Spiritual life needs enlightenment and guidance. This is why Jesus, in founding the Church and sending the Apostles into the world, entrusted them with the task of teaching all nations, as we read in the Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 28:19-20), but also with the task of "preaching the Gospel to the whole creation", as the canonical text of Mark's Gospel says (Mk 16:15). St Paul also speaks of the apostolate as "enlightening everyone" (Eph 3:9).

But this work of the evangelising and teaching Church belongs to the ministry of the Apostles and their successors and, in a different capacity, to all the members of the Church, to continue forever the work of Christ the "one Master" (Mt 23:8), who brought to humanity the fullness of God's revelation. There remains the need for an interior Master, who makes the teaching of Jesus penetrate the spirit and heart of mankind. It is the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus himself calls the "Spirit of truth", and whom he promises as the One who will guide into all truth (cf. Jn 14:17; 16:13). If Jesus said of Himself: "I am the truth" (Jn 14:6), it is this truth of Christ that the Holy Spirit makes known and spreads: "He will not speak of Himself, but will tell all that He has heard . . . he will take of mine and proclaim it to you" (Jn 16:13-14). The Spirit is Light of the soul: "Lumen cordium", as we invoke it in the Pentecost Sequence.

2. The Holy Spirit was Light and inner Master for the Apostles who had to know Christ in depth in order to fulfil their task as his evangelisers. He was and is so for the Church, and, in the Church, for believers of all generations, and especially for theologians and teachers of the Spirit, for catechists and leaders of Christian communities. It has been and is also for all those who, within and outside the visible confines of the Church, wish to follow God's ways with a sincere heart, and through no fault of their own find no one to help them decipher the riddles of the soul and discover the revealed truth. May the Lord grant all our brothers and sisters - millions and indeed billions of men - the grace of recollection and docility to the Holy Spirit in moments that can be decisive in their lives.

For us Christians, the intimate teaching of the Holy Spirit is a joyful certainty, founded on Christ's word about the coming of the 'other Paraclete', whom - he said - 'the Father will send in my name. He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have spoken to you" (John 14:26). "He will guide you into all truth" (Jn 16:13).

3. As is clear from this text, Jesus does not entrust his word only to the memory of his hearers: this memory will be assisted by the Holy Spirit, who will continually revive in the apostles the memory of events and the sense of the mysteries of the Gospel.

In fact, the Holy Spirit guided the Apostles in the transmission of the word and life of Jesus, inspiring both their oral preaching and writings, as well as the writing of the Gospels, as we have seen in the catechesis on the Holy Spirit and Revelation.

But it is still He who gives the readers of Scripture the help to understand the divine meaning included in the text of which He Himself is the inspirer and main author: He alone can make known "the depths of God" (1 Cor 2:10), as they are contained in the sacred text; He who was sent to instruct the disciples on the teachings of their Master (cf. Jn 16:13).

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 24 April 1991]

Let us listen to the Gospel passage and try to understand the guise such false prophets can assume.

They can appear as “snake charmers”, who manipulate human emotions in order to enslave others and lead them where they would have them go. How many of God’s children are mesmerized by momentary pleasures, mistaking them for true happiness! How many men and women live entranced by the dream of wealth, which only makes them slaves to profit and petty interests! How many go through life believing that they are sufficient unto themselves, and end up entrapped by loneliness!

False prophets can also be “charlatans”, who offer easy and immediate solutions to suffering that soon prove utterly useless. How many young people are taken in by the panacea of drugs, of disposable relationships, of easy but dishonest gains! How many more are ensnared in a thoroughly “virtual” existence, in which relationships appear quick and straightforward, only to prove meaningless! These swindlers, in peddling things that have no real value, rob people of all that is most precious: dignity, freedom and the ability to love. They appeal to our vanity, our trust in appearances, but in the end they only make fools of us. Nor should we be surprised. In order to confound the human heart, the devil, who is “a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44), has always presented evil as good, falsehood as truth. That is why each of us is called to peer into our heart to see if we are falling prey to the lies of these false prophets. We must learn to look closely, beneath the surface, and to recognize what leaves a good and lasting mark on our hearts, because it comes from God and is truly for our benefit.

[Pope Francis, Message for Lent 2018]

Holy Trinity [15 June 2025]

May God bless us and the Virgin protect us! 

*First Reading from the Book of Proverbs (8:22-31)

