Jn 4:5-42 (5-54)

In the passage about the Samaritan woman, John contrasts the mechanisms of religiosity with the dynamics of Faith, comparing the images of an ancient well with a fresh spring of water [cf. Greek text].

While we bend over a well and have to draw water with effort, the spring is readily available. We can even dive into it without the danger of getting trapped and drowning.

The ever-flowing and ever-new spring of water is the Person of Christ: a gift that Providence offers us to grasp in the circumstances of real life, in perpetual becoming.

The water in the well is at the bottom of a dark tunnel - animated only by reflections here and there (coming from distant external light sources).

It is almost stagnant - and does not definitively quench thirst, but rather requires us to draw it again with the same effort.

Sometimes the bucket used to draw it is mishandled, swings and falls down - with no possibility of recovery.

Common religious sense leads us to continually have to recapture or seek perfection - focusing the examination, therapy, and relationships on ourselves: examining, identifying, correcting, redoing; verifying and starting all over again.

Exhausted, disappointed, irritated.

Devotion and fulfilment do not produce satiety - we know this well - on the contrary, paradoxically, they accentuate the thirst.

The procession of external obedience and mannered respectability, to be offered continuously to ingratiate oneself with this silent God and his elect (equally indifferent), unnerves the soul.

In this growing, albeit unexpressed, inner turmoil, unfulfilled desire risks ruining the foundations of our personality - and the impulse to walk the path towards another realisation, perhaps vague but ours.

Despite the constant forced return to drink and despite the 'certainty' of doctrines and disciplines, religious piety [which spirals] ultimately produces total existential dissatisfaction and spiritual bewilderment.

Living Faith is not a kind of object or ideology (which one may or may not have), but rather a Relationship.

It proceeds from a God who reveals himself, challenges us and calls us by name. And it addresses the deepest layers of being and reality.

Its varied, rich, open face does not coincide with common thinking, but rather intercepts our desire for fullness of life. In this way, it corresponds to us and conquers us.

In this relationship, Faith, which is born precisely from listening, is ignited when the initiative of the Father, who manifests and reveals himself in a proposal that comes to us, is accepted and not rejected.

This is not a one-off circumstance, but something that gushes forth and proceeds wave after wave throughout our existence. With all the surprises that time brings.

Incandescent magma, which from time to time challenges us, sabotages us or astounds us.

In evolution, this dynamic establishes an invisible Presence in the hidden Self, the unquenchable living fire of our founding Eros.

A perceptible echo - even in the genius of time, in the furrows of personal history, in the folds of events and relationships, advice, (opposing) evaluations and even fractures.

The Relationship of Faith has different approaches. The first stage is that of Faith Assent: the person recognises themselves in a world of knowledge that corresponds to them.

It is a very dignified level, but common to all religions and philosophies.

Scrutinising the Word, we understand that the specificity of biblical Faith concerns concrete existence much more than thought or discipline: it has a different character from codes, it is spousal.

Already in the First Testament, Faith is typically that trust of the Bride [in Hebrew, Israel is feminine] who has complete confidence in the Bridegroom.

She knows that by relying on God-With, she will flourish authentically and enjoy the fullness of life, even when going through unpleasant vicissitudes.

Faith lived in the Spirit of the Risen One enjoys other facets, which are decisive in giving colour to our journey in the world and to our full maturation, with the joy of living.

[In everything, it is essential both to listen to Sacred Scripture and to move from the whirlwind of thoughts that fragment our inner eye to perception, that is, to a more intense contemplative gaze that knows how to rest on ourselves and on things].

The child of God becomes a brother and intimate friend of the Lord not simply through a common, even passionate belief, but through a personal inner action.

The third step of Christological faith is precisely a kind of appropriation: the subject recognises the meaning of the Gospels in events and in himself.

He now identifies with the episodes of the Lord, without neurosis or caricature. From the Word within, he extracts solutions in a natural, immediate way.

Now sure of the friendly reciprocity experienced in the Gifts, he takes possession of the meek and strong heart of the Living One in him, with a stroke of the hand and without any prescribed merit.

Quoting St. Bernard, Alfonso Maria de' Liguori states: ' The merit that I lack to enter Paradise, I usurp from the merits of Jesus Christ'.

No arcane procedures or discipline.

Please note: these are not 'tests' of vicarious substitution - as if Jesus had to pay off a debt of sins because the Father needed blood and at least one person to pay dearly for it.

God redeems us with educational risk.

It is true that sending a lamb among wolves means its end is sealed. But it is also the only way to convince men - still in a pre-human condition - that competition is not the life of people, but rather of ferocious beasts.

The lamb is the meek being that makes even wolves reflect: only by completely appropriating it do the beasts realise that they are such.

Thus we can begin to say, 'I' as human beings rather than beasts. 

Of course, only people who are reconciled with their own circumstances do good. But the authentic and full best is critical and global; beyond our reach.

It is not a brilliant or personal achievement. We are not omnipotent.

A further stage in the journey of life in Christ and in the Spirit is that of the so-called Faith-Magnet.

This too takes the form of an action, because the soul-bride reads the signs of the times, interprets the surrounding reality and her own inclinations... and, grasping the specific weight of the Future, anticipates and actualises it.

Thus avoiding wasting life in support of dead branches.

But the final stage (I would say the peak), perhaps even more 'perfect' than this Faith-Trigger, is that of Faith-Wonder.

Revelation-Astonishment: it configures the specific belief of the Incarnation, because it recognises the Treasures that lie hidden behind our dark sides.

These Pearls will come into play during the course of existence [they will activate what they must when necessary] and it will be a wonder to discover them.

The pierced cocoon will make its Butterfly, which is not 'confirmation', or a construction homologated to prototypes, but rather enchantment. Unveiling.

Magic and a new Covenant of sunsets and sunrises.

To compare the varied work of Faith in us, and its multifaceted richness - and to emphasise (perhaps in a gestural and crude, but effectively paradoxical way) its specificity, I would cite James Ensor's painting 'The Entry of Christ into Brussels in 1888' as a counterpoint.

The author emphasises the depersonalising indifference of widespread religious life, where everything goes into the pot of indistinct devotion.

In the folklore of the colourful crowd, pious faces and caricatured grins are confused. A contrasting effect in which we perhaps recognise ourselves: pagan people, with many 'husbands' [i.e. idols].

