Big emergency, for little Name

(Mt 10:1-7)

"These twelve Jesus sent after he had commanded them, saying, 'Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter the cities of the Samaritans - but go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.

The proclamation of the new Faith needed breathing space; yet it was to find a dense fire of interdiction, very tenacious, precisely from the frequenters of the ingrained and habitual religiosity - linked to the ideology of power.

The first restriction to Israel had become necessary, precisely in order to uncover the most dangerous devotion: the empty and closed devotion of the synagogue, which - accustomed to the expectation of the extraordinary outside - now waited for nothing authentic to arouse it.

But the meaning of vv.5-6 is also very profound from a personal point of view, and concerns not only the initial restriction to the Chosen People of the Messianic Revelation, of the explicit universalistic openness, or of the Mission.

None of the Apostles were in themselves worthy of the Call; yet they were called, and could accept their Mandate - as if it were already perfect!

Most of them have names typical of Judaism, even from the time of the patriarchs - which indicates a cultural and spiritual background rooted more in religion than in Faith not easy to deal with.

Peter was eager to come forward, but also often backtracked (backtracked) to the point of becoming a 'satan' for Jesus [in the culture of the ancient East, an official of the great ruler, sent to act as a controller and delator - practically an accuser]. James of Zebedee and John were brothers, ardent fundamentalists, and hysterically wanted the Master only for themselves. Philip did not seem a very practical fellow, nor quick-witted or trained to grasp the things of God. Andrew, on the other hand, seemed to do well: an inclusive person. Bartholomew was probably open but perplexed, because the Messiah did not correspond to him much. Thomas was a little in and a little out. Matthew a collaborator, greedy accomplice of the oppressive system. Simon the Canaanite a hothead. Judas Iscariot a self-destructor, trusting the old spiritual guides, imbued with a nationalist ideology, self-interest, opportunism and power. Two others (James son of Alphaeus and Judas Thaddeus) perhaps mere disciples of no great prominence or capacity for initiative.

But the Kingdom is "near" [v.7: "has come near"]: God is in our history - already experienced in the early days, in his first community of sons.

In ancient devotion, the idea of a distant God produced separations, pyramidal hierarchies, the cultivation of inner-circle interests (passed off as great sensitivity and altruism).

The idea of an Eternal leader and avenger allowed a priestly class to proliferate, which instead of conciliating and integrating, neglected and abandoned the irrelevant.

The belief in a divine Presence linked to material abundance dulled minds and the ability to read Redemption.

[The idea of advantage and disadvantage, prosperity and penury, always originate in us or in the conventional mindset, of opinions].

Therefore, it is essential to mature first, wherever we live.

For not infrequently there are less than noble motives for wanting to reach everywhere, to run everywhere (to proselytise), to spread, to increase, and to do so at once.

The man or club of many lusts projects them; and frequently procures in himself or elsewhere his own murky influences.

Concealed infidelities, which, by not proposing simplicity of life and values of the spirit, drive away, building other temples and shrines.

The charge of genuine universality is contained in the rootedness to values, as well as in the knowledge of one's own shortcomings.

Virtuous principles and hidden sides are complementary energetic aspects, and will bear fruit in their own time; in the round.

We must take this deeply, without fatuous projections, even in the unexpressed sides.

In short, it seems a paradox, but openness to the heathen is a purely internal problem.

It is from oneself and from the community that one looks at the world. Not from the too exotic - at least in the first instance.

It is the Way of the Intimate that seriously penetrates the way of the peripheries. Indeed, it is only by loving strength that one prefers to start from the too distant.

One must first heal and complete that which is near.

After all, one who is not free and aware cannot liberate, nor convince - or drag - reality.

The only way then to peer far is to stick to the reason of things, a principle that one knows if not misled by the dispersion of the (even sacred) society of the outside.

Understanding the nature of oneself and of creatures, and conforming to it increasingly, in one's own development, all are inspired to complete and transmute.

This also enriches any cultural sclerosis, without alienating forcing.Thus, exercising a practice of goodness first with oneself... to heal the hardships of others' souls - having known them from within.

For the Tao Tê Ching [XLVII] says:

"Without going out the door, you know the world; without looking out the window, you glimpse the Way to Heaven. The farther you go, the less you know. That is why the saint does not go around and yet knows, does not see and yet discerns, does not act and yet completes.