 Last Sunday, the feast of Pentecost, in the responsorial psalm (Ps 103/104), we sang: "You have made all things with wisdom". Today, in this passage from the Book of Proverbs, there is a splendid hymn to Wisdom personified, through whom God guides the world. "The Lord created me as the first of his works... From eternity I was formed... when there were no depths, I was brought forth" (vv. 22-24). The author makes Wisdom speak as a person, and the Hebrew verb qanah means to acquire, to possess, to create, to generate, all meanings appropriate when taken into account the various nuances of the concept of Wisdom. Wisdom never speaks of herself, but always in relation to God, as if they were inseparable. Therefore, there is great intimacy between God and Wisdom. The Jewish faith in the one God has never imagined a triune God; but here it seems that, while remaining firm in the uniqueness of God, it senses that within the One God there is a mystery of dialogue and communion. There is a word that recurs often in this passage: 'first'. 'The Lord created me before his works... from eternity... before the foundations of the earth were laid... before the hills'.  Wisdom is prior to all creation, and the work she accomplishes is so beautiful that it generates true joy: 'I was his delight every day, playing before him... on the earth's surface, placing my delight among the sons of men' (vv. 30-31).  Wisdom 'finds its delight' in God and also in us. We can hear here an echo of the refrain from Genesis: 'God saw that it was good'; and even more so on the sixth day, when man was created (Gen 1:31).  This text from the book of Proverbs reveals a particular aspect of the faith of Israel: eternal Wisdom presided over the entire work of creation, and since the dawn of the world, humanity and the cosmos have been immersed in God's Wisdom, so that the created world is not disordered. Indeed, Wisdom is its creator, and this urges us never to lose faith. Finally, it is truly "folly" of faith to believe that God is always present in human life and, even more, that God finds delight in our company. Divine folly, but reality: if God continues tirelessly to offer us his Covenant of love, it is precisely because "he finds his delight among the children of men" (v. 31).  This text never mentions the Trinity because when the Book of Proverbs was written, not only did the term Trinity not exist, but the very idea did not even occur to anyone. For the chosen people, the first priority was to affirm the one God, and the prophets fought against idolatry and polytheism, since Israel was called to be the witness of the one God (Deut 4:35). Later, however, after the resurrection of Christ, believers discovered that God is One but not solitary: God is Trinity. When this mystery began to be glimpsed, the Scriptures were reread in a new light, and in particular this text which speaks of the Wisdom of God, in order to discern, as in a filigree, the person of Christ. St John writes: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God', an expression which in Greek expresses an intimate communion, an uninterrupted dialogue of love. St Irenaeus and Theophilus of Antioch identified Wisdom with the Spirit, while Origen identified it with the Son. This second interpretation was then accepted by Christian theology.

*Responsorial Psalm (8)

"When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have set in place." Perhaps we are in the context of a night-time celebration, and the prophet Isaiah sometimes alludes to night-time celebrations, for example when he says: "You will sing as on the night of the festival" (Isaiah 30:29). Let us imagine, then, that we are on a summer evening in Jerusalem during a pilgrimage under the stars. If we read the psalm in its entirety, we notice that the first and last verses are exactly the same: "O Lord, our Lord, how great is your name in all the earth!" (vv. 1, 10). The theme is therefore a hymn to the greatness of God, and the name of God is the name of the Covenant, the famous four letters YHVH, which are never pronounced. And so, even if the word "Covenant" is not pronounced, it is implied, and it is the people of the Covenant who are speaking. The first and last verses frame a meditation on man with an interesting construction. Man is at the centre of creation and then everything, including man, is brought back to God: God acts and man contemplates. Everything is the work of God's fingers, who fixed the stars... he thinks of man, cares for him, crowned him with glory and honour and set him above the works of his hands, placing everything at his feet. The overall structure of the psalm therefore presents concentric circles: at the centre is man – 'What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You have given him power over the works of your hands, you have put everything under his feet'. Then there is a first circle, creation: on one side the starry sky and the moon... on the other all living beings: flocks, wild animals, birds, fish; a second circle, the repeated phrase: man contemplates the true king of Creation: 'O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth!'.  God does not jealously guard his kingship for himself, but in turn crowns man, and even for man, royal language is used: man is "a little lower than a god", he is "crowned"... everything is "at his feet". Our thoughts turn to the book of Genesis, which recounts the creation of man as the last act after all other living beings, precisely to show that man is at the summit and gives a name to all creatures. Man's vocation is to be the king of creation, and to the first human couple, God said to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it (Gen 1:28). We are faced with a psalm that breathes the joy of living, even though there may be days when God's presence is perceived as oppressive. Think of Job, who surely knew this psalm by heart. Yet in his despair, he regretted having sung it with enthusiasm and went so far as to say: 'Why do you search out man every morning and test him every moment?  How long will you look down on me and let me swallow my saliva? (Job 7:17-19). On that day, his faith was in danger of wavering. This can happen to us too, but, as with Job, in the end we too discover that God watches over us and, whatever happens, continues to 'take care of man'. The Bible is a 'joyful' book, and this psalm breathes joy in the splendour of God and man. Man, the king of creation, submits himself to the true Lord: he recognises his smallness and knows that he owes everything to his Creator.

*Second Reading from the Letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Romans (5:1-5)

 We are in Rome, at the time of Emperor Nero, in the year 57 or 58 AD; as in almost all cities in the Mediterranean basin, there is a Jewish community, estimated at several tens of thousands of people, experiencing a first serious schism between Jews and Judeo-Christians (Jews converted to Christ), accusing each other of heresy or deviation. There are also difficult relations between Judeo-Christians, still attached to their religious practices, and converted pagans called pagan Christians, who maintain possible remnants of idolatry. These conflicts become more entrenched over the years, so that in his letter to the Romans, Paul sets himself the task of restoring peace. The big question between former Jews and former pagans is this: since God chose the Jewish people to proclaim salvation to the world and since Jesus was Jewish, should former pagans be asked to become Jews before becoming Christians and be required to undergo circumcision and all Jewish practices? St Paul responds by arguing as follows: first of all, Christians, whatever their past, are all equal before salvation when they accept Christ, the only one who saves. Furthermore, even though they know that only faith saves and not human merits, some Jewish Christians claimed the privilege of being the only people of the Covenant and do not consider pagans to be descendants of Abraham. In chapter four, Paul has already answered that Abraham was declared righteous long before he was circumcised and was a pagan when he received God's call and, moved by trust, obeyed the One who asked him to leave his land and go to the country he would show him (Genesis 12). 'Abraham believed in the Lord, and because of this, the Lord considered him righteous' (Genesis 15:6). In today's text, Paul has clearly in mind the exemplary adventure of Abraham who, "through faith," became the father of all believers, with or without circumcision. Therefore, there is no point in arguing about this among Christians. He states this clearly at the beginning of today's text: "Justified by faith, we are at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Salvation is a free gift from God, who asks for a trusting abandonment of faith. By repeating the expression "through faith" or "by faith," he reaffirms that we are justified by the death and resurrection of Christ, who makes us live in intimacy with God, what Paul calls "grace." By pure grace, we participate in Christ's justice, thus reintegrated into God's Covenant and immersed in Trinitarian communion. Here, as in the first reading (from the book of Proverbs), there is no mention of the word Trinity, but it is precisely the Trinity that Paul is referring to when he speaks of "the grace in which we find ourselves." He contemplates the mystery of God in Trinitarian terms when he writes: "we are at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" and "the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us". He then speaks of the turmoil that can become a path to God, producing perseverance and hope. Hope, a virtue of the poor, is at the end of a long journey of dispossession which, "despite everything", trials, discouragement, obstinacy, problems of all kinds, arises from trusting abandonment to God, knowing that divine love has been poured into our hearts through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Finally, when he writes 'the love of God', one wonders about the meaning of the preposition 'of': is it the love that God has for us or our love for God?  He answers that the Holy Spirit pours into our hearts the same love that God has for humanity and, in turn, we become capable of loving by entering more and more into the Trinitarian communion already now: this journey is participating "in the glory of God" in the hope of sharing in God's glory. This hope does not disappoint, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us, as we celebrated last Sunday, the feast of Pentecost.