As if to say: in the common and most customary Western religious sense, whether or not we desire Jesus to come into our lives - whether we follow or betray the crucified Lord - does not make much difference.

Christ sits on the Source, not on the well. Rather, he overlaps it.

What I did not know was there: Faith, the naked eye, guarantee

(Jn 4:43-54)

    Starting in the fourth week, the Lenten liturgy takes a decisive step towards Jerusalem, which is already taking shape in the light of Easter.

The evangelist wants to introduce us to a more intimate familiarity with the mystery of the person and story of the Son of God; a communion on the level of being that touches other areas.

He takes up the rhythm of the catechumen's inner journey (v. 47) to introduce us to his Vision, which regenerates our flesh and puts us back into the Exodus (v. 50), which unleashes a whole dynamism around us (v. 51).

On the Way, every creature is restored to itself and to the radical goodness of the original plan - rediscovered first within, then outside itself.

To have faith is to set out and allow oneself to be traumatised. 'For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honour in his own country' (v. 44). Why?

By the term 'country', the synoptics imply Nazareth.

The fourth Gospel, on the other hand, alludes to a more theological dimension: that of the Word, which transcends local privileges, targeting the ideology of the religious centre as well as the national institution.

After showing in the episode of the Samaritan woman (vv. 1-42) the meaning of Christ as the new Temple for both Jews and 'heretics', John illustrates its meaning for pagans.

It is as if the dimension of the Resurrection ('after two days': v. 43) moved the House of God to the whole world.

Observers of Judaism were forbidden to pass through Samaria and stay with the Samaritans (cf. Jn 4:9), who were considered mixed-race (theologically polygamous: Jn 4:17-18).

Jesus does not limit himself to his own lineage, nor even to his own religion.

In Galilee, he welcomes a super-pagan who begs for help because he realises that the world he comes from is incapable of generating life (vv. 46-47, 49, 53).

Often our piety prevents friendship between different cultures and neutralises the power of intimate self-healing that everyone - of any ethnicity or creed - carries within themselves.

The banal auspices of cultural baggage block freedom of thought from what is not yet foreseeable, fixing stereotypes.

Those steeped in idols no longer see anything; they do not even encounter themselves and their loved ones.

And they do not experience unknown forces. At most, they believe in the pagan god protector, who performs miracles at random.

Those who judge with the naked eye... suppose they see the Lord healing through extraordinary gestures (v. 48: 'unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe').

They miss the life-giving power of the Word, which touches without being seen, but makes Jesus present in his work and in his incisive, effective entirety.

Christ is interested in making people understand how Faith "works" in its pure quality: what dynamics it activates - not the spectacle of religion, which is entirely external and rhymes with impression, escape, sensation, devotion.

These superficial expressions close the crowd in intimism, or arouse interest in oddities that startle the senses, arousing a moment of enthusiasm, but not the centre of each person.

The newness of Christ is not transmitted by contact, but by deeply accepting his unexpected Word-event. It is not subject to a principle of locality or other religious guarantee.

The external gaze is convinced by miracles, but does not grasp the profound meaning of the Sign that speaks to us of the Person of the Lord - the true spectacle. Everything is still to be experienced.

Commenting on the Tao Tê Ching (xii), Master Wang Pi states: 'Those who are for the eye become slaves to creatures. For this reason, the saint is not for the eye'.

Master Ho-shang Kung adds: 'The lover of colours harms the essence and loses enlightenment (...) The disordered gaze causes the essence to overflow to the outside'.

The curious wait to see and verify. Thus they die of relative hopes, without roots in themselves.

Only in Faith can we discover what is not yet visible to the naked eye, nor did we know it was there.

To internalise and live the message:

How does adherence to the Word of Christ help to overcome the trivial desire for clamour or escape?

Returning to 'your home', did you discover what you did not know was there? Did someone announce the Good News to you?

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This third Sunday of Lent is characterized by the Jesus’ famous conversation with the Samaritan woman, recounted by the Evangelist John. The woman went every day to draw water from an ancient well that dated back to the Patriarch Jacob and on that day she found Jesus sitting beside the well, “wearied from his journey” (Jn 4:6). St Augustine comments: “Not for nothing was Jesus tried…. The strength of Christ created you, the weakness of Christ recreated you…. With his strength he created us, with his weakness he came to seek us out” (In Ioh. Ev., 15, 2).

Jesus’ weariness, a sign of his true humanity, can be seen as a prelude to the Passion with which he brought to fulfilment the work of our redemption. In the encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, the topic of Christ’s “thirst” stands out in particular. It culminated in his cry on the Cross “I thirst” (Jn 19:28). This thirst, like his weariness, had a physical basis. Yet Jesus, as St Augustine says further, “thirsted for the faith of that woman” (In Ioh. Ev. 15,11), as he thirsted for the faith of us all.

God the Father sent him to quench our thirst for eternal life, giving us his love, but to give us this gift Jesus asks for our faith. The omnipotence of Love always respects human freedom; it knocks at the door of man’s heart and waits patiently for his answer. 

In the encounter with the Samaritan woman the symbol of water stands out in the foreground, alluding clearly to the sacrament of Baptism, the source of new life for faith in God’s Grace. This Gospel, in fact — as I recalled in my Catechesis on Ash Wednesday — is part of the ancient journey of the catechumen’s preparation for Christian Initiation, which took place at the great Easter Vigil. “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him”, Jesus said, “will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (Jn 4:14). 

This water represents the Holy Spirit, the “gift” par excellence that Jesus came to bring on the part of God the Father. Whoever is reborn by water and by the Holy Spirit, that is, in Baptism, enters into a real relationship with God, a filial relationship, and can worship him “in spirit and in truth” (Jn 4:23, 24), as Jesus went on to reveal to the Samaritan woman. Thanks to the meeting with Jesus Christ and to the gift of the Holy Spirit, the human being’s faith attains fulfilment, as a response to the fullness of God’s revelation. 

Each one of us can identify himself with the Samaritan woman: Jesus is waiting for us, especially in this Season of Lent, to speak to our hearts, to my heart. Let us pause a moment in silence, in our room or in a church or in a separate place. Let us listen to his voice which tells us “If you knew the gift of God…”. May the Virgin Mary help us not to miss this appointment, on which our true happiness depends.