Only from the Source of being springs a saved life. (It would be harmful to put the cart before the horse).

Are we a sign of dedication and striving people? Without being a sect, after a good formation, inclusive of opposites: integrating faults, bad moments, and intelligence about one's moods.

Not to distinguish the moment of the Calling from that of the Sending.

The Way to Heaven is intertwined with the Way of the Person, not of excellence; not of models - or we will be "fishermen" by the wayside.

The Kingdom has come near and by Name, from the very beginning (vv.2-4): there is no authentic and healing Mission more incisive.

To internalise and live the message:

In your experience, what chain has united Heaven and earth?

The list and effort of transgressions to be neurotically corrected, or a personal Calling, inclusive of your many faces of the soul - a Vocation supported by a Church that became an echo and a free Source of all-round understanding?

To whom would the Apostles be sent? In the Gospel Jesus seemed to limit his mission to Israel alone:  "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel" (Mt 15: 24). In a similar way he seemed to restrict the mission entrusted to the Twelve:  "These Twelve Jesus sent out, charging them:  "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel'" (Mt 10: 5ff.).

A certain rationally inspired modern criticism saw these words as showing a lack of universal awareness by the Nazarene. Actually, they should be understood in the light of his special relationship with Israel, the community of the Covenant, in continuity with the history of salvation.

According to the Messianic expectation, the divine promises directly addressed to Israel would reach fulfilment when God himself had gathered his people through his Chosen One as a shepherd gathers his flock:  "I will save my flock, they shall no longer be a prey.... I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them; he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, shall be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them" (Ez 34: 22-24).

Jesus is the eschatological shepherd who gathers the lost sheep of the house of Israel and goes in search of them because he knows and loves them (cf. Lk 15: 4-7, Mt 18: 12-14; cf. also the figure of the Good Shepherd in Jn 10: 11ff.). Through this "gathering together", the Kingdom of God is proclaimed to all peoples:  "I will set my glory among the nations; and all the nations shall see my judgment which I have executed, and my hand which I have laid on them" (Ez 39: 21). And Jesus followed precisely this prophetic indication. His first step was to "gather together" the people of Israel, so that all the people called to gather in communion with the Lord might see and believe.

Thus, the Twelve, taken on to share in the same mission as Jesus, cooperate with the Pastor of the last times, also seeking out the lost sheep of the house of Israel, that is, addressing the people of the promise whose reunion is the sign of salvation for all peoples, the beginning of the universalization of the Covenant.

Far from belying the universal openness of the Nazarene's Messianic action, the initial restriction to Israel of his mission and of the Twelve thus becomes an even more effective prophetic sign. After Christ's passion and Resurrection, this sign was to be made clear:  the universal character of the Apostles' mission was to become explicit. Christ would send the Apostles "to the whole creation" (Mk 16: 15), to "all nations", (Mt 28: 19, Lk 24: 47), "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1: 8).

And this mission continues. The Lord's command to gather the peoples together in the unity of his love still continues. This is our hope and also our mandate:  to contribute to this universality, to this true unity in the riches of cultures, in communion with our true Lord Jesus Christ.

[Pope Benedict, General Audience 22 March 2006]

1. In this Great Jubilee year, the basic theme of our catecheses has been the glory of the Trinity as revealed to us in salvation history. We have reflected on the Eucharist, the greatest celebration of Christ under the humble signs of bread and wine. Now we want to devote several catecheses to what we must do to ensure that the glory of the Trinity shines forth more fully in the world.

Our reflection begins with Mark's Gospel, where we read:  "Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel'" (Mk 1: 14-15). These are the first words Jesus spoke to the crowd:  they contain the heart of his Gospel of hope and salvation, the proclamation of God's kingdom. From that moment on, as the Evangelists note, Jesus "went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people" (Mt 4: 23; cf. Lk 8: 1). The Apostles followed in his footsteps and with them Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, called to "preach the kingdom of God" among the nations even to the capital of the Roman Empire (cf. Acts 20: 25; 28: 23, 31).