*From the Gospel according to John (16:12–15)
To immerse ourselves in this Gospel, we need to 'dress our hearts', to paraphrase Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944): 'It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye' (The Little Prince, chapter 21). On the eve of his death, Jesus does not use the word "Trinity", but does much more by introducing us into the intimacy of the Trinity. To perceive this mystery of love and communion, we need to be in tune with him, to be ourselves a burning fire of love and communion. Unfortunately, however, we are more like green wood placed in contact with fire, which burns with difficulty. Jesus assures us that it will be the Spirit of God, the fire, that will come into us and dwell in our hearts. At the Last Supper, he prepares his disciples for the events that are about to take place, knowing that there are things that cannot yet be understood because 'you cannot bear it now' (v. 12). The history of humanity, like that of every human being, is the adventure of a long journey, and God accompanies us. Throughout biblical history, God reveals himself progressively, and the chosen people abandon their beliefs to discover the true face of God. Even the disciples struggled to recognise Jesus as the Messiah, so different were their messianic expectations. The journey of encounter and discovery of God will continue throughout the centuries and along this historical path, the Spirit of truth accompanies us to guide us to the whole truth. Truth, one of the key words of this text, is a goal, not a possession: it is not intellectual, it is not knowledge, and Jesus says, "I am the Truth": therefore, a Person to be "known." In biblical language, 'to know' indicates an experience of life to such an extent that 'to know' is used for marital union. It is a knowledge of love that cannot be explained, it can only be lived and marvelled at. The Spirit will come to dwell in us, to penetrate us and guide us towards Christ who is the Truth, and if we wish to enter into the knowledge of the mysteries of God, we must resolutely invoke the Holy Spirit. Then, little by little, the revelation of God's mystery will no longer be external to us: we will have an intimate perception of it, as the prophets already promised: 'All shall know me, from the least to the greatest' (Jer 31:34). One last observation: the Spirit 'will tell you things that are to come' (v. 13). Let us not expect revelations in the manner of seers, because this is something much greater: it is the plan of love and salvation that God is realising in human history. St. Paul calls it "the plan of his kindness," which is, in fact, the entry of the whole of humanity into the intimate life of the Trinity (cf. Eph 1:3-10). The Spirit of love enabled Jesus to overcome Satan's temptations in the desert, guided him throughout his mission, inspiring his words, actions and miracles, until the final act of extreme courage in his total abandonment in Gethsemane. In our existence, we too walk towards this whole truth of Christ, and it is the Spirit who dwells in us who makes us bold in our mission, introducing us to the very experience of the intimacy of the Triune God. Ultimately, in celebrating the feast of the Trinity, we do not contemplate from afar an inaccessible mystery; we are already celebrating the great feast of the end of time: that of humanity's entry into the House of God.

NOTE For the disciples of Christ, the truth is Christ himself: Jesus of Nazareth, true God and true man, who reveals the face of truth. Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote to Mrs Fonvizina in 1854 about the relationship between truth and Christ: 'I have formed a symbol of faith in which everything is clear and sacred to me. This symbol of faith is very simple, here it is: to believe that there is nothing more beautiful, more profound, more sympathetic, more reasonable, more courageous and more perfect than Christ; and not only is there nothing, but with jealous love I tell myself that there cannot be. But there is more: if someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth and it actually turned out that the truth is outside Christ, I would prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth" (letter to N.F. Fonvizina, No. 61, February 1854). Without knowing Christ, there can be no knowledge of the truth. Benedict XVI also writes this clearly in his book Jesus of Nazareth.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

In today's society, there are many factors that cause anxiety and restlessness, and strategies to combat them are often difficult to find. 

This period is characterised by the 'shaking' of fundamental values, norms and aspirations that drove man towards fulfilment and healthy relationships with others.

The current wars around the world, the memories of them for older people, and the threat of nuclear war add to the list.

In such a hostile climate, human isolation is accentuated.

Each person has their own way of reacting: the most common is a sense of unease, anxiety, feeling in danger without knowing what the danger is; a sense of ruin, or something else.

We often fail to understand the cause of all this. People feel helpless, and if this unease is strong, it can be discharged onto the body.

