The initial scene of the Gospel in today’s liturgy (see Jn 6,24-35) shows us some boats moving towards Capernaum: the crowd is going to look for Jesus. We might think that this is a very good thing, yet the Gospel teaches us that it is not enough to seek God; we must also ask why we are seeking him. Indeed, Jesus says: “You seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves” (v. 26). The people, in fact, had witnessed the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, but they had not grasped the meaning of that gesture: they stopped at the external miracle, they stopped at the material bread: there only, without going beyond, to the meaning of this.

Here then is a first question we can ask ourselves: why do we seek the Lord? Why do I seek the Lord? What are the motivations  for my faith, for our faith? We need to discern this, because among the many temptations we encounter in life, among the many temptations there is one that we might call idolatrous temptation. It is the one that drives us to seek God for our own use, to solve problems, to have thanks to Him what we cannot obtain on our own, for our interests. But in this way faith remains superficial and even, if I may say so, faith remains miraculous: we look for God to feed us and then forget about Him when we are satiated. At the centre of this immature faith is not God, but our own needs. I think of our interests, many things … It is right to present our needs to God's heart, but the Lord, who acts far beyond our expectations, wishes to live with us first of all in a relationship of love. And true love is disinterested, it is free: one does not love to receive a favour in return! This is self-interest; and very often in life we are motivated by self-interest.

A second question that the crowd asks Jesus can help us: “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” (v. 28). It is as if the people, provoked by Jesus, were saying: “How can we purify our search for God? How do we go from a magical faith, which thinks only of our own needs, to a faith that pleases God?” And Jesus shows the way: He answers that the work of God is to welcome the One whom the Father has sent, that is, welcoming Himself, Jesus. It is not adding religious practices or observing special precepts; it is welcoming Jesus, it is welcoming Him into our lives, living a story of love with Jesus. It is He who will purify our faith. We are not able to do this on our own. But the Lord wants a loving relationship with us: before the things we receive and do, there is Him to love. There is a relationship with Him that goes beyond the logic of interest and calculation.

This applies to God, but it also applies to our human and social relationships: when we seek first and foremost the satisfaction of our needs, we risk using people and exploiting situations for our own ends. How many times have we heard it said of someone; “But he uses people and then forgets about them”? Using people for one’s own gain: this is bad. And a society that puts interests instead of people at its centre is a society that does not generate life. The Gospel’s invitation is this: rather than being concerned only with the material bread that feeds us, let us welcome Jesus as the bread of life and, starting out from our friendship with Him, learn to love each other. Freely and without calculation. Love given freely and without calculation, without using people, freely, with generosity, with magnanimity.

Let us now pray to the Holy Virgin, She who lived the most beautiful story of love with God, that she may give us the grace to open ourselves to the encounter with her Son.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 1 August 2021]

Second Easter Sunday [27 April 2025]

God bless us and may the Virgin protect us. In these days, as we pray for our Pope Francis departed for the house of the Father, let us insistently invoke the light of the Holy Spirit on the Church and in particular on the cardinals who will have to elect the one whom the Lord has chosen to lead his Church after Pope Francis. 

*First Reading From the Acts of the Apostles (5:12-16) 

Here is a presentation of the first Christian community that seems almost too good to be true (In the Acts of the Apostles there are four summaries of life in the early days of the Church Acts 2:42-47 the best known and most detailed; Acts 4:32-35 emphasises the communion of goods; Acts 5:12-16 highlights the miracles and growth; Acts 6:7 brief summary of the spread of the gospel). However, we must not infer from this that everything was perfect because in the coming Sundays we will see all sorts of difficulties: the first Christians were men, not supermen. Why then does St Luke present this ideal picture? Because he wants to encourage us too to walk in the same direction: a fraternal community is an indispensable condition for the proclamation and witness of the gospel. Since the apostles followed Christ's command, the contagion of the gospel was irresistible: "You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8) and nothing could prevent the nascent Church from developing. St Luke notes that "all used to be together in Solomon's porch". We are still in Jerusalem, given that Christ's resurrection is close in time, exactly in the Temple of Jerusalem under Solomon's porch (the entire eastern wall of the Temple was actually a colonnade that ran along a wide covered corridor, a place of passage and meeting, accessible to all as it was not part of the area reserved for Jews only). After Jesus' death and resurrection, the apostles, being and remaining Jews, continued to attend the Temple. Indeed, their Jewish faith had been strengthened as they had seen the Old Testament promises fulfilled in the Easter events. Only later and progressively would the division between Christians and the Jews who did not recognise Jesus as the Messiah take place, although already in this text there is a first sign of this: "none of the others dared to associate with them", which tells us that the Christians already formed a distinct group within the Jewish people. Luke draws a parallel here with the beginnings of Jesus' preaching: 'The crowds from the towns near Jerusalem also flocked, bringing sick people and people tormented by unclean spirits, and all were healed'; in the gospel he had written the same thing about Jesus: 'At sunset, all who had sick people suffering from various infirmities brought them to him.... even demons came out of many' (Lk 4:40-41). If he insists on the healings of Peter and the apostles, the message is clear: he continues the work of the Messiah through the apostles and says to his community: it is up to you to take the witness of the apostles because Christ is counting on you. And it is interesting to note that, thanks to the testimony of the apostles, the crowds were not joining the apostles, but through the apostles, to the Lord: "More and more, believers were being added to the Lord, a multitude of men and women". This is an important detail because conversions are not the work of the apostles, but of Christ who acts when the community is made up of people with "one heart" and "by this all will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). St Peter and the other apostles did not present themselves as supermen, indeed Peter said to Cornelius, who had knelt before him: "Stand up. I too am a man." (Acts 10:26). If there is a lack of signs and miracles in our communities, is it not an invitation to live sincerely in the love of Christ? 

*Responsorial Psalm (117 (118), 2-4, 22-24, 25-27a)

Psalm 117 (118), already sung at the Easter Vigil and on Easter Day, returns and we find it every Sunday of ordinary time in the Office of Lauds (Liturgy of the Hours). For Jews, this psalm is about the Messiah; we Christians recognise in it the Messiah expected throughout the Old Testament, the true king, the victor over death. Like other psalms, this one too must be meditated upon on two levels: from the perspective of the Jewish expectation of the Messiah, and in the light of the converts' faith in the risen Christ. For the Jews it is a psalm of praise that begins with Alleluia, the meaning of which is "praise God" and which sets the tone for the whole. It consists of twenty-nine verses where the word Lord (the famous four letters of the Name of God in Hebrew YHWH) returns more than thirty times, or at least Yah, which is its first syllable, and they are all phrases, a true litany, of praise for the greatness, love and work of God towards his people. The sung psalm accompanies a sacrifice of thanksgiving during the Feast of Tents, which lasts eight days in the autumn. The most visible ritual for foreigners at this feast takes place outside the Temple. During the entire week everyone lives in huts made of branches, the Huts or Tabernacles (Sukkot is the name of the feast), commemorating the desert tents and the protective shadow of God in the Exodus. Inside the Temple there are celebrations whose common point is the renewal of the Covenant (and during which pilgrims wave branches or rather a bunch, the lulav, consisting of a palm, a myrtle branch, a willow branch and a cedar. Finally, a large procession takes place around the altar holding these bunches of lulav while singing psalms interspersed with Hosanna, which means either 'God saves' or 'God, save us'. There are rites of libation of water poured out by the altar (cf. Jn 7:37) and on the evenings before the last day a great lighting of the Women's Courtyard in the Temple with four golden candelabra, fuelled with oil and wicks made from discarded priestly garments, and the light thus produced was so intense that it illuminated the whole of Jerusalem. It is therefore a feast of fervour and joy, anticipating the coming of the Messiah: thanks are given for the salvation that has already been accomplished, and one welcomes the salvation that the Messiah who will not be long in coming will bring: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord"). When Jesus proclaims himself to be the true "light of the world" (Jn 8:2), he probably does so after the conclusion of the feast with the living memory of that luminous rite. In the verses chosen for today's liturgy, all the elements of the feast of Tabernacles are missing, but not the joy in the hearts of believers: "This is the day that the Lord has made: let us rejoice in it and be glad ... Let Israel say: His love is forever". In order to narrate the goodness of the Lord throughout the history of Israel, the psalm tells of a king who, after a merciless war, was victorious and thanks God for having sustained him: "They pushed me, they knocked me down, but the Lord was my help" (v.13), "All the nations surrounded me: in the name of the Lord I destroyed them" (v.10), and again: "I will not die, but I will live and proclaim the works of the Lord" (v.17). Indeed, the story of this king is told of the Israel that came close to annihilation throughout its history, but the Lord raised it up, and now sings on the Feast of Tabernacles: 'I will not die, but I will live and proclaim the works of the Lord'. Israel knows that he must bear witness to the works of the Lord, and from this knowledge he drew the strength to survive all his trials. For us Christians, the Jewish feast of the Tents finds an echo in Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, but above all, the exultation of this psalm befits the Risen One whom the evangelists, each in his own way, have presented as the true king (Matthew in the visit of the Magi, John in the Passion narrative). Meditating on the mystery of the rejected and crucified Messiah, the apostles discovered a new meaning in this psalm: Jesus is truly "the one who comes in the name of the Lord", a stone rejected by the builders, rejected by his people, Christ is the cornerstone of the foundation of the new Israel. This psalm was sung in Jerusalem on the occasion of a thanksgiving sacrifice, and Jesus has just performed the thanksgiving sacrifice par excellence: He is the new Israel who gives thanks to the Father in an eternal act of thanksgiving, bringing about between God and humanity the new Covenant in which humanity is a loving response to the Father's love.

Note The Cornerstone: On this expression, see the commentary on Psalm 117 (118) for Easter Sunday.

* Second Reading From the Book of Revelation of St John the Apostle (1:9-11a.12-13.17-19)

For six consecutive Sundays we will read passages from the Book of Revelation as the second reading, a great opportunity to familiarise ourselves with one of the most fascinating books of the New Testament, seemingly difficult and in need of some effort. "Apocalypse" means revelation, unveiling in the sense of removing a veil, and John reveals the mystery of history hidden from our eyes, and because he has to show us what we do not see, the book speaks to us with visions ("see" or "look" is used five times in today's passage alone). In common hearings Apocalypse is synonymous with catastrophe, a bad misunderstanding, because Revelation like the whole Bible is Good News. In their literary genre, apocalypses, like the entire Bible, communicate God's love and the ultimate victory of love over all evil. For us, who live in a different cultural context, it remains almost impossible for us to perceive why this symbolic language and to understand to whom the author is addressing himself. In reality, he uses the language of visions because all books of the same genre were born in a period of strong persecution of Christians (between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD. several apocalypses were written by different authors). St John makes this clear: 'I, John, your brother and companion in tribulation, kingdom and perseverance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. On Patmos he was in exile, not on holiday, and being in the midst of persecution, this text circulated secretly to comfort the communities. The main theme is the final victory of those who were oppressed: you are persecuted and your persecutors prosper, but do not lose courage because Christ has overcome the world. The forces of evil can do nothing against you as they are already defeated and the true king is Christ. John states this at the beginning: "I, John, your brother and companion in tribulation, kingdom and perseverance in Jesus. To prevent the persecutors from understanding, stories from other times are told using fanciful visions so as to discourage the uninitiated from reading them. For example, St John misrepresents Babylon, whom he calls the great prostitute, but it is understood that he is talking about Rome. In short, the message of every Revelation is that the forces of evil will never prevail. In today's reading, Christ's victory is shown in this grandiose vision: it is Sunday, the Lord's Day, enraptured by the Spirit John hears a voice as powerful as a trumpet, and among seven golden candlesticks there appears to him a being of light, a 'son of man'. Son of man is in the New Testament an expression used to refer to the Messiah, the Christ. He falls at his feet as he listens to him: "Fear not! I am (i.e. the very name of God YHWH) the First and the Last and the Living One. I was dead, but now I live ... and I have the keys of death and the underworld."  This is a vision that is for the service of the brothers: "Write down the things you have seen", i.e. encourage them and know that past, present and future belong to me. We perceive here the promise of Christ: "He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live" (Jn 11:25).