[Pope Benedict, Angelus, 27 March 2011]

My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord  (Comment on Psalm 62)

1. Psalm 62 on which we are reflecting today is the Psalm of mystical love, which celebrates total adherence to God based on an almost physical yearning and reaching its fullness in a close and everlasting embrace. Prayer becomes longing, thirst and hunger, because it involves the soul and the body.

As St Teresa of Avila wrote:  "Thirst, I think, means the desire for something very necessary for us so necessary that if we have none of it we shall die." (The Way of Perfection, chap. XIX). The liturgy presents to us the first two verses of the Psalm which are indeed focused on the symbols of thirst and hunger, while the third verse evokes a dark horizon, that of the divine judgement of evil, in contrast to the brightness and confident longing of the rest of the Psalm.
Believers long to be filled with God, the source of living water

2. Let us begin our meditation with the first song, that of the thirst for God (cf. vv. 2-4). It is dawn, the sun is rising in the clear blue sky of the Holy Land, and the person praying begins his day by going to the temple to seek God's light. He has an almost instinctive, one might say "physical" need for that encounter with the Lord. Just as the dried-out earth is dead until it is watered by the rain and the earth's gaping cracks suggest the image of its parched and thirsty mouth, so the believer yearns for God, to be filled with him and thus to live in communion with him.

The prophet Jeremiah had already proclaimed:  the Lord is the "source of living waters", and had reproached the people for building "broken cisterns, that can hold no water" (2: 13). Jesus himself would exclaim aloud:  "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me; let him drink who believes in me" (Jn 7: 37-38). At high noon on a quiet, sunny day, he promises the Samaritan woman:  "whoever drinks of the water that I shall give will never thirst; the water that I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (Jn 4: 14).

3. The prayer of Psalm 62 is interwoven with the song of the wonderful Psalm 42:  "as the deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.... When shall I come and behold the face of God?" (vv. 2-3). Now in Old Testament language the Hebrew "soul" is indicated by the term nefesh, which in some texts means "throat" and whose meaning in many others is broadened to encompass the whole of the person. Taken in these dimensions, the word helps us to realize how essential and profound our need for God is; without him we lack breath and even life itself. For this reason the Psalmist comes to the point of putting physical existence itself on the second level, if union with God should be lacking:  "for your steadfast love is better than life" (Ps 62: 3). In Ps 73 he will also repeat to the Lord:  "There is nothing upon earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.... for me it is good to be near God" (Ps 73: 25-28).

4. After the song about thirst, the Psalmist sings a song about hunger (cf. Ps 62: 5-8). With the images of "the soul feasting as with marrow and fat" and of being filled, the person praying is probably referring to one of the sacrifices that were celebrated in the temple of Zion:  the so-called sacrifice "of communion", that is, a sacred banquet at which the faithful ate the flesh of the sacrifice. Another fundamental need of life is used here as a symbol of communion with God:  hunger is appeased when people hear the divine Word and encounter the Lord. Indeed "man does not live by bread alone, but ... by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord" (Dt 8: 3; cf. Mt 4: 4). And here flashes across the Christian's mind the thought of the banquet that Christ prepared on the last evening of his earthly life, whose deep value he had explained in his discourse at Capernaum:  "For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him" (Jn 6: 55-56).

5. Through the mystical food of communion with God, "the soul clings to him" as the Psalmist says. Once again the word "soul" suggests the whole human being. Here one rightly finds the mention of an embrace, an almost physical clinging; henceforth God and man are in full communion and on the lips of his creature only joyful and grateful praise can bloom. Even during the dark night we feel protected by God's wings, just as the ark of the Covenant is covered by the wings of the cherubim. And then the ecstatic expression of jubilation blossoms:  "In the shadow of your wings I sing for joy". Fear is dispelled, the embrace does not cling to emptiness but to God himself, our souls are upheld by the power of his right hand (cf. Ps 62: 7-8).

6. In reading the Psalm in the light of the Easter mystery, our hunger and thirst which impel us towards God find their fulfillment in the crucified and risen Christ, from whom we receive the gift of the Spirit and the sacraments which give us new life and the nourishment that sustains it.
St John Chrysostom reminds us in commenting on the Johannine phrase:  from his side "flowed blood and water" (cf. Jn 19: 34), he says "that baptism and the mysteries [that is, the Eucharist] were symbolized in that blood and water". And he concludes:  "Have you seen how Christ has united his bride to himself? Have you seen with what kind of food he feeds us all? By the same food we are formed and are fed. As a woman feeds her child with her own blood and milk, so too Christ himself continually feeds those whom he has begotten with his own blood" (Homily III address to catechumens, 16-19 passim:  SC 50 bis, 160-162).

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience, 25 April 2001]

The Gospel passage from today, the Third Sunday of Lent, tells us of Jesus’ meeting with a Samaritan woman (cf. Jn 4:5-42). He is on a journey with his disciples and takes a break near a well in Samaria. The Samaritans were considered heretics by the Jews, and were very much despised as second-class citizens. Jesus is tired, thirsty. A woman arrives to draw water and he says to her: “Give me a drink” (v. 7). Breaking every barrier, he begins a dialogue in which he reveals to the woman the mystery of living water, that is, of the Holy Spirit, God’s gift. Indeed, in response to the woman’s surprised reaction, Jesus says: “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink’, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water” (v. 10).

Water is the focus of this dialogue. On the one hand, water is an essential element that slakes the body’s thirst and sustains life. On the other, water is a symbol of divine grace that gives eternal life. In the biblical tradition God is the source of living water: as it says in Psalms and in the Prophets: distancing oneself from God, the source of living water, and from his Law, leads to the worst drought. This is the experience of the People of Israel in the desert. During their long journey to freedom, as they were dying of thirst, they cried out against Moses and against God because there was no water. Thus, God willed Moses to make water flow from a rock, as a sign of the Providence of God, accompanying his people and giving them life (cf. Ex 17:1-7).

The Apostle Paul, too, interprets that rock as a symbol of Christ. He says: “And that rock was Christ” (cf. 1 Cor 10:4). It is the mysterious figure of his presence in the midst of the People of God on their journey. Christ, in fact, is the Temple from which, according to the prophets, flows the Holy Spirit, the living water which purifies and gives life. Whoever thirsts for salvation can draw freely from Jesus, and the Spirit will become a wellspring of full and eternal life in him/her. The promise of living water that Jesus made to the Samaritan woman becomes a reality in his Passion: from his pierced side flowed “blood and water” (Jn 19:34). Christ, the Lamb, immolated and risen, is the wellspring from which flows the Holy Spirit who remits sins and regenerates new life.