Muscle stiffness may be noticed, or there may be tremors, a feeling of weakness or tiredness; even the voice may tremble.

At the cardiovascular level, palpitations, fainting, increased heart rate and increased blood pressure may occur. 

Nausea, vomiting and stomach ache may also occur in the intestines, which have no organic origin. 

There may also be other symptoms typical of each person's history, and there is no organ that cannot be affected by internal tension.

I remember that in my professional life I have met people with psychological problems that were 'discharged' in different parts of the body, sometimes in the most unimaginable places.

I have encountered alopecia (hair loss), locked limbs, visual disturbances, fainting, and more recently, teenagers who cut themselves...

If a person feels overwhelmed by a sudden wave of inner discomfort, they may react inappropriately or even dangerously (alcohol, drugs, speeding, gambling, etc.).

Understanding these disturbances, worries and anxieties is important in determining whether they are normal or not.

Unusual states of anxiety are distinguished from more or less persistent apprehension with acute crises.

These states are to be distinguished from the state of generalised worry that we find common in our daily lives.

Let us remember that in order to define our anxiety and agitation, we must convince ourselves that it is something normal when the individual feels threatened.

Agitation should be distinguished from fear, where the danger is real: the individual can assess the situation and choose whether to face it or flee.

When we talk about agitation in the normal sense, we mean that it is human nature to feel it when faced with danger, illness, etc.

It represents the deepest way of living our human existence.

It makes us face our limits and weaknesses, which are not manifestations of inner discomfort or illness, but expressions of human nature. 

The more aware we are of our limits, the better we are able to live with our anxieties.

For our fellow human beings who feel omnipotent, agitation and anxiety are unbearable, as they bring to consciousness the limits that are a wound to their 'feeling of being a superior creature'. 

We experience normal unease even when we leave an 'old road for a new one'.

From this point of view, it accompanies us in our changes, in our evolution, and in finding meaning in our lives.

Dr Francesco Giovannozzi, psychologist and psychotherapist

Pentecost Sunday (Year C)  [8 June 2025]

May God bless us and the Virgin protect us! On the feast of Pentecost, like Mary and the apostles, let us prepare our hearts to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit who transforms us into fire and light of love. Today, the first reading and the responsorial psalm are common to years A, B, and C, while the second reading and the Gospel are different each year.

*First reading from the Acts of the Apostles (2:1-11)

Jerusalem is not only the city where Jesus instituted the Eucharist, died and rose again, but it is also the city where the Spirit was poured out upon humanity. It was the year of Jesus' death, but the people in the city had probably never heard of his death, let alone his resurrection, so the feast of Pentecost was like any other for them. The Jewish Pentecost was very important because it was the feast of the giving of the Law, one of the three feasts of the year for which people went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and the list of all the nationalities present on that occasion proves its great interest. For the disciples of Jesus, who had seen, heard and touched him after his resurrection, nothing was the same as before, even if they did not expect what was about to happen. Luke helps us to understand what is happening by choosing his words carefully and evoking at least these three texts from the Old Testament: the gift of the Law at Sinai, a prophecy of Joel, and the episode of the Tower of Babel. First of all, Sinai. The tongues of fire and the sound like a mighty wind recall what happened at Sinai when God gave the tablets of the Law to Moses (Exodus 19:16-19).  Following this line, Luke helps us understand that Pentecost was not simply a traditional pilgrimage, but a new Sinai, where God gave his Law to teach the people how to live in the Covenant. At Pentecost, He gave His own Spirit, and from then on, His Law, the only true path to freedom and happiness, was no longer written on stone tablets but in the hearts of men, as Ezekiel had prophesied (Ezekiel 11:19-20; 36:26-27). The prophet Joel: Luke certainly wanted to evoke a word of Joel: 'I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, says God' (Joel 3:1), that is, on all humanity. For Luke, those devout Jews from all nations under heaven, as he calls them, are a symbol of the whole of humanity, for whom Joel's prophecy is finally fulfilled, and this means that the long-awaited 'Day of the Lord' has come. The Tower of Babel is an event that can be summarised in two acts: Act 1: Men, who speak the same language and the same words, decide to build an immense tower between the earth and the sky. Act 2: God stops them and scatters them across the earth, confusing their languages, and from that moment on they no longer understand each other. What is the meaning of this story? God certainly does not want to stifle man's potential, and if He intervenes, He does so to spare humanity the false path of single-minded thinking and a human project that excludes God. It is as if He were saying: you are seeking unity, which is a good thing, but you are going about it the wrong way, because unity in love does not come through standardisation, but through diversity. And this is the message of Pentecost: at Babel, humanity learns diversity; at Pentecost, it learns unity in diversity, 'conviviality' (as Don Tonino Bello writes), because all nations hear the proclamation, each in its own language, of the one message: 'Magnalia Dei, the great works of God' (Acts 2:11).