Note: Exegetes agree that John is the author of the Revelation written during the reign of the Emperor Domitian (81-96) even though this emperor did not organise a systematic persecution of Christians. However, John's community lives in a climate of insecurity: he himself is exiled and there is mention of martyrs throughout the book. Christians are confronted with the demands of the imperial cult promoted by Domitian, and it seems that some local governors showed particular zeal. Moreover, the Christians encountered opposition from the Jews who remained hostile to Christianity. This also seems to emerge from the letters to the seven Churches. There are also other examples of Apocalypse. In the Old Testament, the book of Daniel contains an apocalyptic message written around 165 BC by Daniel to encourage his brothers persecuted by the Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes. He too does not attack the problem directly, but narrates the heroic deeds of some faithful Jews during Nebuchadnezzar's persecution four centuries earlier (6th century BC). Only on the surface is this a history lesson, but for those who know how to read between the lines, the message is clear. Here, finally, is an example of Apocalypse in recent history: at the time of Russian rule over Czechoslovakia, a young Czech actress composed and performed several times in her country a play about Joan of Arc: evidently, the story of Joan driving the English out of France in the 15th century was not the Czechs' first concern; and if the scenario had ended up in the hands of the occupying power, it would not have compromised anyone. But for those who could read between the lines, the message was clear: what a young girl of nineteen was able to do, with God's help, so can we.

*From the Gospel according to John (20:19-31)  

"Shalom, peace be upon you!" This is the first word spoken by the risen Jesus. The disciples remembered his last sentence on the cross: "All is accomplished", which closes the account of the Passion in the fourth gospel (Jn 19:30). The evangelist at that moment understood that God's plan was completely fulfilled and with this evidence he now narrates this first apparition. Jerusalem, in the very name Yerushalaïm, bears the Hebrew word shalom, and it is here that Jesus announces and gives, that is, makes effective, his peace: Shalom! He thus greets them twice and, now recognised with God, this word is not a wish, but a gift already realised: by saying peace he gives it and makes it effective.  It is always urgent to believe that Christ by rising has brought us peace even if concrete situations show a world marked by hatred, violence and wars. This is because peace is already there, but it does not come with a wave of a magic wand: it must first be born in the hearts of believers and then spread through the joy that the disciples had "when they saw the Lord". The risen Jesus always appears "on the first day of the week" so that for Christians, this day has become the first day of the new times. The seven-day week reminded the Jews of the seven days of creation, while the new week linked to Christ's resurrection is the beginning of the new creation. For this reason, when the evangelist speaks of the first day of the week, he does not merely provide chronological precision, but invites us to understand that Sunday, from the Latin dies dominicus, is a day consecrated to God, the day of the new creation in which the plan of salvation is accomplished. On the very first day of the week, as the prophet Ezekiel had announced: "I will put my own Spirit within you", Jesus "breathed" on the disciples and said: "Receive the Holy Spirit". John deliberately picks up the term we find in Genesis ( 2:7): (God breathed into the nostrils of the man moulded with dust "a breath of life" (nėšāmāh linked to rûah; in Greek pnoē) and he became a living being) and inaugurates the new creation by blowing upon the apostles his Spirit (pneûma hágion), "the first gift given to believers", as the fourth Eucharistic prayer recalls. In the Bible, the Spirit is always given for a mission and Jesus also sends the disciples to announce to the world the one indispensable truth: God is Mercy. This mission is urgent because man dies if he does not know the truth, as Jesus says: "he who commits sin is a slave to sin" (Jn 8:34) because he does not know God's love. There is no other mission than to reconcile men with God: everything else follows from this. "Whose sins you forgive will be forgiven", we could translate it like this: announce that sins are forgiven and be ambassadors of universal reconciliation. The mission that the Father entrusts to you is urgent and indispensable, and if you do not go, the novelty of reconciliation will not be announced. In this context the phrase: 'those whom you do not forgive will not be forgiven' could be understood in this sense: if you do not bring your brothers and sisters to know God's love (if you do not forgive) they will live outside his love (they will not be forgiven).   What trust and what responsibility! God's plan will only be definitively fulfilled when we, in turn, have fulfilled our mission: "As the Father has sent me, I also send you". The first sin, which is at the root of all the others, is not to believe in God's love: therefore, I send you, move without delay to proclaim God's love to all'.

Note 'That day, the first day of the week': in the Hebrew reading of the Creation narrative, this first day was called 'Day ONE' in the sense of 'first day' but also 'unique day', because in a sense it encompassed all the others, as the first ear of the harvest heralds all the harvest... And the Jewish people still await the New Day that will be God's day, when He will renew the first Creation.

Today, Divine Mercy Sunday, I propose a prayer that I take from the book of the Holy Trinity Mercy Shrine in Maccio (Como). The Most Holy Trinity is Infinite Mercy

"Most Holy Trinity, Infinite Mercy, Mercy, Inscrutable Light of the Father who creates; Mercy, Face and Word of the Son who gives Himself; Mercy, Penetrating Fire in the Spirit that gives life; Most Holy Trinity, Mercy that saves in the unique gift of His Triune Being, I trust and hope in you! You, who have given yourself to us, make us all give ourselves to you! Make us witnesses of your Love in Christ our Redeemer, our brother and our King! Most Holy Trinity, I trust in you!"

+Giovanni D'Ercole

Triduum: Thursday, Friday, Easter Vigil

MAUNDY THURSDAY [17 April 2025]

Dearly beloved I am sending a text to meditate on the mystery of Holy Thursday, one to contemplate the gift of the Cross, mystery of passion and glory for Good Friday, and a note that may be of interest on the Easter Vigil of which it would be important to recover the theological and pastoral sense and value.

Rather than provide as usual a commentary for each biblical reading, I prefer to propose a meditation on Jesus washing the disciples' feet because it is a gesture that introduces us into the heart of the mystery of Holy Thursday. 

1. Eucharist gift and service of love

The starting point is this text by St Augustine: "Surge et ambula: homo Christus tua vita est, Deus Christus patria tua est. Arise and walk: the man Christ is your life, Christ God is your homeland (St Augustine, Discourse 375c)

The fourth gospel does not report the institution of the Eucharist, but deepens the testimony of the synoptics by specifying what Christ wanted to give us in the Eucharistic mystery-sacrament. Instead of the words of the institution the evangelist places the account of the washing of the feet to indicate the meaning and purpose of the Eucharistic mystery which is to live in mutual love following the example of Jesus. The washing of the feet therefore does not replace the account of the institution of the Eucharist given by Matthew, Mark and Luke, but intends to present it as a gift and service of love. Benedict XVI invites us not to stop at the differences in the Gospels when they narrate the Last Supper: "for John, it is the Farewell Supper while for the Synoptics it is the Paschal Supper". Indeed, he writes that one thing is evident in the entire tradition: the essence of this farewell supper was not the ancient Passover, but Jesus revealed the newness of his Passover in this context. Although the banquet with the apostles was not a Passover dinner according to the ritual prescriptions of Judaism, in retrospect the close connection with Christ's death and resurrection became evident. It was Jesus' Passover in which he gave himself and thus truly celebrated the Passover with them. In this way he did not deny the old, but brought it to its full fulfilment (cf. Jesus of Nazareth, II, p. 130). The essential thing is to constantly remember that on that evening Jesus celebrated his, the true Passover. The liturgy with the sequence "Lauda Sion" composed by St Thomas Aquinas on the occasion of the feast of Corpus Christi in 1264 helps us to focus on this truth: "Novae cenae novus rex, novae paschae novus lex, vetus transit observantia. The first Holy Supper is the banquet of the new King, new Easter, new law, and the old has come to an end'. Then the sequence continues: "Quod in cena Christus gessit - faciendum hoc espressit - in sui memoriam. Christ leaves in his memory what he did in the supper - we renew it'.

2. The disruptive power of the new Easter

The washing of the feet helps us precisely to understand the disruptive force of the 'new Easter'. "Before the feast of Easter Jesus, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end" (Jn 13:1).  Having ended his public life, Jesus leaves the "Passover of the Jews" to his adversaries and prepares to celebrate "his" Passover with a chosen few, and among the apostles is the betrayer. What a time of great suffering! And yet John presents this hour filled with pain and tragedy as the moment awaited by Christ, as 'the hour of glory'. Benedict XVI again writes that what constitutes the content of this hour, John describes with two words: passage (metàbasis) and love (agàpe). Two words that interpret and explain each other; both describe together the Easter of Jesus: cross and resurrection, crucifixion as elevation, as a "passage" to the glory of God, as a "passing" from the world to the Father. The passage is a transformation because Christ brings with him his flesh, his being as a man. By giving himself on the cross he transforms it, he transforms killing into a gift of love to the full, to the end. With this expression "to the end" John refers in advance to Jesus' last word on the cross: everything has been brought to an end, "it is finished" (Jn 19:30). Through his love, the cross, the instrument of death, becomes metabasis, the transformation of the human being into a sharer in the glory of God. In this transformation we are all involved and our life also becomes "passage", transformation.

While they were eating dinner, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given him everything in his hands and that he had come from God and was returning to God, got up from the table, laid down his clothes and, taking a towel, wrapped it around his waist. Then he poured water into the basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and dry them with the towel with which he had girded himself (cf. Jn 13:2-5). With full awareness the Lord is about to perform the great and humble act of foot-washing. On the Last Supper John does not give many details, he only notes while they were dining, which can also be translated as "when the supper was ready", or: "when the supper was finished". The evangelist is not very interested in the details of that meal and prefers to surprise us with Jesus' unexpected choice. The interruption of the supper to wash his feet is disturbing and stimulates us to reflect in order to seek the reasons for such a choice. 

2. Eight verbs to understand this unusual and unexpected rite

Our attention is provoked to understand this gesture of his by meditating on its meticulous description made up of no less than eight verbs: "he got up from the table, laid down his clothes, took a towel, wrapped it around his waist, poured water into the basin, began to wash his feet, dried them, took off his clothes again" after which he sits down again ready to explain its meaning. St John accumulates verbs without repeating himself so that Jesus' gesture remains impressed in the reader's mind as he intends to show that true love always translates into concrete actions of free service. Here then is Jesus undressing and putting on an apron, reminding us of what we read in St Luke: "Behold, I stand among you as one who serves" (22:27). The laying aside of clothes also symbolically expresses the imminent gift of life. In doing so, he wants to involve, starting with Peter, all the disciples and also each believer: therefore also us.

At first glance, this unusual and unexpected rite appears as an invitation to allow ourselves to be purified again and again by the fresh and salutary water of his word and love. It is an authoritative 'sign' because the gesture and words are substantiated by the gift of himself even beyond death. In fact, a few hours later, while he was lying lifeless on the cross, a soldier's lance blow would cause blood to flow from his side along with water (cf. Jn 19:34) showing his pierced body as a total gift beyond death. Christ's words are much more than mere communication; they are rather flesh and blood for the life of the world since Jesus himself is the Word made flesh (Jn 1:14) and his word is life that gives itself, real presence, bread that makes life. In every sacrament celebrated in faithfulness to his word, Christ kneels down and purifies our lives.

3. God's work for man starts from below

In the washing of the feet, Jesus presents mutual service, inspired by love, as the indispensable means to keep his presence alive in the new Community in which the disciples will have the task of creating conditions of freedom and equality, placing themselves each at the service of the other. God's work in favour of man does not come from above like a handout, but starts from below to raise man to the divine level. This is what Jesus does, the undisputed leader, who abandons his role to place himself below his disciples: "Christ Jesus, though he was in the condition of God, did not consider it a privilege to be like God, but emptied himself by assuming the condition of a servant, becoming like men" (Phil 2:6-7). He emptied himself (ekenosen): Christ voluntarily emptied himself of his divine glory to become a servant, to enter the human condition with humility, weakness and vulnerability, "obedient unto death". 