This gift is also the source of witness. Like the Samaritan woman, whoever personally encounters the living Jesus feels the need to talk about him to others, so that everyone might reach the point of proclaiming that Jesus “is truly the saviour of the world” (Jn 4:42), as the woman’s fellow townspeople later said. Generated to new life through Baptism, we too are called to witness the life and hope that are within us. If our quest and our thirst are thoroughly quenched in Christ, we will manifest that salvation is not found in the “things” of this world, which ultimately produce drought, but in he who has loved us and will always love us: Jesus, our Saviour, in the living water, that he offers us.

May Mary, Most Holy, help us nourish a desire for Christ, font of living water, the only one who can satisfy the thirst for life and love that we bear in our hearts. 

[Pope Francis, Angelus, 15 March 2020]

(Lk 15:1-3.11-32)

Love is a Feast, not an exchange of favors. So we aren’t marked for life, because the Father knows that our paradoxical escapes are dictated by a need (or legitimate fixation): to breathe.

And we must be proud of ourselves.

Inside our “Home” there is no freedom, because older brothers are sometimes unbearable.

They impose performance, they understand everything, and check for any comma; they imagine that everyone should receive a salary according to merit, rhythm, ability, effort, overtime hours, and «Yessir».

Grim about everything, they whine only because they imagine that one has to ask permission from authority even to rejoice in life and make noise for free. Their “duty and obey” kills Tenderness.

The Father, on the other hand, prevents us from feeling degraded, so He does not want to listen to the list of transgressions that the "pure" doesn’t know but imagines and foolishly spells out, because he represses them inside and in secret cultivates [identifying them with pleasure!].

He does not want us to make the mistake that ruins the whole of life and not just a few stretches of the path: to feel like wage earners. Thus He educates to let good prevail over evil, without demeaning anyone.

Everywhere we find a master who exploits. And even if we only return Home out of calculation, God prevents us from getting down on our knees.

We recite the Lord's Prayer standing: with Him we are always valiant face to face, and He likes «symphonies and choirs».

Tao Tê Ching (x) says: «Preserve the One by abiding in the two souls: are you capable of not making them separate?».

Contradiction inhabits each of us and the merciful Father doesn’t call anyone to wear inner or outer straitjackets according to perfection.

He doesn’t intend to absorb the life even of our subtleties and nuances, nor to reduce the coexistence of faces.

He knows that the evolution of each is combined with a varied experiential language, capable at its time of combining ancient wealth, personal inclinations, even momentary ones, and unexpected novelties.

If we deny the soul’s universe and the multitude of its antinomies, idioms, and co-present characters - like the two sons both contradictory but ultimately complementary - we would never have all the prospects for a growth in life and for the evolution in expressive strength of the Faith.

In the Artwork of the Spirit, Richness’ Opportunities for all, and... no one humiliated.

Everyone now free. How wonderful, such a monstrance! A living Body of Christ that smells of Sharing!

This is the beautiful and royal awareness that smoothes out and makes the content of the Announcement credible (vv.1-2).

Henceforth, the distinction ‘believers and non-believers’ will be much deeper than between the pure and the impure: a whole different caliber - and the beginning of a life as saved people.

Christ also calls, welcomes and redeems the discombobulated son and the precise one (in us), i.e. the more rubricistic - or worn-out - side of our personality.

Even our unbearable or rightly hated character (the rigid one and the distracted one).

He will even make them flourish: they will become indispensable and winning aspects of the future testimony.

Tao Tê Ching [xlv] says: «Great straightness is like sinuosity, great skill is like ineptitude, great eloquence is like stammering».

To internalize and live the message:

When do I take myself hypocritical and close-hearted? When do I realize instead of being the protagonist of what the Father shares?

[Saturday 2nd wk. in Lent, March 7, 2026]

Lk 15:1-3.11-32 (Lk 15:1-32)

Value of imperfect uniqueness

A God in search of the lost and unequal, to expand our life

(Lk 15:1-10)

Why does Jesus speak of Joy in reference to the one sheep?

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

Even in the spiritual journey, Jesus is careful not to propose a dictated or planned universalism, as if his were an ideal model, "for the purpose of homogenisation" (Brothers All No.100).

The type of Communion that the Lord proposes to us does not aim at "a one-dimensional uniformity that seeks to eliminate all differences and traditions in a superficial search for unity".

Because "the future is not 'monochromatic' but if we have the courage, it is possible to look at it in the variety and diversity of the contributions that each one can make. How much our human family needs to learn to live together in harmony and peace without us all being equal!" (from an Address to Young People in Tokyo, November 2019).

Although the piety and hope of the representatives of official religiosity was founded on a structure of human, ethnic, cultural securities and a vision of the Mystery consolidated by a great tradition, Jesus crumbles all predictability.

In the Son, God is revealed no longer as exclusive property, but as the Power of Love that forgives the marginalised and lost: saving and creating, liberating. And through the disciples, he unfolds his Face that recovers, breaks down the usual barriers, calls out to miserable multitudes.

It seems an impossible utopia to realise in concrete terms (today of the health and global crisis), but it is the sense of the handover to the Church, called to become an incessant prod of the Infinite and ferment of an alternative world, for integral human development:

"Let us dream as one humanity, as wayfarers made of the same human flesh, as children of this same earth that is home to us all, each with the richness of his faith or convictions, each with his own voice, all brothers!" (FT no.8).

Through an absurd question (phrased rhetorically) Jesus wants to awaken the conscience of the 'righteous': there is a counterpart of us that supposes of itself, very dangerous, because it leads to exclusion, to abandonment.

Instead, inexhaustible Love seeks. And it finds the imperfect and restless.

The swamp of stagnant energy that is generated by accentuating boundaries does not make anyone grow: it locks in the usual positions and leaves everyone to make do or lose themselves. Out of self-interested disinterest - that impoverishes everyone.

This made the creative virtues fall into despair.

And it plunged those who were outside the circle of the elect - anterior ones who had nothing superior. In fact, Luke portrays them as utterly incapable of beaming with human joy at the progress of others.

Calculating, acting and conforming - the leaders (fundamentalist or sophisticated) are ignorant of reality, and use religion as a weapon.