*Responsorial Psalm (103 (104), 1.24, 29-30, 31.34)

This psalm has 36 verses of praise and wonder at the works of God, a beautiful poem. It is proposed for the feast of Pentecost because Luke, in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, recounts that on the morning of Pentecost, the apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, began to proclaim in all languages the 'great works of God' of creation. All civilisations have poems about the beauty of nature. In particular, a poem written by the famous pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV) was found in Egypt in the tomb of a pharaoh, a hymn to the Sun God. Amenhotep IV lived around 1350 BC, at a time when the Jews were probably in Egypt and may have known this poem. There are similarities in style and vocabulary between the pharaoh's poem and Psalm 103/104, but what is interesting is to note the differences marked by God's revelation to the people of the Covenant. First difference: God alone is God, an essential difference for the faith of Israel: God is the only God, there are no others, and the sun is not a god. The account of creation in the book of Genesis puts the sun and moon in their place: they are not gods, but luminaries, themselves simple creatures. Several verses show God as the only Lord of creation using royal language: God presents himself as a magnificent, majestic and victorious king. Second peculiarity: Creation is all good, and here there is an echo of Genesis, which repeats tirelessly: 'And God saw that it was good'. This psalm evokes all the elements of creation with the same wonder: 'I rejoice in the Lord', and the psalmist adds (in a verse not read this Sunday): 'I will sing to the Lord as long as I live, I will sing praise to my God while I have my breath'. However, evil is not ignored: the end of the psalm mentions it and invokes its disappearance, since it was already understood in the Old Testament that evil does not come from God, because all creation is good and one day God will remove all evil from the earth: the victorious King will eliminate everything that hinders human happiness. Third peculiarity: Creation is continuous, not an act of the past, as if God had thrown the earth and man into space once and for all, but a perennial relationship between the Creator and his creatures. When we say in the Creed: "I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth," we are not only affirming our faith in an initial act, but we are recognising that we are in a necessary relationship with him, and this psalm reiterates this by speaking of God's constant action: "All wait for you... You hide your face, they are dismayed... You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. You send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth." Another peculiarity: Man is the culmination of creation. According to the Jewish faith, man is at the summit of creation, the king of creation, and for this reason he is filled with the breath of God. And this is precisely what we celebrate at Pentecost: the Spirit of God who is in us vibrates and resonates with man and with all creation, and the psalmist sings: 'Let God rejoice in his works! I rejoice in the Lord." In conclusion, creation makes sense in the light of the Covenant: In Israel, every reflection on creation is placed in the perspective of the Covenant, since Israel first experienced liberation by God and only afterwards meditated on creation in the light of this fundamental experience. There are visible traces of this in the psalm: First of all, the name of God used is always the famous tetragrammaton YHWH, which we translate as Lord, the name of the God of the Covenant, revealed to Moses. Furthermore, in the expression, 'Lord, my God, how great you are', the possessive is a reference to the Covenant, since God's plan in the Covenant was precisely this: 'You shall be my people, and I will be your God'. This promise is fulfilled in the gift of the Spirit to all flesh, as the prophet Joel proclaims, and every person is invited to receive the gift of the Spirit to become a true child of God.

*Second Reading from the Letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Romans (8:8–17)

 The main difficulty in this text lies in the word 'flesh', which in St Paul's vocabulary does not have the same meaning as in our vocabulary, where the two components of the human being, body and soul, are often contrasted, with the risk of misinterpreting what Paul means when he speaks of flesh and Spirit. What he calls 'flesh' is not what we call body, and what he calls 'Spirit' does not correspond to what we call soul; indeed, he specifies several times that it is the Spirit of God, 'the Spirit of Christ'. He does not contrast two words, 'flesh' and 'Spirit', but two expressions: 'living according to the flesh' and 'living according to the Spirit', that is, choosing between two ways of living, or rather deciding whom to follow and what course of action to take. Here we return to the theme of the two paths that every Jew, like St Paul, knows well: choosing between two paths, between two possible attitudes in the face of difficulties or trials: trust in God or distrust; the certainty of never feeling abandoned by God or the doubt and suspicion that God does not really seek our good; fidelity to his commandments because we trust him, or disobedience because we consider ourselves capable of autonomous decisions. The history of Israel in the Bible (think of Massah and Meribah in the Book of Exodus) presents numerous examples of mistrust in the face of life's trials, especially in the desert, where the people faced many trials, including hunger and thirst. When the people suspected that God had abandoned them, they put God and Moses on trial. Even Adam, faced with the limits placed on his desires, suspected and disobeyed the Lord. The temptation of Adam and Eve in Eden is repeated in our lives every day: it is the constant problem of trust and distrust, the so-called 'original' sin in the sense that it is at the root of all human disasters. Opposed to suspicion and rebellion against God is Christ's attitude of trust and submission because he knows that God's will is only good. Especially in the face of the challenges of pain in all its forms and death, there are two opposing attitudes that Paul calls 'living according to the flesh' or 'living according to the Spirit'. For him, living according to the flesh means behaving like slaves who do not trust and obey out of obligation or fear of punishment. "Living according to the Spirit," on the other hand, means "behaving like children," that is, weaving relationships of trust and tenderness which, following Christ's example, lead to life. Living under the influence of the flesh (i.e., in an attitude of distrust and disobedience towards God) leads to death, while living through the Spirit is to put to death the works of sin. In other words, the attitude of a slave is destructive, while the attitude of a child is the way to peace and happiness. The Spirit of God, who dwells in us through baptism, enables us to call God 'Abba-Father', and on the day when all humanity recognises God as Father, the divine plan will be fulfilled, and we will all enter into his glory together. A few verses later, Paul notes that creation eagerly awaits the revelation of the children of God. Finally, today's text reminds us that since we are children of God, we are also heirs of God, co-heirs with Christ, on condition that we suffer with him in order to be with him in glory. This text can be read in two ways: the slave imagines a God who sets conditions on inheritance; instead, the son considers God as Father even and above all in suffering. Suffering is inevitable, as it was for Christ, but lived with him and like him, it becomes a path to resurrection, and then 'on condition that we suffer with him' means: on condition that we are with him, that we remain united to him at all times, even in inevitable suffering.