We have no trouble understanding Peter who is bewildered, unable to accept what the Lord is accomplishing, indeed rejecting it altogether. "So he came to Simon Peter and said to him, "Lord, do you wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "What I do, you do not understand now; you will understand later." Simon Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet for ever!" Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you will have no part with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not only your feet, but also your hands and your head!" (Jn 13:6-9). Peter perfectly expresses the attitude of the Eleven who, after being with him for years, think they know everything about Jesus. Peter, however, probably interpreting the thinking of the others, does not yet know where the Master wants to go by loving "to the end" and this is why Jesus reiterates to him the importance of the gesture so that all may understand: "If I do not wash you, you will have no part with me". In his educational action, the divine Master first teaches with deeds, then explains in words. In truth, he does not explain or explains very little by proceeding by affirmations; he does not condemn, but he makes it clear how much of a loser he is who thinks and acts like Peter who does not want to let his feet be washed and therefore will have no part with him.  What a drama to be separated from the One who loves you "to the end"!

Jesus, however, is patient in his waiting, he knows that it can be a long time to understand and put his gospel into practice. By observing how he educates Peter, we can learn to act as he wishes, remaining in his school as humble and faithful disciples.

4. The example of Christ founds and accompanies our educational action

The washing of the feet is the model for us to understand and put into practice. This is because we are in the presence of a sacramentum that is at the same time exemplum. Sacramentum i.e. mystery of Christ and power that transforms us into a new form of being, invigorating us with energy of new life. Exemplum because Christ remains the one who gives himself and always continually precedes us. The root of Christian ethics does not lie primarily in our moral capacity, but in God's gift to us. It is in the free gift of God that the reason why the central act of our being Christians is the Eucharist: that is, infinite gratitude for the new life that the Holy Trinity communicates to us through Christ's death and resurrection. It follows that the Mandatum Novum consists in loving together with the one who first loved us, and never prescinding from this truth. As with Peter, it is up to each one of us to learn that God's greatness is different from our image of greatness and that it consists precisely in descending, in the humility of service, in the radicality of love to the point of the total spoliation of one's self. And this must always be stressed again because we are constantly tempted to seek the God of power and success, or even of compromises, and not the God of the Passion. It is always tiring and difficult, as Benedict XVI observed, to realise that the Shepherd comes as a sacrificial Lamb who gives himself and, in this style, leads us to the right pasture.

Giovanni Papini, a 20th century convert writer, in his brilliant and visceral 'Life of Christ' highlights a connection between the washing of the feet and the mission of the apostles. He writes: "The Eleven, beyond deaf nature, had some claim to the benefit of the washing. For weeks of months those feet had walked the dusty, the muddy, the shitty roads of Judea to follow him who gave life. And after his death they will have to walk, years and years, on longer, shabbier roads, in countries whose name they do not even know today. And the foreign mota will lord, through their shoes, the feet of those who will go, as pilgrims and strangers to repeat the call of the Crucified". Papini probably links up with Augustine who, in a more elegant and calm manner, had presented the washing of the feet as a right and a necessity for all evangelisers. For Augustine, foot-washing is not only an exemplary gesture for educating the disciples, but also an aid for the apostles in their task as evangelisers. He writes in this regard: 'When we, the church, proclaim the gospel, O Christ, we walk the earth and dirty our feet to come and open the door to you [to let you into the hearts of the people you have entrusted to us]. When we preach to you, we walk with our feet on the earth to come and open the door for you. Wash our feet that...have become dirty walking on the earth to come and open the door to you" (Homily 57 on Jn).

5. Holy Thursday as an occasion to purify priestly service

Ultimately for us priests, Holy Thursday is a most auspicious occasion to ask Jesus to purify our priestly service. At the end of tiring days of apostolic work, we realise that we have "dirtied our feet" by giving too much importance to ourselves so as to make it more difficult to encounter Christ with people. We hear his words resounding in us: "I have given you an example so that as (kathos) I have done, you also may do" (John 13:13). Kathòs can be translated as, but here it has a special meaning: it indicates an action that produces a desired effect and it is as if Jesus were saying: by doing this I make it possible for you also to act as I do in serving your brothers and sisters. While the synoptics conveyed his command "Do this in remembrance of me", referring to the gesture of "consecration" (Lk22:19; Mt26:26; Mk14:22), John reminds us that the new community of his disciples will also have to make their Lord present in mutual service as well as in Eucharistic worship: "Knowing these things, you are blessed if you put them into practice" (Jn 13:17). In the fourth gospel we find only two beatitudes written: the first is directly addressed to the apostles present; the other will be proclaimed eight days after the resurrection and concerns especially the future disciples: "Blessed are those who, though they have not seen, will believe" (Jn 20:29). Both are especially necessary for us, priests, chosen by him to continue his mission: we will only be blessed if we unite the practice of charity with the steadfastness of faith.In summary, Christ's gesture of washing the feet shows in a visible manner that love must translate into fraternal welcome, hospitality and forgiveness, always preserving the style and spirit of the service he entrusted to the apostles, a ministry of humble, gratuitous love always based on him. Ultimately, it is a vocation to 'wash feet' in the heart of the world. 

Origen, who lived between 185 and 253/254, Father of the Greek-speaking Church, master of spiritual and allegorical theology wrote in one of his homilies: 'Jesus, come, my feet are dirty. For me make yourself my servant, pour water into the basin; come, wash my feet. I know, it is reckless what I say to you, but I fear the threat of your words: If I do not wash you, you will have no part with me. Wash my feet therefore, that I may have part with thee' (Homily 5 on Isaiah). And Saint Ambrose, bishop of Milan (339-397) and one of the most important Fathers of the Latin Church, a theologian with a pastoral and spiritual slant, teaches us to pray like this: 'O my Lord Jesus, let me wash your holy feet; you have soiled them since you walked in my soul... But where shall I get water from the spring to wash your feet? In the absence of it I have eyes to weep: by wetting your feet with my tears, let me myself be cleansed" (Penance, II, ch. 7). Finally, Jacques Dupont, Carthusian monk, Prior of the Carthusian monastery of Serra San Bruno and Procurator General of the Carthusian Order (1993-2014), who died on 13 January 2019 observes: 'Only he who accepts to have his feet washed can do so to another without an attitude of superiority'.

GOOD FRIDAY [18 April 2025].

For today here is a reflection on "The cross, the only hope of the world" 

1. Chronicle of a violent death

Every Good Friday, the liturgy repeats the proclamation of the Passion of Christ according to Saint John. In the final analysis, it is the chronicle of a violent death, and such episodes, then as now, are part of the daily news. Killings of criminals, people victims of attacks, innocent people struck down by misfortune, car or work accidents with loss of life, disasters created by natural disasters such as the recent devastating earthquake in Myanmar, one of the strongest recorded in the country in over a century, people killed because of their faith. These are all news items that follow one another quickly and last for a short time in the fast-paced daily panorama of public opinion. On the contrary, the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, which took place more than two millennia ago, continues to be an event as vivid as if it were happening today, and this is because his death changed the face of death forever; indeed, it gave new meaning and significance to death. It is worth pausing, then, to meditate on this death that has conquered death forever.

2. Blood and water flow from the destroyed temple

One day in Jerusalem, answering those who asked by what authority he was driving the merchants out of the temple, Jesus replied: 'Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. "He spoke of the temple of his body" (Jn 2:19. 21), comments the evangelist John, but his interlocutors did not understand. It was in truth an anticipatory sign of another event that is fully understood in John's passion narrative. When the crucifixion was completed, seeing that he was already dead, they did not break Jesus' legs as they had done to the other two crucified men, but "one of the soldiers with a spear struck his side and immediately blood and water came out" (John 19: 32-34). One catches here the reference to Ezekiel's prophecy that spoke of the future temple of God, from the side of which a trickle of water gushes out and becomes a stream, then a navigable river around which all life flourishes (cf. Ez 47:1 ff.). That "destroyed" temple from which gushes forth water and blood is the pierced heart of Christ, source of a "river of living water" (Jn 7:38). The heart of Christ already dead is alive because he conquered death; Christ risen from the dead is alive and his heart also lives in a new dimension that is not physical but mystical. The reference to the Lamb who lives in heaven "immolated, but standing" of which Revelation speaks (5, 6) is also easy. Christ is the Lamb of God who sacrificed himself, but now lives risen and glorified "standing as if immolated". His pierced heart is living, indeed "eternally pierced, precisely because eternally living". On each Good Friday, at the conclusion of the celebration of Christ's Passion, after his "consummatum est - it is fulfilled" Jesus bows his head and hands over his spirit (Jn 19:30). The expression "Consummatum est" (from the Greek Τετέλεσται, Tetélestai) is full of meaning: it is the total fulfilment of the mission of Jesus who has completed the work entrusted to him by the Father, realising the Scriptures and the plan of salvation.

3. Christ delivers the spirit 

The Latin expression "tradidit spiritum" (Jn19:30) in the original New Testament Greek koinè version "παρέδωκεν τὸ πνεῦμα" (parédōken tò pneûma) means "he delivered", "he entrusted". It is the verb παραδίδωμι, which implies a voluntary act of handing over, while τὸ πνεῦμα (tò pneûma) = "the spirit" can mean either the life-breath or, in a deeper sense, the Holy Spirit. All this is fulfilled because Jesus freely offers his life for the salvation of all mankind. This is the origin of the steadfastness of the Christians' hope, which fears no obstacle and resists all opposition from then on until the end of the world: despite the fact that a growing mass of evil is amassing in the hearts of men and in the structures of the world, making humanity seem inhabited by a "heart of darkness", Christ's sacrifice makes a living heart of light beat in the universe: his Heart. "Now the Father's plan is fulfilled," says an antiphon of the Liturgy of the Hours, "to make Christ the heart of the world": it is precisely from this certainty that the optimism of us Christians takes vigour. Illuminated by the word of God we scrutinise reality with the yardstick of the Spirit's wisdom and, certain of Christ's victory, we can proclaim with the blessed Juliana of Norwich: "Sin is inevitable, but all will be well and all things will be well" (Juliana of Norwich).

4. Stat crux dum volvitur orbis. "The Cross stands firm while the world turns".

Carthusian monks have adopted a coat of arms that appears at the entrance to their monasteries, as in their official documents. In this coat of arms, the globe is drawn, surmounted by a cross and surrounded by this phrase: "Stat crux dum volvitur orbis": the cross stands firm amidst the upheavals of the world. The statement "Stat crux dum volvitur orbis" contains a comforting spiritual truth: in the midst of the whirlwind of time, of chaos, of the instability of the world, the Cross remains the only still point, the axis around which everything revolves. The Cross is truly like the mast of the ship in the storm of the world, and several Christian authors used naval imagery precisely when speaking of the Cross: St. Columbanus (6th-7th cent.) wrote: "The world is like a stormy sea: if you want to reach port, attach your gaze to the wood of the Cross." Origen (3rd cent.) commenting on Noah's Ark, sees in it an image of salvation and the Church, and in the wood a reference to the Cross. He who clings to it does not sink in the flood of the world. St Ambrose in his exegesis of the story of Noah and the crossing of the Red Sea, speaks of the Cross as the rudder and sail of the Church: it is the Cross that guides, orients. Indeed, the mast, the central structure that supports the sail of a ship, is a perfect figure of the Cross because it holds the ship of life together: it allows orientation even in a storm; being vertical, it unites earth and sky and carries the sail of the Spirit, which blows where it will (cf. Jn 3:8). "Stat Crux, dum volvitur orbis" reminds us that the Cross is not a symbol of defeat, but of stability, direction and hope. Even if everything turns, even if life is rocked by waves, the Cross is the still centre of the world, the axis of meaning of all history. The Japanese writer Shusaku Endõ, in his novel 'Silence' (Chinmoku, 1966), set in the context of the persecutions of the 16th century, shows the cross as a living paradox: an instrument of death, but also an emblem of salvation and peace. The Cross of Christ is God's definitive and irreversible 'No' to violence, injustice, hatred, lies, to everything we call 'evil'. At the same time it is the total and irreversible "Yes" to love, truth, goodness. "A clear 'No' to sin and 'Yes' to the sinner: this is the style of Jesus' life and action throughout his life and which he now consecrates definitively with his death. A living demonstration of this is the good thief, to whom the dying Jesus promises paradise. One must always be clear about this distinction: the sinner is God's creature and retains his dignity, despite all his or her own misdeeds, while sin is the fruit of the passions and instincts and of the "envy of the devil" (Wis 2:24) and for this reason, by becoming incarnate, the Word took on everything of man, except sin. In front of the crucified Christ, everyone, but truly everyone, even the most desperate, can recover their trust and no one can say like Cain: "Too great is my guilt to obtain forgiveness" (Gen 4:13). The cross of Christ does not "stand" against the world, but for the world: it gives meaning and even value to every kind of human suffering. To the elderly Nicodemus, Jesus confides that "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him" (Jn 3:17), and the cross vividly proclaims the final victory of Love. Not he who dominates others wins, but he who triumphs over himself, not he who hurts and makes others suffer, but he who suffers even unjustly and forgives.