2. The Gospel of the kingdom links Christ with the Sacred Scriptures that, using a royal image, celebrate God's lordship over the cosmos and history. Thus we read in the Psalter:  "Say among the nations, "The Lord reigns! Yea, the world is established, it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples'" (Ps 96: 10). The kingdom is thus God's effective but mysterious action in the universe and in the tangle of human events. He overcomes the resistance of evil with patience, not with arrogance and outcry.

For this reason Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, but destined to become a leafy tree (cf. Mt 13: 31-32), or to the seed a man scatters on the ground:  "he sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows, he knows not how" (Mk 4: 27). The kingdom is grace, God's love for the world, the source of our serenity and trust:  "Fear not, little flock", Jesus says, "for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Lk 12: 32). Fears, worries and nightmares fade away, because in the person of Christ the kingdom of God is in our midst (cf. Lk 17: 21).

3. But man is not a passive witness to God's entrance into history. Jesus asks us "to seek" actively "the kingdom of God and his righteousness" and to make this search our primary concern (Mt 6& ;33). To those who "supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately" (Lk 19: 11), he prescribed an active attitude instead of passive waiting, telling them the parable of the 10 pounds to be used productively (cf. Lk 19: 12-27). For his part, the Apostle Paul states that "the kingdom of God does not mean food and drink but righteousness" (Rom 14: 17) above all, and urges the faithul to put their members at the service of righteousness for sanctification (cf. Rom 6: 13, 19).

The human person is thus called to work with his hands, mind and heart for the coming of God's kingdom into the world. This is especially true of those who are called to the apostolate and are, as St Paul says, "fellow workers for the kingdom of God" (Col 4: 11), but it is also true of every human person.

4. Those who have chosen the way of the Gospel Beatitudes and live as "the poor in spirit", detached from material goods, in order to raise up the lowly of the earth from the dust of their humiliation, will enter the kingdom of God. "Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world", James asks in his Letter, "to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him?" (Jas 2: 5). Those who lovingly bear the sufferings of life will enter the kingdom:  "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14: 22; cf. 2 Thes 1: 4-5), where God himself "will wipe away every tear ... and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore" (Rv 21: 4). The pure of heart who choose the way of righteousness, that is, conformity to the will of God, will enter the kingdom, as St Paul warns:  "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, ... nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor 6: 9-10; cf. 15: 50; Eph 5: 5).

5. All the just of the earth, including those who do not know Christ and his Church, who, under the influence of grace, seek God with a sincere heart (cf. Lumen gentium, n. 16), are thus called to build the kingdom of God by working with the Lord, who is its first and decisive builder. Therefore, we must entrust ourselves to his hands, to his Word, to his guidance, like inexperienced children who find security only in the Father:  "Whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child", Jesus said, "shall not enter it" (Lk 18: 17).

With this thought we must make our own the petition:  "Thy kingdom come!". A petition which has risen to heaven many times in human history like a great breath of hope:  "May the peace of your kingdom come to us", Dante exclaimed in his paraphrase of the Our Father (Purgatorio, XI, 7). A petition which turns our gaze to Christ's return and nourishes the desire for the final coming of God's kingdom. This desire however does not distract the Church from her mission in this world, but commits her to it more strongly (cf. CCC, n. 2818), in waiting to be able to cross the threshold of the kingdom, whose seed and beginning is the Church (cf. Lumen gentium, n. 5), when it comes to the world in its fullness. Then, Peter assures us in his Second Letter, "there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" (2 Pt 1: 11).

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 6 December 2000]

“Jesus began to preach” (Mt 4:17). With these words, the evangelist Matthew introduces the ministry of Jesus. The One who is the Word of God has come to speak with us, in his own words and by his own life. On this first Sunday of the Word of God, let us go to the roots of his preaching, to the very source of the word of life. Today’s Gospel (Mt 4:12-23) helps us to know how, where and to whom Jesus began to preach.

1. How did he begin? With a very simple phrase: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (v. 17). This is the main message of all Jesus’ sermons: to tell us that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. What does this mean? The kingdom of heaven means the reign of God, that is, the way in which God reigns through his relationship with us. Jesus tells us that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, that God is near. Here is the novelty, the first message: God is not far from us. The One who dwells in heaven has come down to earth; he became man. He has torn down walls and shortened distances. We ourselves did not deserve this: he came down to meet us. Now this nearness of God to his people is one of the ways he has done things since the beginning, even of the Old Testament. He said to his people: “Imagine: what nation has its gods so near to it as I am near to you?” (cf. Dt 4:7). And this nearness became flesh in Jesus.