Instead, God is at the antipodes of the fake sterilised - or disembodied thinking - and looking for the one who wanders shakily, easily becomes disoriented, loses his way.

Sinful yet true, therefore more disposed to genuine Love. That is why the Father is searching for the insufficient.

The person who is so limpid and spontaneous - even if weak - hides his best part and vocational richness precisely behind his apparently detestable sides. Perhaps that he himself does not appreciate.

This is the principle of Redemption that astonishes and makes interesting our often distracted paths, conducted by trial and error - in Faith, however, generating self-esteem, credit, fullness and joy.

The commitment of the purifier and the impetus of the reformer are 'trades' that seemingly oppose each other, but are easy... and typical of those who think that the things to be challenged and changed are always outside themselves.

For example, in mechanisms, in general rules, in the legal framework, in worldviews, in formal (or histrionic) aspects instead of the craft of the concrete particular good; and so on.

They seem to be excuses not to look inside oneself and get involved, not to meet one's deepest states in all aspects and not only in the guidelines. And to recover or cheer up individuals who are concretely lost, sad, in all dark and difficult sides.

But God is at the antipodes of sterilised mannerists or fake idealists, and in search of the insufficient: he who wanders and loses his way. Sinful yet true, therefore more disposed to genuine Love.

The transparent and spontaneous person - even if weak - hides his best part and vocational richness precisely behind the apparently detestable aspects (perhaps which he himself does not appreciate).

Let us then ask for a solution to the mysterious, unpredictable interpersonal energies that come into play; from within things. 

Without interfering with or opposing ideas of the past or future that we do not see. Rather by possessing its soul, its spontaneous drug.

This is the principle of Salvation that astounds and makes interesting our paths [often distracted, led by trial and error] - ultimately generating self-esteem, credit and joy.

The idea that the Most High is a notary or prince of a forum, and makes a clear distinction between righteous and transgressors, is caricature.

After all, a life of the saved is not one's own making, nor is it exclusive possession or private ownership - which turns into duplicity.

It is not the squeamish attitude, nor the cerebral attitude, that unites one to Him. The Father does not blandish suppliant friendships, nor does He have outside interests.

He rejoices with everyone, and it is need that draws Him to us. So let us not be afraid to let Him find us and bring us back (v.5)... to His house, which is our house.

If there is a loss, there will be a finding, and this is no loss to anyone - except to the envious enemies of freedom (v.2).

For the LORD is not pleased with marginalisation, nor does he intend to extinguish the smoking lamp.

Jesus does not come to point the finger at the bad times, but to make up for them, by leveraging intimate involvement. Invincible force of faithfulness.

This is the style of a Church with a Sacred Heart, lovable, elevated and blessed.

[What attracts one to participate and express oneself is to feel understood, restored to full dignity - not condemned].

Carlo Carretto said: 'It is by feeling loved, not criticised, that man begins his journey of transformation'.

As the encyclical Fratelli Tutti emphasises again:

Jesus - our Engine and Motive - "had an open heart, which made the dramas of others its own" (n.84).

And he adds as an example of our great Tradition:

"People can develop certain attitudes which they present as moral values: fortitude, sobriety, industriousness and other virtues. But in order to properly direct the acts [...] we must also consider to what extent they realise a dynamism of openness and union [...] Otherwise we will only have appearances'.

"St Bonaventure explained that the other virtues, without charity, strictly speaking do not fulfil the commandments as God intends them" (n.91).

In sects or one-sidedly inspired groups, human and spiritual riches are deposited in a secluded place, so they grow old and debased.

In the assemblies of the sons and daughters, on the other hand, they are shared: they grow and communicate; multiplying, they green up, for universal benefit.

To internalise and live the message:

What attracts you to the Church? In comparisons with the top of the class, do you feel judged or adequate?

Do you experience the Love that saves, even if you remain uncertain?

Mutual pride, no discouragement

(Lk 15:11-32)

I had never understood what God's mercy had to do with my dignity: why should the pose of the sons [who sooner or later return] be the one depicted by Rembrandt - one standing, the other kneeling?

If the young man runs away because the atmosphere set up by the pretensions of the elder brothers is unbearable, should he also shave his head and stand in penance - hoping at best to be an object of compassion?

No, otherwise the master of the house would not have clothed his runaway son with cassock and ring, i.e. appointed him - foolishly - as the new head of administration of the house. As if everything were regular.

In the Year of the Father, I admired the chromatic artistry of the work now in the Hermitage, but the composition and sense of the figures did not sit well with me.

Worn feet, unserviceable footwear, I could even understand them. But not the stance of a bumbling man in search of an absurd and forced empathy.

The suit torn in several places, without a dignified belt - perhaps sold out of necessity - and replaced by a miserable scullion's lanyard, all right.

But the small sword hanging from his right hip seemed to me to illustrate that despite his disgrace and shaved slave head, the young man had not lost his cynical opportunism.

In my spiritual grammar at the time, however, the bald head already alluded to the idea of the unborn child.

In the seminary I realised that beyond events, we are unceasingly generated as fresh and clean creatures; never humiliated.

The emphasis of this Gospel in the penitential liturgies tinged with ambiguity for me: the protagonist is the yielding Father, not the lopsided actions of the son who runs away and comes back out of calculation (and will run away again).

Tapered, strong hands: only His are so complete.

In Liturgy classes I had also learnt the meaning of 'red': royalty capable of rewinding the lost; colour in unison with the tenderness of flesh and its living generosity.

And it is all carnal in its stooping down to stra-bacch [falling on the neck: thus the Greek text] the rediscovered and reborn. 

It is not a notary's gesture that finds, but one that shortens the distance and removes the dishonour of the rifts, unbridgeable by Perfection.

It justifies: it creates justice where there is no justice.

The opposite of the eldest son, upright and certain of his give and take; not solicitous to lift anyone up, let alone the weak.

He has a gaze that only sees the wretched on the outside, does not grasp the scene from within.

The elder brother remains rigid and indignant: no symphonies and choruses, but only realises his efficient service.

And he even whines, because in everything he imagines he has to ask permission, even to be able to party (v.29): the infantilism of the obedient... formalist and calibrated.

To the official icon of the Year of the Father I preferred the focus of Andrea Palma's painting at the Galleria Borghese - albeit less aesthetically creative and fascinating.