5. The Cross certain hope in the digital and volatile age

The Cross of Christ remains a sign of certain hope "dum volvitur orbis". The world, since its origin, is marked by constant and changing upheavals. From the primitive stone age we are now in the digital and numerical age, where numerical data have become the heart of communication, knowledge, economy and even culture. Thus, massive digitisation dominates: all information (texts, images, sounds, actions) is converted into numerical data (bits), automation and algorithms. From finance to health, everything is managed by numerical systems and artificial intelligences, for which numerical data is the new 'oil', used to profile, predict, influence, many indeed almost all activities: communication, work, relationships. We move everywhere in non-physical digital environments and global interconnection, thanks to digital networks, creates a world that is instantly connected, but unfortunately extremely fragile. Man risks being reduced to data, to measurable behaviour. Truth is what can be quantified, calculated and controlled. Freedom is under threat from algorithmic surveillance and the idea of transition is no longer sufficient to describe the reality at hand. The idea of mutation today is associated with that of shattering in a 'liquid' society with which the acronym VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) is associated, where there are no fixed points, no undisputed values. The result is that, unfortunately, there is nothing stable to cling to: we are lost in the 'nothingness' that is not just absence, but an existential void that is often filled with anxiety, disorientation, or with frenetic activity that only serves to mask it. The digital ocean remains a complex reality, in some ways fascinating but dangerous: it offers unforeseen possibilities and risks, and therefore requires attention, prudence and responsibility. Father Cantalamessa, in one of his sermons on Good Friday in St. Peter's, described our era as follows: "Everything is fluctuating, even the distinction of the sexes. The worst hypothesis that the philosopher predicted as the effect of God's death, the one that the advent of the super-man should have prevented, but did not: "What did we ever do, to loosen this earth from the chain of its sun? Where does it move now? Where is it that we move? Away from all suns? Is not ours an eternal plummet? And backwards, sideways, forwards, on all sides? Is there still a high and a low? Are we not wandering as through an infinite nothingness?" (F. Nietzsche, The Gaiety of Science, aphorism 125).  And the former preacher of the Papal Household added: "It has been said that 'to kill God is the most hideous of suicides', and that is what we are partly seeing. It is not true that 'where God is born, man dies' (J.-P. Sartre); the opposite is true: where God dies, man dies. Salvador Dali painted a crucifix that seems a prophecy of this situation. An immense, cosmic cross, with an equally monumental Christ on top, seen from above, with his head reclined downwards. Below him, however, is not dry land, but water. The crucified Christ is not suspended between heaven and earth, but between heaven and the liquid element of the world. However, this tragic image also contains a consoling certainty: there is hope even for a liquid society like ours because above it 'stands the cross of Christ'.

6. O crux, ave spes unica 

On every Good Friday, the Church proclaims its consciously certain hope in the words of the poet Venantius Fortunatus: 'O crux, ave spes unica', Hail, O cross, world's only hope. The Son of God who became man has died but is no longer in the grave: he has risen. On the day of Pentecost Peter proclaims emphatically to the crowd: "You crucified him, but God raised him up!" (Acts 2:23-24), He who "was dead, now lives for ever" (Rev 1:18). The cross does not "stand" motionless amidst the upheavals of the world as a memory of a past event or as a mere symbol, but remains firmly planted in history as an event of today, indeed of every moment because Christ lives with us. We all have something of that heart of stone of which the prophet Ezekiel speaks: "I will tear out from them the heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh" (Ez 36:26). Yes, a heart is stony when it closes itself off from the love of God and becomes insensitive to the needs and suffering of its brothers and sisters; when it allows itself to be seduced by greed for material goods and is deaf to the cries of those who do not even have a penny to live on. Heart of stone is mine when I let myself be dominated by passions and live by compromise, falsehood, violence and impurity. Hardened is my heart, when folded in on myself, it prevents me from living for Christ, who loved me by dying for me. My heart trembles before the sudden storms that invade me and threaten to plunge me into the darkness of fear and discouragement. In these situations, what happened at the same time as Christ's death can happen: "the veil of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom, the earth shook, the rocks were broken, the tombs were opened, and many bodies of dead saints were raised" (Mt 27:51f.). Even in complex situations like this, an invitation to the courage of hope emerges. In a Good Friday liturgy, Pope Saint Leo the Great exhorted the faithful thus: "Let human nature tremble before the torment of the Redeemer, let the rocks of faithless hearts be broken, and let those who were shut up in the sepulchres of their mortality come forth, lifting up the stone that was upon them" (Sermo 66, 3; PL 54, 366).  The heart of flesh foretold by the prophets is the Heart of Christ pierced on the cross, 'the Sacred Heart' that continues to live in our hearts when we receive it in the Eucharist. Archbishop Fulton Sheen notes: "By the most extraordinary paradox in the history of the world, by crucifying Christ they proved that He was right and they were wrong, and by defeating Him they lost. By killing Him they transformed Him: by the power of God they changed mortality into immortality...They humiliated Him on Calvary, and He was exalted and raised above an empty tomb. They sowed His body in dishonour and He rose again in glory; They sowed Him in weakness and He rose again in power. In taking away His life, they gave Him new life...remake man and you will remake the world! (Fulton J. Sheen, from "Justice and Charity")

EASTER VIGIL [19 April 2025]

I hope you may find this brief study of the Easter Vigil helpful, as it is in danger of losing its meaning and becoming almost like the early Mass on Saturday evening. But this should not be the case at least for the Easter Vigil.  

The Easter Vigil in history 

The Easter Vigil has a two thousand year history, albeit with alternating events in the three periods of its life. Here is a quick historical overview of it in order to understand its value and importance. Its history in the secular tradition of the Church, on the one hand expresses a constant celebratory continuity, never failing, and on the other hand undergoes a wide oscillation in its timetable, which for many centuries made it inconsistent between its symbolism and the time when it should have been celebrated. 

1. First period: the great night of Vigil

Here are the main stages: - First period (2nd - 4th century): the Easter Vigil is the basic celebration of the Church, the great night of Vigil in honour of the Lord. From it, the entire Liturgical Year will later develop, as from its source and watershed. The ancient Vigil occupies the whole extent of the night: from the evening light of Vespers to the first light of dawn, when with the Eucharist the Mystery will be fulfilled and the sacramental encounter with the Risen One, who appeared to the first witnesses at that hour, will be realised. It is the paschal pannukia, in which the main scriptural pages are proclaimed, thus outlining a broad overview of salvation history, which will have in Christ dead and risen its summit and its fulfilment. It also concludes the baptismal instruction of the catechumens with the proclamation of the great biblical events, which recall the mystery of regeneration. It is thus that Baptism finds its most suitable place in the Vigil: it is about dying and rising with Christ in the mystery of the sacramental signs. In this way, the Easter of the Lord also becomes the Easter of Christians, who pass from the death of sin to the life of grace. From the earliest times, therefore, the Easter Vigil hosts the three fundamental elements, which will be a permanent constant throughout the centuries: the prophetic Word, the Sacraments of Initiation, and the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The following Sunday would be without liturgy, as everything was concentrated in the night celebration, so solemn and prolonged. Moreover, before the 4th century, such a day is working and does not allow for celebrations. 

2. Second period: the Easter Vigil slips to the afternoon

Second period (4th - 16th century). With religious freedom the Easter Vigil tends to move more and more out of the night and gradually slip into the afternoon of Holy Saturday. On the opposite side, the solemn Easter Eucharist enters into the middle of the day on Sunday, now recognised as a feast day, giving rise to a second and more solemn Mass, the 'Mass of the Day', while the ancient Vigil Mass merges with the night rites and descends with them towards the eve. Initially, the Fathers tended to ensure that the people were not dismissed before midnight, understood as the discriminating hour for the authenticity and truth of the Easter Vigil itself. However, in the concrete celebration, the time shifts more and more to the afternoon of Holy Saturday, even if the recommendation remains that the people not be dismissed before midnight and that the Gloria in excelsis not be intoned before the first stars appear. Gradually, the Vigil is fixed between the sixth hour and Vespers, and in this way it is legally incorporated into the Missal of Pius V, which stipulates that the Vigil begins after the sixth hour and ends with Vespers. However, ever since St Pius V in practice, even after the abolition of Vespers Masses (1566), the Vigil is in fact celebrated on Holy Saturday morning. The practice is taken over by the Bishops' Ceremonial and is defined in the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which fixes the end of the Easter fast with midday on Holy Saturday. With these indications, the Vigil reaches its great reform with Pius XII in 1951. "It cannot be denied that these successive anticipations had created, if not a crack in the unitary structure of the Holy Triduum, at least a jarring contrast between the mystery of the day and the liturgical formulas expressing it and superimposed on it. Despite this, the Church maintained its rites, which always preserve for the faithful their historical-commemorative reason and all their value as symbol and mystery" (Righetti, vol. II, p. 252). As long as the three holy days (Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday) were civilly festive - even though the rites had for centuries been celebrated in the morning hours and were incompatible with the Hours relating to the Mysteries recalled - they continued to be attended by the faithful, but when in 1642 Pope Urban VIII had to recognise these days as working days, the participation of the Christian people in the rites of the Easter Triduum was no longer possible, and they ended up being celebrated solely by the clergy, with an absolution that was more juridical than pastoral. - Third period (1955 to the present). 

3. The Easter Vigil returns to its time

With the reform of Pius XII the Easter Vigil returns to its proper time with precise indications, which guarantee its celebratory coherence. In fact, the Decree for the Restoration of the Easter Vigil, Dominicae Resurrectionis vigiliam (9 February 1951) states in no. 9: "The solemn Easter Vigil must be held at the appropriate hour, that is, such that it allows the solemn mass of the same vigil to begin around midnight between Holy Saturday and Resurrection Sunday". The firmness of this disposition, which would have ensured a sure success in terms of the time of the celebration of the solemn rite, was unfortunately diluted, from the very beginning, in the same decree, by a concession, which would later prove to be reductive of the nocturnal character of the Vigil, allowing it to be celebrated on the evening of Holy Saturday. "But where, given the conditions of the place and of the faithful, in the judgement of the Ordinary, it is appropriate to bring forward the time of the Easter Vigil, this is not to begin before dusk, but never before sunset" (Idem n. 9). This provision still adversely affects an Easter Vigil that has in fact never been nocturnal, but simply evening. In fact, the celebration practice shows that already in the early years (1951-1955) the parishes made use of the faculty to anticipate the Vigil in the evening. With the reform of Vatican II and in particular with the Instruction Paschalis Sollemnitatis of 16 January 1988, there is a greater insistence on a Vigil that is truly nocturnal and it is stated: 'The entire celebration of the Easter Vigil takes place at night; it must therefore either begin after the beginning of the night or end before dawn on Sunday'. Abuses and customs to the contrary, which sometimes occur, so as to bring forward the time of the celebration of the Easter Vigil to the hours when the Sunday prefestival masses are usually celebrated, cannot be admitted. The reasons given by some for anticipating the Easter Vigil, e.g. public insecurity, are not invoked in the case of Christmas Eve or other conferences held at night. However, the midnight hour is not determined as a discriminating factor. Thus in this further uncertainty, the Easter Vigil today tends not to take off from the convenient evening time. As with the Midnight Mass at Christmas, the extension of the festive precept to early vespers has had a great influence on the Easter Vigil, so that the Easter Vigil is considered legitimate from sundown on Holy Saturday, as a 'pre-holiday' Mass. This was not the case before this provision, when those who anticipated the Vigil in the evening also knew that the night Mass only fulfilled the precept if celebrated after midnight. For an effective take-off of the Vigil as a nocturnal celebration, it would be desirable today to have a precise indication of a discriminating time by the authority of the Church, going back to unequivocally establishing midnight as the hour of the Eucharistic liturgy of the Vigil itself into which one enters with the solemn singing of the Gloria. No exceptions should be allowed, as the Vigil is only celebrated in parishes or communities assimilated to them, as a choral, unique, and therefore unrepeatable act on the holy night. We have seen how concessions to this effect have become the rule, effectively losing the night celebration. 