*From the Gospel according to John (14:15-16, 23b-26)

 This well-known Gospel passage takes on new meaning today thanks to the other biblical texts proposed for the feast of Pentecost. For example, we are tempted to think of the Holy Spirit in terms of inspiration, ideas, discernment, intelligence, but for the feast of the gift of the Spirit, today's Gospel speaks only of love. Jesus says here that the Spirit of God is something else entirely: it is Love, Love personified. This means that on the morning of Pentecost in Jerusalem, when the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit, it was love itself, which is God, that filled them. In the same way, we too, baptised and confirmed, know that our capacity to love is inhabited by the love of God himself. The responsorial psalm 103/104 reminds us of this when it proclaims: You send forth your Spirit, and we, created in the image of God, are called to resemble him more and more, constantly moulded by him in his image. The Spirit is the potter who works his clay, and every vessel becomes more and more refined in the hands of the craftsman. We are the clay in God's hands, so our likeness to Him is refined more and more as we allow ourselves to be transformed by the Spirit of Love. In the second reading, St. Paul speaks of our relationship with God, summarising it in one sentence: we are no longer slaves, but children of God, while in the Gospel, Jesus links our relationship with God to our relationship with our brothers and sisters: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (Jn 14:15), and we know well what his commandment is: 'that you love one another as I have loved you' (Jn 13:34).  If Jesus is referring to the gesture of washing feet, that is, to a decisive attitude of service, we can translate "if you love me, you will keep my commandments" as "if you love me, you will serve one another". God's love and love for our brothers and sisters are inseparable, so inseparable that it is by the quality of our service to our neighbour that the quality of our love for God is judged and therefore "if you do not serve your brothers and sisters, do not claim to love me!"  A little further on, Jesus takes up a similar expression and develops it: "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him" (Jn 14:23). This does not mean that the Father in heaven does not love us if we do not serve our brothers and sisters, because there are no conditions or blackmail in him. On the contrary, the characteristic of mercy is precisely to bend down even more towards the poor, as we are all poor, at least in terms of love and service to others. Love is learned by practising it, but what the Lord is telling us here is something we know well: the ability to love is an art, and every art is learned by practising it. The Father's love is boundless, infinite, but our capacity to receive it is limited and grows as we practise it. We can therefore translate this as follows: 'If anyone loves me, he will put himself at the service of others and little by little, his heart will expand; the love of God will fill him more and more, and he will be able to serve others even better... and so on to infinity," that is, in unlimited progress. Let us conclude by returning to the term "Paraclete," which can be translated as comforter and defender. Yes, we need a defender, but not before God, and St. Paul makes this clear in the second reading: The Spirit you have received does not make you slaves, people who are still afraid, but rather the Spirit who makes you children (cf. Rom 8:15).  We are therefore no longer afraid of God and we do not need a lawyer before Him. But then why does Jesus say that he will pray to the Father, and he will give us another defender, to remain with us forever? Yes, we need an advocate, who defends us from ourselves, from our reluctance to serve others, from our lack of trust in God's power, who constantly defends the cause of others against our selfishness because, in doing so, he actually defends us, since true happiness consists in allowing ourselves to be moulded every day by God in his image, overcoming all selfish resistance.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

God bless us and may the Virgin protect us! For the feast of the Ascension, the first reading and the psalm are common to years A, B, C, while the second reading and the gospel change 

*First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles (1:1-11)

These first verses of the Acts of the Apostles recall the conclusion of Luke's gospel, also addressed to a certain Theophilus, and it is interesting to note that one begins where the other ends, that is, with the account of Jesus' Ascension, even though the two narratives do not match perfectly as we can see when reading the texts of Year C. The gospel narrates the mission and preaching of Jesus, the Acts of the Apostles focuses on the missionary activity of the apostles, hence the title. Luke's gospel begins and ends in Jerusalem, the heart of the Jewish world and of the First Covenant; Acts begins in Jerusalem, because the New Covenant continues the First, but ends in Rome, the crossroads of all the world's roads, and the New Covenant goes beyond the borders of Israel. For Luke it is clear that this expansion is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, the inspirer of the apostles since Pentecost, so much so that Acts is often called 'the gospel of the Spirit'. Jesus, after his baptism, prepared himself for his mission with forty days of desert, so he prepares the Church for this new missionary phase by appearing to the apostles for forty days and "speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God". In fact, "while he was at table with them", thus during a last supper, he gives the apostles some instructions that can be summarised as: an order, a promise and a sending on mission.

The order: do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the fulfilment of the Father's promise that must be fulfilled in Jerusalem since all the preaching of the prophets, especially Isaiah, attributes to Jerusalem a central role in God's plan (cf. Is 60:1-3; 62:1-2). The promise: "John baptised with water, you on the other hand will be baptised in the Holy Spirit not many days from now". This too was known to the apostles, who remembered the prophecy of Joel: "I will pour out my spirit on every creature" (Joel 3:1), and the prophecies of Zechariah: (Zechariah 13:1; 12:10), and of Ezekiel: "I will pour out cleansing water on you and you will be purified... I will put a new spirit in you... I will put my spirit in you" (Ezek 36:25-27). When the apostles ask "whether this is the time when he will rebuild the kingdom for Israel", they show that they have understood that "the Day of the Lord" has dawned and God's plan now demands man's cooperation: with Christ, in fact, the promised Saviour has come, now it is up to human freedom to accept him, and for this the apostles' announcement is necessary. Hence the responsible mission of the apostles who receive the Holy Spirit: "You will receive the power of the Holy Spirit who will come upon you, and you will be my witnesses... to the ends of the earth". The plan that the book of Acts follows is in fact this: first the proclamation in Jerusalem, then throughout Judea and Samaria, and finally it must spread to the ends of the earth. Just as on Easter morning two men in shining garments aroused the women saying: "Why do you seek the Living One among the dead? He is not here, he is risen", so, on Ascension Day, "two men in white robes" do the same to the apostles: "Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing into the sky? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven" (1:11). Jesus will return, we are certain of it, and we proclaim it in every Eucharist when we say 'In blessed hope of the coming of Jesus Christ our Saviour'. Finally, a cloud removes Jesus from human sight: his carnal presence ceases to usher in the spiritual one. A visible sign of this presence of God is the cloud already present at the Red Sea passage (Ex 13:21) and at the Transfiguration (Lk 9:34).