I understood further by delving into the text. And I became aware of the biblical meaning of a suppressed commandment [but a point of strength and distinction in the approach to God, a specificity of evangelical spirituality]: "Thou shalt not make thyself an image" (Ex 20:3-4ff; Deut 5:8ff).

The ancient precept supposes that representations detract from the Logos and the You-for-you, depersonalising the relationship with the Father: they perhaps deflect it and confuse it.

It is precisely the most attractive features, descriptive or decorative, that are sometimes able to dampen the disruptive force of the missionary Word, with its raw and biting tone, not at all intimist.

[In sacred art, especially Latin figurative art has pretensions that dwarf the impulse of the Text, not infrequently normalised according to 'cultural' and moral clichés].

The son does not return because he is intimately repentant, but out of opportunism and sheer hunger - and prepares a speech that might convince the parent. Indeed, it has moved many generations.

The Father prevents him from finishing the ready-made sentence (vv.18-19), precisely at the point where the son intended to express himself as a servant put to wages (vv.21-22). This is the whole game.

Thanks to his radical experience in the journey of faith, Andrea Palma, the lesser-rated but religious artist of the friars of St. Dominic, sensed what all traditional iconography - captured by clichés - had never grasped.

The Recall of the famous parable is not for the irritated, uninhibited and spendthrift young man, then repentant in pretense - but for the 'first-born' (vv.2-3) who still kidnap the Gratis.

The Father had shown respect for conscience and even yielded, but with a firm gesture he does not allow them to kneel.

He decisively prevents us from making the only mistake he really cares to avoid, because we would ruin not only the moral character of one section of existence, but the whole life of our neighbour as well - by becoming ridiculous, disassociated and hostile like the 'greater ones'.

In the sight of God we are equal, not beneath. He does not humiliate, he does not discredit, he does not demand that we bow down before Him or some guru who imposes external artifices.

It was good to know that - despite the sullen looks of the major gendarmes - I too would always fall on my feet.

Merciful Father and prodigal son: the Fierceness will be mutual.

No disheartened

Love is a Feast, not an exchange of favours.

So we are not marked for life, for He knows that our paradoxical escapes are dictated by a need (or legitimate fixation): to breathe.

And we must be proud of ourselves.

Inside the house there is no freedom, because the 'big brothers' are sometimes unbearable.

They impose performance, they understand everything, they control every comma; they imagine that everyone should be paid according to merit, pace, ability, effort, overtime hours, (manners and) sirs.

Arcane about everything, they whine only because they imagine that one must ask permission from authority even to rejoice in life and make noise for free.

Their 'must and obey' kills Tenderness.

The Father, on the other hand, prevents us from feeling degraded, so he does not want to hear the list of transgressions that the 'pure' one does not know but imagines and foolishly punctuates, because he represses them within and secretly cultivates them [identifying them with pleasure!]

He does not want us to make the mistake that ruins the whole of life and not just a few stretches of the path: to feel salaried.

In this way, he educates us to let good prevail over evil, without demeaning anyone.

Everywhere we find a master who exploits. And even if we only return home out of calculation, God prevents us from getting down on our knees.

We recite the Lord's Prayer standing: with Him we are always valiant face to face, and He likes "symphonies and choirs".

For an interiorisation of discernment

Although the Father is not understood by any of His intimates, He stands tall, remaining yielding without any demeanour. 

Not by being good and decent, but by being wise: the life of both sons would not be advanced by exasperating their fulcrums, denying forces, poles, sides of the soul, but by integrating these powers and taking them as a supplement. By recognising and coalescing them.

The famous parable is unsuccessful due to the fact that the certain conclusion of the plot does not and must not exist.

The two of them [who are each of us, at the same time, deep inside] will continue the usual indecent story of being in and out of the house.

All this in a brazen manner. But then they will know the many slopes of themselves - even in opposition.

This is perhaps the most relevant aspect: based on the different motions of the soul and happenings, everyone is called to his or her own (unpredictable) synthesis.

It can vary not only in situation, but also with respect to different ages, in the spirit.

Gradually the solution makes its way, but it does not emerge in the regularity of decent events - from alienated women and men.

Elder and younger son are co-present aspects in each.

It is a paradoxical condition, but one that makes it possible to be richer: e.g. not always neurotic, narrow-minded, stressful and busy like the eldest son; not only wild, epidermic and impulsive like the youngest.

Change and variegated calibre are resources that trigger both pauses and leaps forward, and the Father knows this.

God wants us complete: capable of imagining and thinking, but also solid.

Whereas a master father would place us where he needs us and it would be enough for him if we were servile servants of the boss.

Then we would be good and placed where he puts us for his needs.

Civil servants... without that ductile cooperation that opens up varied experience and a correlative added value - able to elaborate and to be.

Thus and in the Exodus of each character.

Evolving the polyhedron of the personality, and growing in freedom; towards an ever more convinced alliance and integration, and its fulfilment in Love.

In stagnating situations, the drive of unconditional understanding and friendship that makes the weak strong act as an unsurpassable therapy - an incentive to continue the journey.

In Journey, they are relationships that accept and welcome, accommodate and bless contrasts (in the case of the two, reliability and fantasy, for example).

By letting the conflicting slopes surface, all dispositions and talents... both better self-knowledge and external relationships, become territories of new expression.

Expansion of life, by innate plastic energies, which make the soul rich and confirm [or contest and denounce, in the case of conformism] personal inclinations.

Spiritual guides linked to customary and commonplace religiosity tend to make us deny contradictions. But this cuts the person back, saps his strength and impoverishes the even intimate situation, annihilating his normal drives.

And it inoculates the idea that God himself is a reductionist totem, not the Source, the exuberance of life and the platform of Being that we experience in particular essences.

Not infrequently, self-righteous religiosity reduces life in the Spirit to trifles, muddling us in puddles.

Conversely, communion with the Father enjoys perceiving the power of full Wholeness, which makes day and night meet.

The soul only feels fit if the magma of conflicting powers that it perceives and grasps are recognised, blessed.

The many nuances allow us to measure ourselves against different unities, and to be aware of opposing sides - from which intermediate sides will germinate.

Neglecting to welcome them is fruitless: we could not deal unconditionally with the facets of reality and the multitude of characters we carry within.

They are forces that come to our aid, recuperate, complement, according to events or personal sensitivity.

If we remain enclosed in an idol, in a chiselled idea, in a task, in a role, in manners, in even hyperactive and respectable, or faux-transgressive, mannerisms, to be recited, we would lose the opportunity and the capacity to recreate ourselves, the Church, the world.