4. Resurrection Sunday begins at midnight

What is more, the third day of the Easter Triduum, Resurrection Sunday, does not begin at the hour of Vespers on Holy Saturday, as if it were the first Vespers of Sunday, as is the norm for ordinary Saturdays and vigils. Resurrection Sunday begins at midnight, since Holy Saturday is a day of the same solemnity, as is also Good Friday. The three holy days, in fact, have the same degree of solemnity. One understands then that, in the Roman rite, it is not possible to treat the evening hour of Holy Saturday as a time already belonging to Resurrection Sunday.

Midnight is taken as the reference hour to unite the two parts of the Easter Vigil: the liturgy of the Word and the sacramental liturgy. The hour of the resurrection is not referred to us by Sacred Scripture. It belongs to the mystery of God. The Church expresses this awareness when it sings in the Exultet: "O blessed night, you alone have deserved to know the time and hour when Christ rose from the underworld". This is why liturgical tradition urges the Church to spend the nocturnal hours of the holy night in the vigil. Indeed, the Easter night has, since antiquity, been a night of complete vigil, until dawn, the hour when the tomb is found open and empty. Among the various nocturnal hours, however, the midnight hour finds very special consideration. It is linked to precise biblical events, which form the basis of the nocturnal celebration of Easter. 

5. The importance of midnight, the hour of Easter 

Midnight is the great Hour long prepared by God to save his people: "At midnight the Lord smote every firstborn in the land of Egypt... This was a night of watchfulness for the Lord to bring them out of the land of Egypt. This will be a night of watchfulness in honour of the Lord for all the Israelites, from generation to generation" (Ex 12:29. 42). The crossing of the Red Sea also took place at night and ended at the crack of dawn: "...The Lord throughout the night stirred up the sea with a strong east wind...But at the vigil of the morning the Lord from the pillar of fire and cloud cast a glance over the camp of the Egyptians...the sea, at the crack of dawn, returned to its usual level..." (Ex 14:21-27). (Ex 14:21-27). Perhaps the whole thing was accomplished in those three days of walking in the desert that Moses requested of Pharaoh to celebrate the worship of the Lord: "It is granted to us, therefore, to set out on a journey of three days in the desert and to celebrate a sacrifice to the Lord our God..." (Ex 5:3). (Ex 5:3). Those three days are prophecy of the true Passover Triduum in which the Lord worked, in the fullness of time, our redemption. The Passover event is thus fulfilled in the context of at least two nights: that of the Passover banquet with the passing of the Exterminating Angel, and that of the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea. The paschal liberation, then, in its salient phases, takes place in the night. But midnight is the hour marked out by God to bring about the decisive and decisive event: the Angel strikes and the people depart: it is the hour of the Passover. The morning vigil, which is spoken of on the night of the Red Sea crossing, is that of the consummation of the people's deliverance "In the early morning the sea returned to its usual level..." (Ex 14:27) and of the consummation of the Passover. (Ex 14:27) and of the joyful contemplation of God's great works: in that hour the song of victory is born (Ex 15:1). The prophecy of the Passover of the Lord Jesus is all too evident, when in the middle of the night, at the hour that He alone knows, He rose from the dead and at the crack of dawn showed Himself alive to His disciples: this is the hour of the Church's Alleluia. The book of Wisdom takes up the event of Easter in a celebratory tone and offers the Church's liturgy a further element to indicate the suitability of the midnight hour to implement in time the memorial and sacramental celebration of the Mystery in its two constitutive phases, Christmas and Easter. "While a profound silence enveloped all things, and the night was in the midst of its course, your almighty word from heaven, from your royal throne, implacable warrior, launched itself into the midst of that land of extermination, bearing as a sharp sword, your inexorable order" (Wis 18:14-15). The psalm also alludes to the unique Midnight Hour: "In the middle of the night I rise up to give you praise" (Sl 118:62). Truly, on Easter night, the new Man, the Lord Jesus, wakes up and rises from the sleep of death and, risen to new life, gives glory to the Father; just as already on Christmas night, the wailing of the divine Child began the new and perfect praise to the Father. Finally, in the Gospel parable of the ten virgins, the stroke of midnight marks the hour of the great event: "At midnight a cry went up: Behold the bridegroom, go out to meet him!" (Mt 25). The same hour is recalled by the Lord himself when he says: "And if he comes in the middle of the night or before dawn, he finds them so, blessed are they!" (Lk 12:38). The midnight hour foreshadowed in the parable of the virgins becomes, in the mystical interpretation of the Church, a hint of the possible return of the Lord, not only in the eschatological hour, but also in his first hour, when he was born among us and also when, awakening from the sleep of death, he returned glorious among the living. In this perspective, midnight became the discriminating hour and the most eloquent reference for both the Christmas and Easter night liturgy. A Jewish tradition says that Christ will come at midnight, as in the time of Egypt, when the Passover was celebrated and the exterminating angel came and the Lord passed over the houses and the doorposts of our foreheads were consecrated with blood. Hence, I believe, that apostolic tradition preserved to this day, according to which during the Easter Vigil it is not permissible to dismiss the crowds before midnight, when they are still awaiting the coming of Christ, while after that time everyone celebrates the feast day in a newfound security". S. GIROLAMO (cf. CANTALAMESSA, R., La Pasqua nella Chiesa antica, ed Internazionale, Torino, 1978, p. 113) 

6. Pastoral care and the "dogma" of comfort 

When the Vigil is celebrated in the evening, it is deprived of an essential component: offering God the time of sleep, sanctifying the night through the asceticism of 'waking'. We ask ourselves: does pastoral care really have to espouse the 'dogma' of comfort at all costs, giving up Easter night and Christmas night, as is currently happening? That at least on the two holy nights, of Easter and Christmas, the entire people of God, in normal parishes, should prepare themselves for the solemn celebration, keeping vigil in the night and generously offering God the night time, is this really pastorally impossible and impractical in our times? The most singular passage of the Easter Vigil, when the Gloria in excelsis is sung and the jubilus of the Alleluia is resumed, is often downplayed: after a rather brief liturgy of the Word, without having reached a congruous atmosphere of anxious anticipation and, without any ritual break, the angelic Hymn is sung and the bells are rung. We are far from that mystical and moved awe of which the ancient sources tell us. It is more eloquent on Christmas night when, at midnight, the solemn Eucharist 'in nocte' begins. Why then deprive the Easter proclamation on the holy night of the experience of fervent expectation, which gives vigour and spiritual joy to the proclamation of the resurrection, at the very beginning of the day on which the resurrection took place, the eighth day that will never set? This is not sentimentality, but celebratory richness, cohesive force and effective witness. 

7. Restore the sense of joy to the Easter Vigil 

If the Easter Vigil is to be given back the joyful and moving sense of expectation, it must be allowed time to set a progressive course towards a precise end, which in ancient times was the first dawning of the day of resurrection and which today should necessarily be the stroke of midnight at the threshold of the great and holy Easter Sunday. Since the liturgy has been irreversibly enriched by the solemn Easter Mass, and since this day is now clothed with royal and great solemnity, it is no longer desirable to propose to all the people a Vigil that extends into the morning, as in ancient times, and then necessarily reduce Easter Sunday to a liturgically 'vacant' day. In this context, midnight should once again become the Hour accepted by all as the discriminating factor between the two parts of the Vigil. Otherwise what happens is what can currently be seen in the various evening hours of Holy Saturday: one already returns from the Easter Vigil in one church, while the other leaves for the Vigil in another church. Poor Easter! Thus it is reduced to a private affair, lost in the Saturday evening routine. The celebration of the Vigil, done in unison by all Christian communities on the crest of midnight, offers an excellent opportunity for a choral witness: the Church, summoned in the middle of the holy night, awaits and announces the resurrection of the Lord. The Church, celebrating the Easter Vigil in unison, almost physically perceives its being one heart and one soul, especially when, at midnight, it acclaims the risen Christ and proclaims him to the world. To express this symphony concretely, midnight becomes a necessary and discriminating criterion. In this context, it will also be possible to give in unison the Easter proclamation to the outside world with the sound of bells.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

Palm Sunday (year C) [13 April 2025].

God bless us and may the Virgin protect us. Let us enter Holy Week with Jesus welcomed in Jerusalem and let us prepare ourselves in the Easter Triduum to follow him on the path of passion death and resurrection. 

*First reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah (50:4-7)

This text is taken from the part of the book of Isaiah that collects the so-called 'Servant Songs', which are particularly important for two reasons: first, because of the message Isaiah wanted to convey to his contemporaries, and because they were applied by the early Christians to Christ, although Isaiah was certainly not thinking of Jesus when he wrote this text probably in the 6th century BC during his exile in Babylon. To the people exiled under very harsh conditions, who were in danger of succumbing to great discouragement, he reminds them that Israel is the servant of God sustained and nourished every morning by the Word, but persecuted because of their faith and, in spite of everything, able to withstand every trial. He clearly describes the extraordinary relationship that unites with his God the Servant (Israel) whose main characteristic is listening to the Word, 'the open ear', as Isaiah writes. Listening to the Word, letting oneself be instructed by it, means living in trust. Listening is a word that in the Bible means trusting, because there are two attitudes between which our existence continually oscillates: trust in God, serene abandonment to His will because we know from experience that His will is only good; or mistrust, suspicion of divine intentions and rebellion in the face of trials, a rebellion that can lead us to believe that He has abandoned us or, worse, that He can find satisfaction in our suffering. All the prophets repeat this invitation: 'Listen, Israel' or 'listen today to the Word of God'. On their lips, the exhortation 'listen' is an invitation to trust in God, whatever happens. In this regard, St Paul will explain that God makes everything contribute to the good of those who love and trust him (cf. Rom 8:28) because out of every evil, difficulty, trial, he knows how to draw good; out of every hatred, he opposes an even stronger love; in every persecution, he gives the strength of forgiveness; out of every death, he gives birth to life. The whole Bible is the narration of the story of a mutual trust: God trusts his servant and entrusts him with a mission; in return, Israel accepts the mission with trust. And it is this trust that gives him the strength to resist all the opposition he will inevitably encounter. In this text, the mission consists in being able to "address a word to the challenged" by testifying to the faithfulness of the Lord who gives the necessary strength and the appropriate language. Indeed, it is the Lord himself who nourishes this trust, the source of all boldness in the service of others: "The Lord God opened his ear to me and I did not resist, I did not draw back".  Everything then becomes a gift: the mission, the strength and the trust that makes one unwavering. This is the characteristic of the believer: recognising that everything is a gift from God. When he then makes the permanent gift of the Lord's strength bear fruit, the believer is able to face everything, even persecution, which is never absent, and indeed every authentic prophet who speaks on behalf of God is rarely recognised and appreciated in life.Isaiah invites his contemporaries to resist: the Lord has not forsaken you, on the contrary, he has entrusted you with his mission and do not be surprised if you are mistreated because the Servant who listens to the Word of God and puts it into practice, certainly becomes uncomfortable and with his conversion provokes others: some listen to his call, others reject him and, in the name of their good reasons, persecute him. This is why the Servant draws strength only from the One who enables him to face everything: "I have presented my back to the scourgers, my cheeks to those who plucked out my beard ... the Lord God assists me so I will not be shamed". Isaiah then uses a common expression in Hebrew: 'for this I make my face hard as stone' which expresses determination and courage; not pride or conceit, but pure confidence because he knows where his strength comes from.  Jesus is a perfect portrait of the Servant of God at the heart of persecution and also at the moment when the acclamations of the Palm Sunday crowd marked and accelerated his condemnation. St Luke takes up exactly this expression when he writes 'Jesus hardened his face to go to Jerusalem' (Lk 9:51), which in our translations becomes 'Jesus resolutely took the road to Jerusalem'.