This is a joyful message: God came to visit us in person, by becoming man. He did not embrace our human condition out of duty, no, but out of love. For love, he took on our human nature, for one embraces what one loves. God took our human nature because he loves us and desires freely to give us the salvation that, alone and unaided, we cannot hope to attain. He wants to stay with us and give us the beauty of life, peace of heart, the joy of being forgiven and feeling loved.

[Pope Francis, homily 26 January 2020]

XIV Sunday in Ordinary Time B (7 July 2024)

1. On these Sundays with the evangelist Mark, we followed Jesus who, having left Nazareth, travelled through villages and towns, after being baptised by John the Baptist at the River Jordan.  Preaching throughout Galilee, already accompanied by his disciples, he went beyond Lake Tiberias to the towns of the Decapolis and then came to Capernaum, which was to become his favourite town. In today's gospel we see him return for the first time to Nazareth where he immediately enters the synagogue preceded by the fame that was rapidly spreading to the point that people wondered where he got such wisdom and the ability to perform miracles. The reception he received was negative to say the least from some of his relatives, who even considered him a madman, yet many people were fascinated by his preaching and the miracles he performed. The Pharisees and scribes repeatedly show increasing hostility and some even meditate on how to eliminate him. What is his crime? Healing the sick, forgiving sins and performing miracles even on the Sabbath day. So strong is the opposition that we could consider it a real failure that he cannot perform even one miracle in Nazareth. St Mark dwells on the reaction of his sceptical and hostile acquaintances who recognised Jesus simply as the son of Mary and the carpenter Joseph. If he were a prophet,' they said, 'we would have known it and then when he proclaims himself the Messiah he is blaspheming because it is inconceivable that God could have human origins and moreover such modest ones. And Jesus comments: 'A prophet is not despised except in his own country, among his relatives and in his own house'.   This expression, which we find throughout the gospels (Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24; Matthew 13:57, John 4:44) has become common to emphasise that a person's merits are seldom recognised in his own environment where envy, jealousy forces the deserving to seek success far from their country.

2. The reaction of the people of Nazareth makes one think of those who, even in our time, find it hard to accept Jesus and his true prophets, because fixed on their own ideas and prejudices, they are incapable of grasping the novelty of a God with a human face and accessible to all. And so the admiration of many for Jesus true God and true man becomes for others a fake news or even a scandal. St Mark purposely uses the Greek term "skandalon", which evokes the stumbling stone of which the prophet Isaiah writes. When the humble search for truth disappears in the heart, wonder gives way to unbelief and Jesus true God and true man becomes a scandal, an obstacle that prevents even people who claim to be believers from recognising and loving him. This happened in Nazareth where people did not imagine such a Messiah and in the face of prejudice there is little one can do because one is too sure of oneself and one's convictions. The risk of closing oneself off to God's grace is always possible for everyone. Today, the gospel helps us understand that the impediment lies in the attitude with which we relate to prejudice. Only if we look at reality and people with a free spirit are we able to see the richness that dwells in the hearts of everyone, even those we underestimate because we are convinced we already know them well enough.  In life we can be amazed by positive realities, by experiences that change our way of thinking and acting, but we can be scandalised by certain encounters and events that we consider negative when preconceptions dominate in us. Jesus invites us to always grasp the positive in everyone rather than focusing on the negative that exists and which unfortunately always makes more news than the good.

