clear that Mary is the woman who guarantees mankind ultimate victory over evil. As for the conclusion of the sentence (for Judith 'blessed is the Lord God', while for Mary 'blessed is the fruit of thy womb'), it announces that the Lord himself is the fruit of her womb: this is why Luke's account is not just a picture of family joy, but something much deeper. In the face of Zechariah's muteness, who had become mute because he had doubted the angel's words announcing the birth of John the Baptist, the power of Elizabeth's word full of the Holy Spirit appears in full contrast. John the Baptist, still in his mother's womb, already full of the Holy Spirit manifests his joy: Elizabeth says that he "leapt for joy in my womb" when he heard Mary's voice. The angel had foretold this to Zechariah: 'Fear not, Zechariah, your prayer has been answered. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. You will be in joy and exultation, and many will rejoice at his birth ... he will be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb" (Lk 1:13-15).

We recall the words of Elizabeth: "To what do I owe that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" (Lk 1:43). This sentence also recalls an episode from the Old Testament, namely the arrival of the Ark of the Covenant in Jerusalem (2 Sam 6:2-11). When David became king in Jerusalem and built a worthy palace, he decided to transfer the Ark of the Covenant to the new capital. Filled with fervour and awe, he organised a festive procession with all the best men of Israel, about thirty thousand, and with all the people he set out to bring up the Ark of God... They carried it in a new chariot... David and all the house of Israel danced before the Lord to the sound of harps, harps, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals (cf. 2 Sam 6:5). On the way, however, a man who had touched the Ark without being authorised to do so died immediately and, seized with fear, David exclaimed: "How can the Ark of the Lord come to me?" (2 Sam 6:9). He then decided to leave the Ark in the house of Obed-Edom, where it remained for three months and then, as word spread that the presence of the Ark brought blessing to that house, David decided to complete the journey and so David and all the house of Israel brought up the Ark of the Lord amidst songs of joy and to the sound of the horn (cf. 2 Sam 6:15) and full of joy, David also danced before the Ark "with all his might" (cf. 2 Sam 6:14).

Many details unite the account of the Visitation with the journey of the Ark of the Covenant: Both journeys, that of the Ark and that of Mary, take place in the same region, the hills of Judea; the Ark enters the house of Obed-Edom and brings blessing; Mary enters the house of Zechariah and Elizabeth and brings joy; the Ark stays three months in the house of Obed-Edom; Mary stays three months with Elizabeth; David dances before the Ark; John the Baptist "exults with joy" before Mary who carries the Lord in her. Since all this is not accidental, the evangelist invites us to contemplate Mary as the new Ark of the Covenant. The Ark was the place of God's Presence, and Mary carries within her, in a mysterious way, the divine Presence, and from that moment God dwells forever in our humanity: "The Word became flesh and came to dwell among us" (Jn 1:14).