*Responsorial Psalm from Psalm 21(22) (2:8-9,17-20,22b-24)

Psalm 21/22 holds some surprises, starting with the opening words: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", much quoted, which, taken out of context, is misinterpreted. To understand its true meaning, one must read the entire psalm, composed of thirty-two verses, which closes with a thanksgiving: "I will proclaim your name to my brothers, I will praise you in the midst of the assembly". He who in the first verse cries out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" thanks God in the end for the salvation he has received. Not only has he not died, but he gives thanks precisely because God has not forsaken him. At first glance, this psalm seems to be written for Jesus: "They have dug out my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones," a clear allusion to the crucifixion he experienced under the cruel eyes of the executioners and the crowd: "A pack of dogs surrounds me, a band of evildoers encircles me...they mock me who see me...they divide my garments, on my tunic they cast lots." Actually, it was not written for Jesus Christ, but composed for the exiles who had returned from Babylon, and it compares their deliverance to the resurrection of a condemned man, since the exile was a real death sentence for Israel who ran the risk of being erased from history. Now he is compared here to a condemned man who risked death on the cross, a torture that was very common at the time: he suffered outrages, humiliation, the nails, abandonment in the hands of the executioners, but miraculously emerges unharmed. In other words: having returned from exile, Israel indulges in the joy he proclaims to all, shouting louder than when he wept in his anguish. The reference to the crucifixion is thus not the focus of the psalm, but serves to emphasise the thanksgiving of Israel, which in the midst of its anguish never ceased to cry out for help and never doubted for a moment. The great cry "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" is certainly a cry of anguish in the face of God's silence, but it is not a cry of despair, nor does it express doubt; rather, it is the prayer of one who suffers and dares to cry out his pain. How much light this psalm sheds on our prayer in times of suffering of any kind: we have the right to cry out, and the Bible encourages us to do so. Returning from exile, Israel remembers the past pain, the anguish, the apparent silence of God when he felt abandoned in the hands of his enemies, yet he continued to pray. Prayer is clear evidence of his constant trust; he kept remembering the Covenant and the benefits he had received from God. In its entirety, this psalm resembles an 'ex-voto' as when one is in grave danger, one prays and makes a vow and, when grace is obtained, fulfils the promise by taking the ex-voto to a church or shrine.  Psalm 21/22 describes the horror of the exile, the anguish of Israel and Jerusalem besieged by Nebuchadnezzar, the sense of helplessness in the face of men's hatred that provokes an ardent supplication: 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' and finally gratitude to God for one's salvation: 'I will proclaim your name to my brothers, I will praise you in the midst of the assembly. Praise the Lord you his faithful".  Palm Sunday does not include the last verses, but we hear them often in the liturgy: "The poor shall eat and be satisfied, they shall praise the Lord who seek him; your hearts shall live forever! All the ends of the earth shall remember and return to the Lord; all the families of the peoples shall bow down before you ... They shall proclaim his righteousness; to the people that are born they shall say, 'Behold the work of the Lord'."

*Second Reading from the Second Letter of St Paul to the Philippians (2:6-11)

This text is often called the Hymn of the Letter to the Philippians, because one gets the impression that Paul did not write it in his own hand, but quoted a hymn in use in the liturgy. First of all, note the insistence on the theme of the Servant: "he emptied himself by assuming the condition of a servant": the first Christians, faced with the scandal of the cross, often meditated on the Servant Songs contained in the book of Isaiah, because they offered food for thought for understanding the mystery of the person of Christ. "Christ Jesus, though he was in the condition of God, did not consider it a privilege to be like God". It is tempting to read: although he was in the condition of God, although in reality, it is the other way around, and one must therefore read: 'precisely because he was in the condition of God, he did not consider it a privilege to be like God'. One of the dangers of this text is the temptation to read it in terms of reward, as if the reasoning were: Jesus behaved admirably and therefore received an extraordinary reward. Grace, as its very name suggests, is gratuitous, but we are always tempted to speak of merits. The wonder of God's love is that He does not wait for our merits to fill us; this is the discovery that the men of the Bible made through Revelation. Therefore, to be faithful to the text, we must read it in terms of gratuitousness. We risk misunderstanding it if we forget that everything is God's gift, everything is grace, as Teresa of the Child Jesus used to say. The gratuitous gift of God is for St Paul an obvious truth, a conviction that permeates all his letters, so obvious that he does not even feel the need to reiterate it explicitly, so that we can summarise his thought in this way: God's plan, the design of his mercy is to make us enter into his intimacy, his joy and his love, an absolutely gratuitous plan. There is nothing surprising in this, since it is a project of love, a gift to be accepted: it is participation in the divine life, indeed with God, everything is a gift. One excludes oneself from this gift when one assumes an attitude of pretension, if one behaves like the progenitors in the Garden of Eden who appropriated the forbidden fruit. Jesus, on the contrary, did nothing more - "becoming obedient" - than welcome God's gift without demanding it. "Although he was in the condition of God, he did not consider it a privilege to be like God" and it is precisely because he is of divine condition that he does not claim anything. He knows what gratuitous love is, he knows that it is not right to claim, he does not consider it good to claim the right to be like God. It is the same situation as in the episode of the temptations (see the gospel of the first Sunday of Lent): Satan proposes to Jesus only things that are part of God's plan, but Jesus refuses to appropriate them by his own strength. because he wants to entrust himself to the Father so that He can give them to him. The tempter provokes him: "If you are the Son of God, you can afford everything, your Father cannot refuse you anything: turn stones into bread when you are hungry... throw yourself down from the temple, he will protect you... worship me, and I will give you dominion over the whole world". Jesus, however, expects everything from God alone: he has received the Name that is above every other name, the Name of God. For to say that Jesus is Lord is to affirm that he is God. In the Old Testament, the title 'Lord' was reserved for God and so was genuflection 'that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend'. Here is an allusion to a passage from the prophet Isaiah: "Before me every knee shall bow, let every tongue proclaim, 'Jesus Christ is Lord!' shall swear an oath" (Is 45:23). Jesus lived in humility and trust; trust that St Paul calls obedience. To obey, in Latin 'ob-audire', literally means to put the ear (audire) before (ob) the word: it is the attitude of perfect dialogue, without shadows, it is total trust.  The hymn concludes: 'Let every tongue proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Glory is the revelation of infinite love made person. In other words, we too, like the centurion, seeing Christ love us supremely, accepting to die to reveal to us how far God's love goes, proclaim, 'Yes, indeed, this was the Son of God'... because God is love.

* Gospel. Passion of Jesus Christ according to St Luke (22.14 - 23.56)

Every year, for Palm Sunday, the account of the Passion returns in one of the three synoptic gospels; this year, it is that of Luke and I confine myself to commenting on the episodes proper to this gospel. While it is true that the four Passion narratives are similar, when one takes a closer look, one realises that each evangelist has particular accents, and this is because they are all witnesses to the same event and they each recount the events from their own point of view, and the Passion of Christ is recounted in four different ways: they do not all choose the same episodes and phrases. Here, then, are the episodes and words that we find only in Saint Luke. 1.After the Last Supper, before going to Gethsemane, Jesus had foretold to Peter his triple denial. In truth, all the gospels narrate this, but only Luke records this sentence of Jesus: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has sought you out to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. And thou, when thou art converted, confirm thy brethren" (22:32). A gentleness of Jesus, which will help Peter after his betrayal to get up again instead of despairing. Again only Luke notes the gaze Jesus casts on Peter after his denial: three times in succession, Peter states that he does not know him in the high priest's house. Immediately afterwards Jesus, turning around, fixed his gaze on Peter and here we hear the echo of the first reading where Isaiah writes: 'The Lord God has given me a disciple's tongue, that I may speak a word to the distrustful'. This is what Jesus wants to do with Peter, to comfort him in advance so that when he denies him he does not fall into despair. Another episode in this gospel is Jesus before Herod Antipas. At Jesus' birth, Herod the Great reigned over the whole territory under the authority of Rome, but at his death (in 4 BC.), the territory was divided into several provinces, and at the time of Jesus' death (in the year 30 AD), Judea, i.e. the province of Jerusalem, was ruled by a Roman procurator, while Galilee was under the authority of a king recognised by Rome, who was a son of Herod the Great: his name was Herod Antipas, who had long wanted to meet Jesus and hoped to see him perform a miracle. Now he asks him many questions, but Jesus remains silent. Herod insults and taunts him by having him clothed in a shining mantle and sends him back to Pilate, strengthening the friendship between Herod and Pilate that day. 

2.There are then three sentences that we find only in Luke's Passion narrative. Two words of Jesus and, if Luke notes them, it is because they reveal what is important to him: the first is his prayer while the Roman soldiers are crucifying him: 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do'. But what are they doing? They have expelled the Holy One par excellence from the Holy City; they have cast out their God, putting the Master of life to death; the Sanhedrin, the court of Jerusalem, has condemned God in the name of God. And what does Jesus do instead? He forgives his enemies by showing how far God's love goes. He who has seen me has seen the Father, Jesus had said the day before. The second sentence: 'Today with me you will be in Paradise'. If you are the Messiah, he is mocked by the leaders... If you are the king of the Jews, he is mocked by the Roman soldiers... If you are the Messiah, he is insulted by one of the two evildoers crucified with him. The other crucified with him begins to tell the truth: we deserve this punishment but not Jesus, and turns to Jesus: 'remember me when you enter your kingdom'. He recognises Jesus as the Saviour, he invokes him with a humble and trusting prayer: he seems to have understood everything. Finally, only Luke reports this last sentence: "Already the Sabbath lights were shining" (23:54) thus concludes the Passion narrative with an insistent evocation of the Sabbath. He speaks of the women who had followed Jesus all the way from Galilee and now went to the tomb to observe how he had been buried, bringing aromas and perfumes for the burial rites. The lights of the Sabbath were already shining: everything ends on a note of light and peace: the Sabbath is a foreshadowing of the world to come, the day on which God had rested from all the work of creation (cf. Genesis); the day on which, out of fidelity to the Covenant, the Scriptures were scrutinised in anticipation of the new creation. Luke makes us understand that in the labour of Christ's Passion the new humanity was born, which is the beginning of the kingdom of grace. The risen crucified one shows the way forward: the way of love and forgiveness at any cost.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

5th Sunday in Lent (year C) [6 April 2025]

God bless us and may the Virgin protect us. Tomorrow, Wednesday 2 April, will be the 20th anniversary of the death of St John Paul II. We remember him in prayer, invoking his protection and intercession.