NOTE: The events between the Resurrection and Ascension cannot be reconstructed exactly. In Luke's texts (Gospel and Acts) the narration is essentially identical: Jesus leaves Bethany and takes the disciples to the Mount of Olives recommending that they not leave Jerusalem until they have received the Holy Spirit. The only difference concerns the duration: in the gospel it appears that the Ascension takes place on the evening of Easter itself, whereas in Acts it is made clear that forty days elapse between Easter and Ascension - hence the feast forty days later. In the other gospels little is found about the Ascension: Matthew does not speak of it at all, reporting only the apparition to the women and the sending to Galilee (Matthew 28:18-20). John narrates several apparitions, but omits the Ascension. Mark mentions the Ascension briefly at the end (Mk 16:19). The differences show that the gospels do not aim at a precise geographical account but at emphasising theological aspects: Matthew insists on Galilee, Luke on Jerusalem. In fact, it is in Jerusalem that Jesus had ordered to wait for the Spirit: "Behold, I send upon you him whom my Father has promised; but you remain in the city until you are clothed with power from on high" (Lk 24:49).

*Responsorial Psalm (46 (47),2-3,6-7,8-9)

In this psalm Israel sings and acclaims God not only as its king, but as king of the whole earth. Before the exile in Babylon, no king of Israel had imagined that God could be the Lord of the whole universe, and therefore the psalm dates from a late period in Israel's history. God is the king of Israel and therefore in Israel the king did not hold all power because the true king was God himself. The king could not dispose of the law as he pleased and, like everyone else, had to submit to the Torah, i.e. the rules that God had given to Moses on Sinai. On the contrary, according to the book of Deuteronomy, he had to read the entire Law every day and, even sitting on the throne, he was (in principle) no more than an executor of God's orders, transmitted to him by the prophets. In the Books of Kings, kings sought the advice of the prophet in charge before embarking on a military campaign or, in the case of David, before starting the building of the Temple, so that the prophets freely intervened in the lives of kings, strongly criticising their actions. Such a conception of God's sovereignty was even an obstacle to the establishment of monarchy, as was the case when the prophet Samuel, in the time of the Judges, reacted strongly towards the tribal leaders who demanded a king to be like all other nations. To desire to be like other peoples, when one is God's chosen people and in covenant with Him, was something blasphemous, and if Samuel gave in to the pressure, he did not fail to warn of the ruin they were bringing upon themselves. When he anointed the first king, Saul, he took care to point out that he became the custodian of God's heritage because the people remained God's people, not the king's, and the king himself was only a servant of God. During the years of the monarchy, the prophets were charged with reminding the kings of this essential truth. One understands then that in honour of God, this psalm uses the vocabulary that was elsewhere reserved for kings. Even 'terrible' is an expression typical of court jargon and should be understood as follows: the king (God) does not frighten his subjects, but reassures them, and so the enemies are warned that 'our king' will be invincible. The God king of the universe, "the great king over all the earth" (v. 3), acclaimed in every verse of the psalm is precisely the God of Sinai, the "Lord" and in this feast all peoples participate: "All peoples clap your hands, acclaim God with shouts of joy!" so that the universal dimension profoundly pervades the psalm to the point of saying "God reigns over the nations" (v. 9) recognising him as the only God of the entire universe.

NOTE: The real discovery of monotheism occurred only with the Babylonian exile: until then Israel was not monotheist in the full sense of the term, but monolatrist, i.e. it recognised as its own one God - the God of the Sinai Covenant - but admitted that the neighbouring peoples each had their own god, sovereign in their own land and defender in battle. This psalm was therefore probably composed after the return from exile, not in the throne room, but in the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem, in a liturgical context evoking God's great plan for humanity, anticipating the day when God will finally be recognised as the Father of all good. We Christians make this psalm our own, and the expression "God ascends amid acclamations" seems well suited for today's celebration of Jesus' Ascension. In paying this splendid homage to Christ, King of the Universe, we anticipate the song that on the last day the children of God finally gathered together will intone: "All peoples, clap your hands! Acclaim God with shouts of joy".