3. If we try to live consistently with Christ's teachings and without compromise, we attract the admiration of some, and at the same time the hostility of others because we become a "stone of scandal", that is, a provocation to those who believe and those who do not want to believe. Those who remain faithful to Christ must prepare themselves to suffer misunderstanding and hostility because the Gospel is salvation for those who accept and follow it, but scandal for those who do not want to accept it. And beware!  It often happens that it is precisely those closest to us who close their eyes and hearts to the word and the wonders that Christ continues to perform in our time. To become an image of Jesus, one risks incomprehension and isolation. It happened in the Old Testament where prophets were often misunderstood, rejected and even tried to kill them, while false prophets had an easy hold on the people. Certainly Jesus did not expect such behaviour from his own and Mark notes his amazement at the lack of faith and hardening of heart of his fellow citizens. Like Jesus, it can also happen to any of his disciples today to be misunderstood within one's own environment. One is confronted not so much with the overt hostility of one's enemies, but rather with the indifference and opposition of those we consider friends. Despite the hostility, Jesus does not stop, and even in Nazareth he performed some healing. He thus helps us to understand that we must never give in to discouragement and the temptation of abandonment, but from trust in God we draw the strength to continue in our prophetic and missionary vocation. This is the testimony of the prophet Ezekiel that we read about in the first reading and also of the Apostle Paul that he recounts in the second reading. Ezekiel will experience all kinds of hostility and will even face exile in Babylon with the king and almost all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. He will persevere in his difficult mission, clashing with the harshness of the people, but without becoming discouraged, because he had understood that when God entrusts a mission he also gives the strength needed to carry it out. Full of contrasts is the experience of St Paul.  Like Ezekiel, he had visions and extraordinary revelations along with numerous setbacks that made him mature in humility and trust in God. He always carried, as he himself communicates, a 'thorn' in his flesh, a constant reminder of his frailty - as he writes: 'So that I might not be exalted in pride, a thorn was given to my flesh, an envoy of Satan to strike me' and he adds that although he repeatedly begged God to deliver him, he was answered: 'My grace is sufficient for you, for strength is fully manifested in weakness'. No one has understood what this 'thorn in the flesh' was that martyred him, nor does St Paul specify; although many hypotheses have been put forward. One thing is certain: Paul even gloried in his own sufferings and his example becomes an encouragement to us: our frailties and even sins do not constitute an obstacle to evangelisation, on the contrary, they can help us to better fulfil our mission because they make us aware that our fragile humanity is supported by the power of Christ, if we let him act in us. 

+ Giovanni D'Ercole 

To continue the reflection:

"Faith is not a delicate flower, destined to wither at the slightest hint of bad weather. Faith is like the mountains of the Himalayas, which cannot change in any way. There is no storm that can move the Himalayan mountains from their foundations'.

(Mahatma Gandhi)

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time B (30 June 2024)

1. Jesus is the Lord of life and not of death. In the gospel of this 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time we find the account of two miracles embedded in each other in the gospel of Mark, an account also present in the gospel of Matthew and Luke. These are the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus and the healing of the hemorrhaging, a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years: 12 were the years of the child, as 12 were the years of the woman's illness, for both of which all medical possibilities had been tried in vain. The evangelist insists on the failure of the doctors to highlight the power to heal that is Jesus' own, capable even of raising the dead. The whole of Mark's gospel helps us to know who Jesus is and, if he can dominate the violence of storms as we saw last Sunday, through these two prodigies he assures us that he can do everything as he is the Lord of life. The resuscitation of the daughter of Jairus makes us think of our resurrection as well as of the definitive triumph of the kingdom of God that will come on the day when he will say to all mankind, as to the dead maiden: "Talitha koum, get up". And everything becomes possible to those who believe. Salvation, expressed in these miracles, embraces the whole of human reality and demands as its only condition that there be a freely proclaimed faith, a faith that is possible for everyone: both for those who, like Jairus, leader of the synagogue, are notable and powerful and for those who are poor, like the woman condemned to suffer and moreover considered impure because of her illness. Another important message is that, through the account of these miracles, St Mark tells us that Jesus came to combat all kinds of physical and spiritual marginalisation. And he asks us to trust him without doubting like those who mocked him because he said that the child was not dead but asleep.  God's work is mysterious and powerful, and everything becomes possible to those who freely abandon themselves into his hands in every situation, even dramatic ones. By calling as witnesses the disciples closest to him, Peter, James and John, who will also be at his side on Mount Tabor on the occasion of the Transfiguration and in the Garden of Gethsemane at the hour of passion, Jesus intends to educate them to a firm faith that does not rest on the search for miracles and spectacular signs, but seeks to grasp in every event of existence the divine intervention in human frailty.