*First Reading From the book of the prophet Isaiah (43:16-21)

At first glance, this text consists of two mutually contradictory parts: the first is a reference to the past, to leaving Egypt, while in the second, the prophet exhorts us to leave the past behind. But which past is it? Let us try to better understand by examining these two parts one after the other. The incipit is as always solemn: "Thus says the Lord" to introduce words of great importance which are immediately followed by the reference to the famous passage in the sea, the miracle of the Sea of Rushes during the Hebrews' flight from Egypt: "The Lord opened a way in the sea and a path in the midst of mighty waters". The reference to the memorable night of the deliverance from Egypt narrated in chapter 14 of the book of Exodus always returns. In the first reading, Isaiah offers further details: "the Lord brought forth chariots and horses, army and heroes at once, and they all lay dead and never rose again, they went out like a lamp. God saved his people by destroying the Egyptians and it is interesting to note that Isaiah uses the name 'Lord' (the Tetragrammaton YHVH), a name that qualifies the God of Sinai as the deliverer of his people. Here is God's work in the past that constitutes the source of hope for Israel's future, and Isaiah points out: 'Behold, I do a new thing'. To understand what this is all about and to whom the prophet foretells a new world, we need to go back to the historical context. The deuteroIsaiah, whom we are reading here, lived in the 6th century BC, during the exile in Babylon (from 587 to 538 BC), a period marked by a terrible trial: deported to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who had defeated the small kingdom of Judah of which Jerusalem was the capital, the Jews hoped one day to escape from Babylon, but there were serious difficulties because they had to cross the Syrian desert, hundreds of kilometres long and in terrible conditions for fugitives. The prophet therefore has the difficult task of restoring courage to his contemporaries: he does so in this book called the Book of the Consolation of Israel, because chapter 40 begins: 'Console, console my people, says your God'. And when he says: 'your God' he recalls the Covenant that was never broken because God did not abandon them. In fact, one of the formulas of the Covenant was: 'You shall be my people and I will be your God' and whenever the expression my God or your God is echoed, the possessive is an encouraging reminder of the Covenant and, at the same time, a profession of faith. Isaiah intends to keep the exiles' hope alive by reminding them that God has not only not abandoned them, on the contrary, he is already preparing their return to their homeland. Nothing can be seen yet, but it will happen and why is it certain? Because God is faithful to his Covenant and since he chose this people he has never ceased to deliver them and keep them alive, through all the vicissitudes of their history. He has freed them from Pharaoh; he has protected them all along the way; he made them pass through the sea dry when they came out of Egypt.Israel's hope thus rests on its past: this is the meaning of the word 'memorial', constant remembrance of God's work that continues today, and from this we derive the certainty that it will continue into the future. Past, present, future: God is always present alongside his people. This is one of the meanings of God's name: 'I am', that is, I am with you in all circumstances. And precisely during the difficult period of exile, when there was the risk of giving in to despair, Isaiah develops a new metaphor, that of the sprout: "Behold, I am doing a new thing: right now I am sprouting, do you not notice?" Starting from the extraordinary experience of a tiny seed capable of becoming a great tree, it is easy to understand how the word "sprout" has become in Israel and today for us a symbol of hope, and it is important to learn to recognise the sprouts of the new world, the Kingdom that God is building.

*Responsorial Psalm [125 (126)]

 This psalm echoes the first reading, where the prophet Isaiah announces the return of the people exiled in Babylon and sings of this miracle just as the Jews had sung of the prodigy of the exit from Egypt. These are the events: in 587 BC. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had conquered Jerusalem and deported the population, but, in turn, was defeated by Cyrus, king of Persia well known for his successes. Nebuchadnezzar's troops pillaged, plundered, raped, massacred and devastated, systematically deporting the population. Cyrus, on the other hand, adopted a completely different policy: he preferred to rule over prosperous peoples and allowed all deported populations to return to their homelands by providing the means to do so. And so, having conquered Babylon in 539 B.C., he allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem as early as 538 B.C., also granting them economic aid and even returning the objects looted from the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar's soldiers.

The psalm does not say 'when the king of Persia Cyrus restored the lot of Zion' but 'when the Lord restored the lot of Zion', a way of affirming that God remains the Lord of history who pulls all the strings and therefore there is no other god - again a nod to the fight against idolatry. This psalm, probably written long after the return from exile, evokes the joy and excitement of liberation and return. How many times during exile did one dream of this moment! When it was realised, one almost dared not believe it: 'When the Lord restored the lot of Zion, it seemed to us as if we were dreaming ... our mouths were filled with a smile, our tongues with joy'.  One even imagines that the other peoples are also amazed by this miracle: "Then it was said among the nations: 'The Lord has done great things for them'. In this sentence, two elements emerge: an infinite gratitude for the gratuitousness of God's choice and the chosen people's awareness of having been chosen for the world: their vocation is to be witnesses of God's work, an awareness matured precisely during exile. In the psalm, astonishment at God's choice is expressed with the words: 'great things', that is, God's work of deliverance, particularly the liberation from Egypt. Words like feat, work, great things, wonders, which are often found in the psalms, are always a reference to the Exodus. Here, a new work of God's deliverance is added: the end of the exile experienced by the people as a true resurrection. To express this, the psalmist uses two images: The streams in the desert: "Restore, Lord, our lot, like the streams in the Negheb", desert south of Jerusalem, where myriads of flowers bloom in spring. The other image is the seed: 'he who sows in tears, will reap in joy'. the sown grain seems to rot and die... but when the ears sprout, it is like a rebirth, an eloquent image because the return of the exiles meant a true rebirth for the land as well. A final observation: when the return from the Babylonian exile is sung in this psalm, it had already taken place a long time ago, but Israel does not speak of the past just to recount it, but to communicate a message and a teaching for the future: this return to life, historically placed, becomes a reason to hope for other future resurrections and deliverances. Every year, during the Feast of Tents in the autumn, this song was sung during the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. As the pilgrims ascend, they sing of the deliverance that has already taken place and pray to God to hasten the day of final deliverance, when the promised Messiah will appear. Even today, there are many places of slavery, many 'Egypt' and 'Babylon'. This is what we think of when we sing: "Restore, Lord, our lot like the streams in the Negheb", asking for the grace to collaborate with all our strength in the work of liberation inaugurated by the Messiah, in order to hasten the day when the whole of humanity can sing: "Great things the Lord has done for us".

*Second Reading from the Letter of St Paul the Apostle to the Philippians (3:8-14)

 St Paul uses the image of running, and we know how important the goal and the desire to reach it is for every person. Here the Apostle speaks of himself: "I know only this: forgetting what lies behind me and reaching out to what lies ahead, I run towards the goal, to the prize that God calls us to receive up there in Christ Jesus. To run towards this same goal and obtain the promised prize, one must turn one's back on many things, as St Paul did when he felt conquered by Christ. The Greek verb he uses (katalambano) means to grasp, to seize, to take by force, and expresses the way in which he was completely transformed from a persecutor of Christians into an apostle of the gospel (Acts.9) when Christ literally took possession of him on the road to Damascus. St Paul presents his Christian faith as a natural continuation of his Jewish faith because Christ fully realises the expectations of the Old Testament by ensuring its continuity with the New Testament. Here, however, he insists on the newness that Jesus Christ brings: 'I consider everything to be a loss because of the sublimity of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. The knowledge of Christ brings radical newness because one truly becomes a 'new creature', as he writes in his second letter to the Corinthians, which we read last Sunday (2 Cor 5:17-21). Now he says it in another way: "For him I have given up all these things and consider them rubbish in order to gain Christ and be found in him". In other words: what previously appeared important in my eyes, that is, an advantage and a privilege, I now reject altogether. The advantages of which he speaks were the pride of belonging to the people of Israel, the faith and unshakeable hope of that people, the assiduous and scrupulous practice of all the commandments that he calls obedience to the law of Moses. But now Jesus Christ has taken all the space in his life and he possesses the greatest good, the only true wealth in the world, the true treasure of human existence: to know Christ. Knowing in biblical language does not mean intellectual knowledge but living in intimacy with someone, loving him and sharing his life. Paul insists on this bond with Christ because in the community of Philippi some Christians of Jewish origin wanted to impose circumcision on all Christians before baptism and this created great division as we read in the second reading of the second Sunday of Lent. This issue was resolved by the Apostles at the First Council in Jerusalem by affirming that in the New Covenant, the Law of Moses has been superseded and baptism in the name of Jesus makes us children of God so circumcision is no longer indispensable to be part of the people of the New Covenant. Paul also speaks here of "communion" with Christ's sufferings, of being conformed to his death in the hope of attaining the resurrection from the dead, grafted into him in order to follow his same path: "communion with his sufferings, making me conform to his death". 

Note: St Paul invites us to live like Christ and to accept all the risks of proclaiming the Gospel, but can we say, like him, that the only good for us is the knowledge of Christ and everything else is but rubbish? The word rubbish that is used here translates the Greek word skubala, which has a very strong meaning that can be translated in several ways: as waste, refuse, dry excrement and filth, rotten and spoiled food residue. In short, a total rejection of everything, when one knows Christ and is possessed by him.

*From the Gospel according to John (8:1-11)

We are already in the context of the Passion and the first line mentions the Mount of Olives. Since the evangelists only mention it in the last days of Jesus' public life and the Pharisees want to set a trap for him here, this makes it clear that it has now been decided to try and condemn him. That is why every detail of this text must be carefully examined because it is not a simple episode in Jesus' life, but the very heart of his mission.  At the beginning Jesus is seated as a teacher: "all the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them". However, the question of the scribes and Pharisees immediately puts him in the position of judge and Jesus is the only seated person. This detail helps us to understand that the theme of judgement, in St John, is central: the episode of the adulterous woman implements what he writes at the beginning of his gospel: "God sent the Son into the world, not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:17). We are faced with a mock trial because the issue is clear: the adulterous woman was caught in the act and there are witnesses; the Law of Moses condemns adultery as one of the commandments given by God on Sinai (Thou shalt not commit adultery, Ex 20:14; Deut 5:18); Leviticus prescribes the death penalty: "If anyone commits adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death" (Lev 20:10). The scribes and Pharisees, who question Jesus, are as always very attached to the Law of Moses, but they forget to add that the Law provides for the condemnation of both offenders, the man and the adulterous woman. The fact that despite knowing this, no one remembers it, shows that the real issue is not the observance of the Law, but something else, and the text says it clearly: "They said this to test him and to have reason to accuse him". It is therefore a trap-question and what do they want to accuse Jesus of? Jesus cannot approve of the stoning because it would contradict the whole preaching on mercy; if, however, he publicly defends the woman, he can be accused of inciting the people to disobey the Law. In John's Gospel (chapter 5), we have already seen him tell the healed paralytic to take his bed, an act forbidden on the Sabbath. They failed to condemn him that day, but this time the disobedience would be public. After all, despite the apparent respect with which they call him 'Master', Jesus is in as much danger as the adulterous woman: both risk death. Jesus does not immediately respond: "He stooped down and began to write with his finger on the ground". With his silence, a constructive silence, he invites each one to reflect without humiliating anyone, and he, the incarnation of mercy, does not put the scribes and Pharisees or the adulterous woman in difficulty: he wants each one to take a step forward by trying to reveal to the Pharisees and scribes the true face of the God of mercy. When he responds, he does so almost by posing a question: 'Let him who is without sin among you cast the stone at her first'. At this point they all leave, "one by one, beginning with the elders". Nothing surprising: the elders appear to be the ones most ready to listen to the call to mercy. Who knows how many times they have experienced God's mercy on them... How many times they have read, sung, meditated on the verse: "God of tenderness and mercy, slow to anger and abounding in love" (Ex 34:6). How many times have they recited Psalm 50(51): "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your mercy, in your great goodness blot out my sin". Now they can understand that their lack of mercy is a fault, a lack of faithfulness to the God of the Covenant. Jesus' statement may have led them to this reflection: 'Let him who is without sin among you cast the stone first'. Being the first to throw the stone was an expression known to all in the context of the fight against idolatry. The Law did not say that it had to be the witness of adultery who threw the first stone; but it did say so expressly for the case of idolatry (Deut 13:9-10; Deut 17:7). Thus Jesus' reply can be interpreted as: "This woman is guilty of adultery, in the literal sense of the word, it is true; but are you not committing an even more serious adultery, an unfaithfulness to the God of the Covenant? The prophets often speak of idolatry in terms of adultery.  In the end, only Jesus and the woman remain: it is the face-to-face, as St Augustine says, between misery and mercy. For her, the Word once again fulfils his mission, speaking the word of reconciliation. Isaiah, speaking of the servant of God, had announced it: 'He will not break a cracked reed, he will not quench a smouldering wick...' (Is 42:3). But this is not goodism because Jesus clearly tells the woman to sin no more, sin remains condemned, but only forgiveness can enable the sinner to be reborn to hope.

Note: What does Jesus write on the ground? The evangelist does not specify, and this has given rise to various interpretations: Some Church Fathers, such as St Augustine, speculate that Jesus was writing down the hidden sins of those who accused the woman. This is why, one by one, they go away; It refers to the Mosaic Law: according to a rabbinic interpretation, it could refer to Jeremiah 17:13: "Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust, because they have forsaken the Lord, the source of living water." If so, Jesus would be indicating that the accusers themselves are guilty of unfaithfulness to God. It could be a symbolic act of detachment; writing in the dust could symbolise that the accusations against the woman are ephemeral, destined to fade away; it could indicate a call to patience and reflection; finally, it could be a way of not responding immediately, prompting the accusers to reflect on their hypocrisy.