Evangelisation itself must be able to take on unforeseen variations; so must missionary activity, which often goes hand in hand with an enterprising soul, full of discrepancies that open up the search for dialogue and the risk of empathy; going beyond the so-called 'charisma'.

Contradiction dwells in each of us and the merciful Father does not call anyone to put on inner or outer straitjackets.

He does not intend to absorb the life of our subtleties and nuances, nor does he intend to reduce the co-presence of faces.

He knows that each one's evolution is matched by a varied experiential language; capable in its own time of combining ancient richness, personal inclinations even momentary, and unexpected novelties. 

If we deny the manifold universe of the soul and the multitude of its antinomies, idioms and co-present characters - like the two sons who are both contradictory but ultimately complementary - we would never have all the prospects for a growth of the life-wave and for evolution in the expressive power of Faith.

Says the Tao Tê Ching (xix): 'There is more to be observed: show yourself simple and keep yourself raw'.

In the Work of the Spirit, Occasions of Wealth for all, and... no one disheartened.

All now free. How wonderful, such a monstrance! A living Body of Christ that smells of Sharing!

This is the beautiful and regal awareness that levelled and made credible every content of the Proclamation (vv.1-2).

Henceforth, the distinction between believers or non-believers will be much deeper than between pure and impure, performers or not.

A whole other carat - and principle of a saved existence.

Christ also calls, welcomes and redeems the unhinged son and the precise one (in us) that is the more rubricistic - or worn-out - side of our personality.

Even our unbearable or rightly hated character (the rigid one and the distracted one).

It will even make them flourish: they will become indispensable and winning aspects of future testimony.

Says the Tao Tê Ching [XLV]: 'Great uprightness is like sinuosity, great skill is like ineptitude, great eloquence is like stammering'.

Merciful Father and prodigal son: the Fierceness will be mutual.

To internalise and live the message:

When do I find myself hypocritical and narrow-hearted? When do I realise instead that I am the protagonist of what the Father shares?

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the best-loved passages of Sacred Scripture. Its profound description of God's mercy and the important human desire for conversion and reconciliation, as well as the mending of a broken relationship, speak to men and women of every epoch. Man is frequently tempted to exercise his freedom by distancing himself from God. The experience of the Prodigal Son enables us to note, both in history and in our own lives, that when freedom is sought outside God the result is negative: a loss of personal dignity, moral confusion and social disintegration. The Father's passionate love for humanity, however, triumphs over human pride. Freely given, it is a love that forgives and leads people to enter ever more deeply into the communion of the Church of Christ. He truly offers to all peoples unity in God, and, just as this is perfectly demonstrated by Christ on the Cross, reconciles justice and love (cf. Deus Caritas Est, n. 10).

And what of the elder brother? Is he not, in a certain sense, all men and women as well; perhaps particularly those who sadly distance themselves from the Church? His rationalization of his attitude and actions evokes a certain sympathy, yet in the final analysis illustrates his inability to understand unconditional love. Unable to think beyond the limits of natural justice, he remains trapped within envy and pride, detached from God, isolated from others and ill at ease with himself.

Dear Brothers, as you reflect upon the three characters in this parable - the Father in his abundant mercy, the younger son in his joy at being forgiven, and the elder brother in his tragic isolation - be confirmed in your desire to address the loss of a sense of sin, to which you have referred in your reports. This pastoral priority reflects an eager hope that the faithful will experience God’s boundless love as a call to deepen their ecclesial unity and overcome the division and fragmentation that so often wound today’s families and communities. From this perspective, the Bishop’s responsibility to indicate the destructive presence of sin is readily understood as a service of hope: it strengthens believers to avoid evil and to embrace the perfection of love and the plenitude of Christian life.

[Pope Benedict, Address to the Bishops of Canada 9 October 2006]

"I believe in the remission of sins"

1. Continuing our reflection on the meaning of conversion, today we will also try to understand the meaning of the forgiveness of sins offered to us by Christ through the sacramental mediation of the Church.

First of all, we want to consider the biblical message about God's forgiveness:  a message that is amply developed in the Old Testament and reaches its fullness in the New. The Church has inserted this article of her faith into the Creed itself, where in fact she professes the forgiveness of sins:  Credo in remissionem peccatorum.

2. The Old Testament speaks to us in various ways about the forgiveness of sins. In this regard we find a variety of terms:  sin is "forgiven", "blotted out" (Ex 32: 32), "purged" (Is 6: 7), "cast behind your back" (Is 38: 17). For example, Psalm 103 says, "who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases" (v. 3). "He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor requite us according to our iniquities.... As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him" (vv. 10, 13).
God's mercy is revealed in Jesus' words and deeds

God's willingness to forgive does not lessen man's responsibility and his need to be converted. However, as the prophet Ezekiel stresses, if the wicked man turns away from his wrongful behaviour his sins will not be remembered and he will live (cf. Ez 18, especially vv. 19-22).

3. In the New Testament, God's forgiveness is revealed through Jesus' words and deeds. In pardoning sins, Jesus shows the face of God the merciful Father. By opposing certain religious tendencies marked by hypocritical severity towards sinners, he shows on various occasions how great and profound is the Father's mercy towards all his children (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1443).

The high point of this revelation can be considered the sublime parable which is usually called "the prodigal son", but which should be called "the merciful father" (Lk 15: 11-32). Here God's attitude is presented in terms that are truly overwhelming in comparison with human criteria and expectations. The father's conduct in the parable can be understood in all its originality, if we keep in mind that in the social context of Jesus' time it was normal for sons to work in their father's house, like the two sons of the vineyard owner, of whom he speaks in another parable (cf. Mt 21: 28-31). This system continued until the father's death, and only then did the sons divide the property they had inherited. In our case, instead, the father agrees to give the younger son his share of the inheritance and divides his possessions between him and his elder son (cf. Lk 15: 12).

4. The younger son's decision to be emancipated, squandering the goods he had received from his father and living a dissolute life (cf. ibid., 15: 13), is a shameless rejection of family communion. 

Leaving the father's house clearly expresses the meaning of sin as an act of ungrateful rebellion with its humanly painful consequences. Human reasonableness, in some way expressed in the elder brother's protest, would have recommended an appropriately severe punishment for the younger son's decision before he could fully rejoin the family.