2. For God never abandons us because he loves us and created man for incorruptibility, as we read in the first reading. It is a passage from the beginning of the book of Wisdom that brings to mind the first chapters of the book of Genesis: both begin with a long reflection on the destiny of the human being. Written in different eras and with different styles, however, they address the same issues, those of life and death. Being in contact with pagan peoples, Israel, jealous guardian of its own religious experience, intends to safeguard the purity of its faith whose first characteristic is precisely the optimism that rests on the certainty of divine love. The statement that we read here: "God created all things that they might exist, the creatures of the world are poprtators of salvation" can be considered a variant of what we read in Genesis: "God saw all that he had made: it was very good (Genesis 1:31).  And again, reading that "God created man...made him in the image of his own nature" we cannot help but think of the book of Genesis: "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness" (Genesis 1:26). He wanted to create us in his image for eternal life, that is, to live eternally with him. But how to justify death? Is it a failure of God? Absolutely not! And it is on this subject that the Word of God today invites us to reflect. We must first of all distinguish between biological death, which in the biblical and Christian vision is like the transformation of the chrysalis into a butterfly, that is, the passage from this earthly life to eternity; quite another thing is spiritual death, which consists of living separated from God and even rejecting him. And it is precisely this death that is dealt with here by highlighting the fact that in creating man God willed him for eternity, while leaving him free to choose to depart from him. This death, the author notes, entered the world through the devil's envy and 'those who belong to it experience it'. By allowing himself to be drawn by Satan, man experiences spiritual death, the terrible destiny of the wicked, notes the book of Wisdom where, in the first five chapters, the opposition is presented between the righteous who live from the life of God already on earth and the wicked who, on the contrary, choose death, in other words, decide to reject God and condemn themselves to separation from him. Righteous is he who lives by the spirit of God, ungodly is he who does not allow himself to be led by him. In the second book of Genesis we read that in creating man, God breathed into his nostrils the breath of his life and from that moment the human being became 'living'. We are therefore born to live animated by the breath of God, but if we turn away, if we reject God, we enter the realm of life that dies. The difference between the righteous and the wicked is also present in the first psalm often quoted in the liturgy: 'Blessed is the man who does not enter into the counsel of the wicked...but in the law of the Lord he finds his joy'. Here are people who enjoy peace and prosperity, like trees planted along streams of water, vigorous and rich in leaves and then in fruit. Not so the wicked, who are like chaff scattered by the wind: an incisive image of the volatility of life without God. In short, our existence has within itself the seed of eternity and only those who reject it experience spiritual death that can become final.

3. The issue then is twofold: how to avoid spiritual death and how to behave in the face of the fate of biological death that is common to all living beings, since it is true that everything that is born is doomed to die.  Today's word of God emphasises two fundamental possible attitudes: that of the pagans, that is, those who profess not to want to believe, and adopt a style of behaviour summed up in the expression 'carpe diem'. The meaning of this famous Latin saying is manifold, but it is often interpreted as an invitation to live taking advantage of every earthly opportunity to enjoy because human existence is short: let us then live as we can and as we like best because everything comes to an end with our death and after death nothing awaits us. Faced with the mystery of death, the attitude of believers defined by the word of God as 'righteous' is different. They know they must pass through biological death but they were created for immortality. Perhaps not everything on earth goes as one would wish, and sometimes injustice prevails: those who seem to enjoy life by doing evil appear fulfilled in the eyes of men, while those who seek to remain in God's faithfulness go through many trials and may come across many sufferings to the point of suffering injustice and wickedness. Those who trust in God know, however, that not everything ends with biological death, and even if on earth one does not receive recompense for the good one has done, one must never forget that God is infinitely just and will restore justice in due time. The virtue of hope sustains our earthly pilgrimage and illuminates the mystery of death. We must all die, and death is an obligatory stage of our journey towards eternity, even if today efforts are made to conceal it out of fear, and it is not spoken of so as not to offend the sensibilities of people who consider it an inevitable misfortune. What is to be feared instead - and this is the message of God's word in this Sunday liturgy - is spiritual death, the eternal deprivation of God. But how many today stop to reflect on this reality? How many spend their days on earth as if they will never die? How many while living are already spiritually dead? The word of God helps us to recognise and love the Lord of life and death, it invites us to fearlessly place ourselves in his arms as a merciful and faithful Father. And if sometimes, before human frailties and sins we are tempted to become discouraged, let us listen to what St John writes: "Whatever it (the heart) reproaches us for, God is greater than our heart and knows all things" (1Jn 3:20).

+ Giovanni D'Ercole