*Second Reading from the Letter to the Hebrews (9:24-28 ; 10:19-23)     

In the first part of this text, the author meditates on the mystery of Christ; in the second part, he draws the consequences for the life of faith with the intention of reassuring his readers, Christians of Jewish origin, who felt a certain nostalgia for ancient worship since in Christian practice there is no longer a temple, nor blood sacrifice, and wondered if this is really what God wants. The author goes through all the rituals and realities of the Jewish religion showing that they are now outdated. He deals especially with the Temple, called the sanctuary, and makes it clear that one must distinguish the true sanctuary in which God dwells - heaven itself - from the temple built by men, which is only a pale image of it. The Jews were rightly proud of the Temple in Jerusalem, but they did not forget that every human construction, by definition, remains weak, imperfect and destined to perish. Moreover, no one in Israel claimed that one could enclose the presence of God in a building, no matter how majestic. The first builder of the Temple, King Solomon, had already said this: "Would God dwell on earth? The heavens and the heaven of heavens cannot contain you; let alone this House that I have built!" (1 Kings 8:27).  For Christians, the true Temple - the place of encounter with God - is no longer a building, because the Incarnation of the Word has changed everything. The place of encounter between God and man is Christ, the God made man, and St John explains this when he narrates Jesus driving the money changers and animal sellers out of the Temple. To those who asked him: "What sign will you show us to do this?" (i.e. "in whose name are you making this revolution?) he replied: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will restore it". Only after the resurrection will the disciples understand that he was talking about his body (Jn 2:13-21). Here, in the Letter to the Hebrews, the same thing is affirmed: only by being grafted into Christ, nourished by his body, do we enter into the mystery of the God who "entered not into a sanctuary made by human hands, a figure of the true one, but into heaven" (Heb 9:24). This occurred with the death of Christ, making clear the centrality of the Cross in the Christian mystery, as confirmed by all New Testament authors. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews specifies later that the culmination of Christ's life-offering is his death, but his sacrifice embraces his entire existence, not just his Passion (cp10). In the passage we read today, the focus is on the sacrifice of the Passion, as opposed to that which the high priest offered each year on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). He entered alone into the Holy of Holies, pronounced the unspeakable name of God (YHVH), shed the blood of a bull for his own sins and that of a goat for those of the people, thus solemnly renewing the covenant, and when he left, the people knew that their sins were forgiven. That covenant had to be renewed every year, but the new covenant established with the Father is final in Christ crucified and risen. On the cross, the true face of God is revealed, who loves us to the uttermost, the Father of each one of us, for whom there is no longer any fear of God's judgement. When we proclaim in the Creed that Jesus will come to judge the living and the dead, we know that, in God, judgement means salvation, as we read here: "Christ, having offered himself once to take away the sin of many, will appear a second time, without any relation to sin to those who wait for him for their salvation" (Heb 9:28). This certainty of faith enables us to live our relationship with God in full serenity and thanksgiving. But it is important to bear witness to it, as this text exhorts us: "Let us continue without hesitation to profess our hope, for He who promised is faithful" (Heb 10:23). Jesus Christ is "the high priest of future goods" (Heb. 9:11).

*From the Gospel according to Saint Luke (24:46-53)

The synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke differ in their account of the Lord's Ascension, 

Matthew places it on a mountain in Galilee, where Jesus had fixed his appointment with the apostles; Mark gives no geographical indication; Luke, on the contrary, places the event on the Mount of Olives towards Bethany. Thus he ends the gospel where it began, in Jerusalem: the holy city of the chosen people from which the revelation of the one God had radiated to the world; the city of the temple-sign of God's presence among men. But also the city of the fulfilment of salvation through Christ's death and resurrection, and the city of the gift of the Spirit. Finally, the city from which the final revelation is to radiate over the universe, and Luke makes Jesus' words ring in our ears: "Was it not necessary that Christ should suffer these things in order to enter into his glory?" (Lk 24:26). What is new here, in comparison to the three prophecies of his passion uttered by Jesus before the events and the two statements immediately after the resurrection and on the road to Emmaus, is the conclusion of the sentence, which takes the form of a missionary sending of the apostles: "Thus it is written: 'Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and in his name shall be preached to all nations repentance and forgiveness of sins, beginning at Jerusalem. Of this you are witnesses (Lk 24:46-49) For the first Christians it was difficult to explain which passage of Scripture had announced the sufferings of the Messiah and his resurrection on the third day; among the last prophets of the Old Testament the prophecies about the conversion of all nations, beginning with Jerusalem, were much more widespread, as we read in Jeremiah: "On that day they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; all nations shall flock there, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem" (3:17); and in the third Isaiah: "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples" (56:7); "From moon to moon, from Sabbath to Sabbath, every creature shall come and bow down before me" (66:23). Zechariah then develops this theme: "On that day many nations will gather to the Lord and will be a people to me" (Za 2:15), "Many peoples and mighty nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the Lord of hosts" (8:22).Exegetes state that although these reflections are present in numerous psalms, it was above all the songs of the Servant in Deutero-Isaiah (Is 42; 49; 50; 52-53) that inspired the evangelists' meditation and clarified Jesus' expression "It was necessary that::" because in these four canticles emerges the figure of the suffering and glorified Messiah and the proclamation of good for all the nations: "I, the Lord," have called you with righteousness, I have taken you by the hand, I have formed you; I have made you a covenant of the people, a light of the nations" (Is 42:6);

"The righteous, my servant, will justify the multitudes" (Is 53:11). This conclusion of Luke's gospel thus takes on the tones of the liturgy: Jesus, the true High Priest, blesses his own and sends them out into the world, and the people worship and give thanks: "Lifting up his hands, he blessed them. And as he blessed them, he departed from them and was taken up into heaven. And they prostrated themselves before him; then they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and stood in the temple praising God" (Lk 24:50-53). Luke's gospel closes by going back to its beginning, when Zechariah, a priest of the Old Covenant, had heard the announcement of God's salvation (Lk 1:5-19), and the last image that the disciples kept of the Master is a gesture of blessing. This explains why they return to Jerusalem with great joy. In this concluding image is enclosed the mystery of the light and joy of the Ascension, a departure that is not abandonment but the certainty of a different presence, invisible but even more powerful and effective.

+Giovanni D'Ercole