But the father, catching sight of him while still a long way off, runs to meet him full of compassion (or better, "inwardly moved with pity", as the Greek text literally says:  Lk 15: 20), embraces him lovingly and wants everyone to celebrate with him.

The father's mercy is even more apparent when he tenderly reprimands the elder brother for demanding his own rights (cf. ibid., 15: 29f.), and invites him to the communal banquet of joy. Mere legalism is surpassed by the father's generous and gratuitous love, which exceeds human justice and calls both brothers to be seated again at the father's table.

Forgiveness consists not only in taking back under the paternal roof the son who has left, but also in welcoming him with the joy of restored communion, bringing him from death to life. This is why "it was fitting to make merry and be glad" (ibid., 15: 32).

The merciful Father who embraces the prodigal son is the definitive icon of God revealed by Christ. First and foremost he is Father. It is God the Father who extends his arms in blessing and forgiveness, always waiting, never forcing any of his children. His hands support, clasp, give strength and, at the same time, comfort, console and caress. They are the hands of both a father and a mother.

The merciful father in the parable possesses and transcends all the traits of fatherhood and motherhood. In throwing himself on his son's neck, he resembles a mother who caresses her son and surrounds him with her warmth. In the light of this revelation of the face and heart of God the Father, we can understand Jesus' saying, so disconcerting to human logic:  "There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance" (ibid., 15: 7). And:  "There is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents" (ibid., 15: 10).

5. The mystery of "home-coming" wonderfully expresses the encounter between the Father and humanity, between mercy and misery, in a circle of love that touches not only the son who was lost, but is extended to all.

The invitation to the banquet which the father extends to the elder son implies the heavenly Father's exhortation to all the members of the human family to be merciful as well.

The experience of God's fatherhood implies the acceptance of "brotherhood", precisely because God is the Father of all, even of our erring brother.

In recounting this parable, Jesus does not only speak of the Father but also lets us glimpse his own sentiments. To the Pharisees and the scribes who accused him of receiving sinners and eating with them (cf. ibid., 15: 2), he shows his preference for the sinners and tax collectors who were approaching him with trust (cf. ibid., 15: 1), and thus reveals that he has been sent to manifest the Father's mercy. This is the mercy that shines brightly especially on Golgotha, in the sacrifice offered by Christ for the forgiveness of sins (cf. Mt 26: 28).

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 8 September 1999]

The Gospel [...] recounts the so-called Parable of the Prodigal Son (cf. Lk 15:11-32). It leads us to the heart of God,  who always forgives compassionately and tenderly. Always, God always forgives. We are the ones who tire of asking for forgiveness, but he always forgives. It [the parable] tells us that God is a Father who not only welcomes us back, but rejoices and throws a feast for his son who has returned home after  squandering all his possessions. We are that son, and it is moving to think about how much the Father always loves us and waits for us.

But there is also the elder son in the same parable who manifested his resentment in front of this Father. It can put us into crisis as well. In fact, this elder son is also within us and we are tempted to take his side, at least in part: he had always done his duty, he had not left home, and so he becomes indignant on seeing the Father embracing his [other] son again after having behaved so badly. He protests and says: “I have served you for so many years and never disobeyed your command”. Instead, for “this son of yours”, you go so far as to celebrate! (cf. vv. 29-30) “I don’t understand you!” This is the indignation of the elder son.

These words illustrate the elder son’s problem. He bases his relationship with his Father solely on pure observance of commands , on a sense of duty. This could also be our problem, the problem among ourselves and with God: losing sight that he is a Father, and living a distant religion, made of prohibitions and duties. And the consequence of this distance is rigidity towards our neighbour whom we no longer see as a brother or sister. In fact, in the parable, the elder son does not say my brother  to the Father. No, he says that son of yours , as if to say: he is not my brother. In the end, he risks remaining outside of the house. In fact, the text says: “he refused to go in” (v. 28), because the other one was there.

Seeing this, the Father goes out to plead with him: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (v. 31). He tries to make him understand that for him, every child is all of his life. Parents know this well and are very close to feeling like God does. Something a father says in a novel is very beautiful: “When I became a father, I understood God” (H. de Balzac, Le Père Goriot).  At this point in the parable, the Father opens his heart to his elder son and expresses two needs, which are not commands, but essentials for his heart: “It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive” (v. 32). Let us see if we too have in our hearts these two things the Father needs: to make merry and rejoice .

First of all, to make merry , that is, to demonstrate our closeness to those who repent or who are on the way, to those who are in crisis or who are far away. Why should we do this? Because this helps to overcome the fear and discouragement that can come from remembering one’s sins. Those who have made mistakes often feel reproached in their own hearts. Distance, indifference and harsh words do not help. Therefore, according to the Father, we have to offer them a warm welcome that encourages them to go ahead. “But father, he did so many things”: a warm welcome. And we, do we do this? Do we look for those who are far away? Do we want to celebrate with them? How much good an open heart, true listening and a transparent smile can do; to celebrate, not to make them feel uncomfortable! The Father could have said: “Okay, son, come back home, come back to work, go to your room, establish yourself and your work! And this would have been a good way to forgive. But no! God does not know how to forgive without celebrating! And the Father celebrates because of the joy he has because his son has returned.

And then, like the Father, we have to rejoice . When someone whose heart is synchronized with God’s sees the repentance of a person, they rejoice, no matter how serious their mistakes may have been. They do not stay focused on errors, they do not point fingers at what they have done wrong, but rejoice over the good because another person’s good is mine as well! And we, do we know how to look at others like this?

I would like to recount a fictional story, but one that helps illustrate the heart of the father. There was a pop theatre production, three or four years ago, about the prodigal son, with the entire story. And at the end, when that son decides to return to his father, he talks about it with a friend and says: “I’m afraid my father will reject me, that he won’t forgive me”. And the friend advises him: “Send a letter to your father and tell him, ‘Father, I have repented, I want to come back home, but I’m not sure that you will be happy. If you want to welcome me, please put a white handkerchief in the window’”. And then he began his journey. And when he was near home, at the last bend in the road, he had the house in view. And what did he see? Not one handkerchief: it was full of white handkerchiefs, the windows, everywhere! The Father welcomes us like this, completely, joyfully. This is our Father!

Do we know how to rejoice for others? May the Virgin Mary teach us how to receive God’s mercy so that it might become the light by which we see our neighbours.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 27 March 2022]