Jesus' gesture invites us to shift our attention not to the guilt of others, but to our own conscience. No one can condemn another without first examining himself. This episode teaches us that God's mercy exceeds human condemnation, and that forgiveness is always possible when there is a heart willing to change. 

The first reading and this Sunday's Gospel have the same message: forget the past, don't get attached to it... nothing, not even memories, should stop you from moving on. In the first reading, Isaiah speaks to the people in exile... in the Gospel, Jesus speaks to a woman caught in the act of adultery: apparently, two very different cases, but the message is the same: turn your gaze firmly towards the future, no longer think about the past.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

Today, 25 March, we are in the heart of the Jubilee contemplating the mystery of the Annunciation and Incarnation of the Word. It used to be a predominantly Marian feast, as it still appears in many popular religious traditions. With the liturgical reform, it was highlighted as an important Christological solemnity that immerses us in the heart of the Incarnation of the eternal Word: God becoming man for our salvation. The presence of Mary - The Annunciation - as the one who with her 'yes' made the mystery of our salvation possible, the miracle of the Incarnation, always remains strong; and she invites each one of us to unite our 'yes' to hers, aware that only in humility is the human heart capable of responding to God's call.

IV Sunday in Lent (year C) [30 March 2025] 

*First Reading From the book of Joshua (5, 9a 10- 12)

Moses did not enter the promised land because he died on Mount Nebo, at the Dead Sea, on the side that today corresponds to the Jordanian shore. It was therefore not he who introduced the people of Israel into Palestine, but his servant and successor Joshua. The whole book of Joshua recounts the entry of the people into the promised land, starting with the crossing of the Jordan since the tribes of Israel entered Palestine from the east. The aim of the writer of this book is quite clear: if the author recalls God's work for Israel, it is to exhort the people to faithfulness. Within the few lines of today's text lies a real sermon that is divided into two teachings: firstly, we must never forget that God has delivered the people from Egypt; and secondly, if he has delivered them, it is to give them this land as he promised our fathers. We receive everything from God, but when we forget this, we put ourselves in dead-end situations. This is why the text draws continuous parallels between leaving Egypt, life in the desert and entering Canaan. For example, in chapter 3 of the book of Joshua, the crossing of the Jordan is solemnly recounted as a repetition of the Red Sea miracle. In this Sunday's text, the author insists on the Passover: "they celebrated the Passover, on the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening". Just as the celebration of the Passover had marked the exit from Egypt and the Red Sea miracle, the Passover now follows the entry into the promised land and the Jordan miracle. These are intentional parallels by which the author wants to say that, from the beginning to the end of this incredible adventure, it is the same God who acts to free his people, in view of the promised land. The book of Joshua comes immediately after Deuteronomy. "Joshua" is not his name, but the nickname given to him by Moses: at first, he was simply called "Hoshéa", "Hosea" meaning "He saves" and the new name, "Joshua" ("Yeoshoua") contains the name of God to indicate more explicitly that only God saves. Joshua after all understood that he alone cannot deliver his people. The second part of today's text is surprising because on the surface it speaks only of food, but there is much more: "On the day after the Passover, they ate the produce of that land: unleavened and toasted wheat. And from the next day, as they had eaten, the manna ceased. The Israelites had no more manna: that year they ate the fruits of the land of Canaan." This change of food suggests a weaning: a new page is turned, a new life begins and the desert period with its difficulties, recriminations and even miraculous solutions ends. Now Israel, having arrived in the God-given land, will no longer be nomads, but a sedentary people of farmers feeding on the products of the soil; an adult people responsible for its own subsistence. Having the means to provide for themselves, God does not replace them because he has great respect for their freedom. However, this people will not forget the manna and will retain the lesson: just as the Lord provided in the desert, so Israel must become solicitous towards those who for various reasons are in need. It is clearly stated in the Book of Deuteronomy: God has taught us to feed the poor by sending down bread from heaven for the children of Israel, and now it is up to us to do the same (cf. Deut.34:6). Finally, the crossing of the Jordan and the entry into the promised land, the land of freedom, helps us to better understand Jesus' baptism in the Jordan, which will become the sign of the new entry into the true land of freedom. 

*Responsorial Psalm (33 (34) 2-3, 4-5, 6-7)

In this psalm, as in others, each verse is constructed in two lines in dialogue and ideally it should be sung in two alternating choruses, line by line. It is composed of 22 verses corresponding to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, in poetry called an acrostic: each letter of the alphabet is placed vertically in front of each verse, beginning with the corresponding letter in the margin. This procedure, quite frequent in psalms, indicates that we are dealing with a psalm of thanksgiving for the covenant. We could say that it is a response to the first reading from the book of Joshua, where although it tells a story, there is actually an invitation to give thanks for all that God has accomplished for Israel.  The language of thanksgiving is omnipresent, as is evident in the first verses: 'I will bless the Lord at all times ... on my lips always his praise ... magnify the Lord with me ... let us exalt his name together'. The speaker is Israel, witness to the work of God: a God who responds, frees, listens, saves: "I sought the Lord: he answered me; from all fear he delivered me... this poor man cries out and the Lord listens to him: he saves him from all his anguish."  This attention of God emerges in the passage from chapter 3 of Exodus, which was the first reading of last Sunday, the third of Lent i.e. the episode of the burning bush: "I have seen the misery of my people... their cry has reached me... I know their sufferings." Israel is the poor liberated by God's mercy, as we read in this psalm, and has discovered its twofold mission: firstly, to teach all the humble about faith, understood as a dialogue between God and man who cries out his distress and God hears him, liberates him and comes to his aid; secondly, to be willing to collaborate with God's work. Just as Moses and Joshua were God's instruments to deliver his people and bring them into the promised land, so Israel will be the attentive ear to the poor and the instrument of God's concern for them: 'let the poor hear and rejoice'. Israel must echo down the centuries this cry, which is an interwoven polyphony of suffering, praise and hope to alleviate all forms of poverty. It is necessary, however, to be poor in heart with the realism of recognising ourselves as small and to invoke God for help in the certainty that he accompanies us in every circumstance to help us face life's obstacles. 

*Second Reading from the Second Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians (5:17-21)

This text can be understood in two ways and everything revolves around the central phrase: "not imputing (God) to men their faults" (v.19) which can have two meanings. The first: since the beginning of the world, God has kept count of men's sins, but, in his great mercy, he agreed to wipe them out through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and this is what is known as 'substitution', i.e. Jesus took on in our place a debt too great for us. Secondly, God has never counted the sins of men, and Christ came into the world to show us that God has always been love and forgiveness, as we read in Psalm 102 (103): "God turns away our sins from us". The whole path of biblical revelation moves us from the first hypothesis to the second, and in order to understand it better, we need to answer these three questions: Does God keep count of our sins? Can we speak of 'substitution' in the death of Christ? If God does not reckon with us and if we cannot speak of 'substitution', how should we interpret this text of Paul?

First: Does God keep count of our sins? At the beginning of the covenant history, Israel was certainly convinced of this and it is clear why. Man cannot discover God unless God himself reveals himself to him. To Abraham God does not speak of sin, but of covenant, of promise, of blessing, of descent, and never does the word 'merit' appear. "Abraham had faith in the Lord and it was credited to him as righteousness" (Gen 15:6), so faith is the only thing that counts. God does not keep track of our actions, which does not mean that we can do anything, because we are responsible for building the Kingdom. To Moses, the Lord reveals himself as merciful and forgiving, slow to anger and rich in love (cf. Ex 34:6). David, precisely on the occasion of his sin, understands that God's forgiveness precedes even our repentance and Isaiah observes that God surprises us because His thoughts are not our thoughts: He is only forgiveness for sinners (cf. Is 55:6-8). In the Old Testament, the chosen people already knew that God is tenderness and forgiveness and called him Father long before we did. The parable of Jonah, for example, was written precisely to show that God cares even for the Ninevites, Israel's historical enemies.

Second: Can one speak of 'substitution' in the death of Christ? If God does not keep count of sins and therefore we do not have a debt to pay, there is no need for Jesus to replace us. Moreover, the New Testament texts speak of solidarity, never substitution, and Jesus does not act in our place, nor is he our representative. He is the 'firstborn' as Paul says, who opens the way and walks before us. Mixed in with sinners he asked for Baptism from John and on the cross he accepted to give his life for us. He drew near to us so that we could draw near to Him.

Thirdly: How then is this text of Paul's to be interpreted? First of all, God has never kept count of the sins of men, and Christ came into the world to make us understand this. When he says to Pilate: "I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth" (Jn 18:37), he affirms that his mission is to reveal the face of God who is always love and forgiveness. And when Paul writes: "...not imputing (God) to men their faults" he means to make it clear that God erases our false ideas about Him, those that portray Him as an accountant.  Jesus came to show the face of God Love, but was rejected and therefore accepted to die. He had become too inconvenient for the religious authorities of the time, who thought they knew better than he did who God was, and so he died on the cross because of human pride that had turned into implacable hatred. To Philip in the Upper Room he said: "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9) and even in the midst of humiliation and hatred he only uttered words of forgiveness. We understand at this point the sentence with which this passage closes: "He who knew no sin, God made him sin for our sake, that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (v. 21). On the face of Christ crucified, we contemplate to what extent the horror of our sin reaches us, but also to what extent God's forgiveness reaches us, and from this contemplation our conversion can be born: "They shall look upon him whom they have pierced", a text from the prophet Zechariah (12:10), which we find in the Fourth Gospel (Jn 19:37). Hence our vocation as ambassadors of God's love: "We beseech you in the name of Christ: be reconciled to God" (v.20).

*From the Gospel according to Luke (15:1-3. 11-32)

The interpretive key to this text is found in the very first words. St Luke writes that "all publicans and sinners came to Jesus to listen to him" while "the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, 'He welcomes sinners and eats with them'. The former are public sinners to be avoided, while the latter are honest people who seek to do what pleases God. In truth, the Pharisees were generally upright, pious people and faithful to the Law of Moses, shocked however by the behaviour of Jesus who does not seem to understand who he is dealing with if he even eats and mingles with sinners. God is the Holy One and for them there was a total incompatibility between God and sinners and therefore Jesus, if he was truly from God, had to avoid associating with them. This parable is intended to help one discover the true face of God who is Father. In fact, the main character in this story is God himself, the father who has two kinds of sons, both with at least one point in common, namely the way they conceive of their relationship with their father in terms of merits and accounts, even though they behave differently: the younger offends him gravely, unlike the elder, and in the end, however, acknowledges his sin: "I am no longer worthy to be called your son"; the elder, on the other hand, boasts of having always obeyed but complains that he has never even received a kid as he deserves. The Father is out of these calculations and does not want to hear about merits because he loves his children and in this relationship there is no room for calculating accounts. To the prodigal son, who had demanded 'my share of the inheritance that is due to me', he had gone far beyond the demand, as he will eventually say to both of them: all that is mine is yours. To the prodigal son who returns he does not even leave time to express any repentance, he does not demand an explanation; on the contrary, he wants to celebrate immediately, because 'this son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and has been found'. The lesson is clear: with God it is not a matter of calculations, merits, even if we struggle to eradicate this mentality, and the whole Bible, from the Old Testament onwards, shows the slow and patient pedagogy with which God seeks to make himself known as Father, ready to celebrate every time we return to him.

Two small comments to conclude:

1. In the first reading, taken from the book of Joshua, Israel is nourished by manna during the desert crossing, while here there is no manna for the son who refuses to live with his father and finds himself in an existential desert, because he has cut himself off. 

2. Concerning the connection with the parable of the lost sheep, which is also found in this chapter of Luke, it is observed that the shepherd goes to look for the lost sheep and brings it back by putting it on his shoulders, while the father does not prevent the son from leaving and does not force him to return because he respects his freedom to the full.

+Giovanni D'Ercole