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

The alternative "victory-or-defeat" is false: we must get out of it

(Mt 5:38-42)

«Other cheek»: climate of inventiveness.

Not opposing the wicked allows one to experience the Beatitudes, antidote to unilateral relationships; but this is impossible, if we do not allow an innate Energy to develop.

In the infinitely repeated counter-exchange there is no wisdom that ‘reads inside’; in the overthrowing, yes.

God's new experience is that of a genuine creative Love, which incessantly brings into question, introduces new powers, and incredibly overturns everything.

Outside and within us there is another Territory, where the affinity of Waiting meets God’s Plan: this after a time of Silence that intensely lives the Today grasping its depth, intuiting it as unpredictable root of the Tomorrow.

There is a different ‘kingdom’, where condescension meets new thrusts, cosmic and acutely personal; Profile of the Living One.

This without precipitation: after an «energy of pause», virtue becoming root and sap of the most exclusive future.

The firmness in the accepted tribulation becomes Seed of a new Son, of an unthinkable Genesis, which is just weaving its first roots right in that very marshy soil.

The expectation of God opens our destiny of foolishness without respite and already decreed, to trust in a new Sap and Power.

It opens wide the Sense that you don’t expect, in an atmosphere of inventiveness that flies over the action-reaction instinct [so that the chain of normalities doesn’t take over the mystery of our Identity-character and Destination].

Non-violence is not a norm, but an upper Arrow, pointing a direction of Research, which advances from discovery to discovery.

Truly exemplary life is always of a different kind, out of the ordinary.

Letting even the opportunists pass ahead, creates the right detachment, so that a new, unrepeatable Act of Being takes place.

When we are ready, we will realize that our mortification was a crossroads: it has unexpectedly opened wide the destiny to a less short hope, dilating life.

If the others are not as we dreamed, it’s fortunate: the doors slammed in our faces and their goad are preparing us well other joys.

The adventure of extreme Faith is for a Beauty that wounds - sharpening perception, shifting the gaze, dilating heart - and for an abnormal, prominent Joy.

The alternative "victory-or-defeat" is false: we must get out of it.

Tao Tê Ching says: «New beginnings are often disguised as painful losses [but] what is yielding overwhelms what is hard. The slow one overtakes the fast».

Only those who know the waiting find their way.

[Monday 11th week in O.T.  June 16, 2025]

The 'win-or-lose' alternative is false: you have to get out of it

(Mt 5:38-42)

«Other cheek»: climate of inventiveness.

Not opposing the wicked allows one to experience the Beatitudes, the antidote to one-sided relationships; but this is impossible if we do not allow an innate Energy to develop.

The Tao says: "If you want to be given everything, give up everything". In the infinitely repeated reciprocation there is no wisdom that 'reads within'; in the reversal, yes.

[For this reason, e.g. the text of Lk 6,27-38 does not speak of 'merits' (cf. translation CEI 1974) nor of 'gratitude' (translation CEI 2008), but of 'Gratitude' (vv.31.33-34)].

Of course, it is not easy to understand the meaning of the Gift, of the Free: but the Master does not only want us to become more capable of thankfulness and well-behaved.

Jesus in us is not simply concerned with changing the situation and softening it: he wants to replace the whole system of spurious things and artificial relationships - of manner.

Otherwise nothing would be changed, nothing would be radically reversed; far from it: in the goodness of circumstance, the superstructures that alienate us would be strengthened.

The new experience of God is that of a genuine creative Love, which ceaselessly throws up, introduces new powers, and incredibly turns everything upside down.

There is a greater Justice: living in the new position that the tide of life and Providence chisels out for each of us.

It is not effort that will make us stay where the (truly perfect) Vocation wants us to stay, but a slow correspondence - even in the swings.

Outside and within us there is another territory, where the affinity of Expectation meets God's Plan: this after a time of Silence that intensely lives the Today, grasping its depth, intuiting it as the unpredictable root of Tomorrow.

There is a different realm, where condescension meets new drives, cosmic and acutely personal; Profile of the Living.

In this way, here we are without precipitation: after an energy of pause, a virtue that becomes the root and sap of the most exclusive future.

The spiral of returning offence can occupy all our space. This dampens our ability to correspond to the new tinkling of the Call.

It robs us of perception, of the whole listening to the Newness of God that is in the dawning.

Generating confusions all our own, it pales the History of Salvation that is on the contrary creating an unprecedented: it is being cut at the root.

This is why the Lord orders the subversion of the customs of ancient religiosity, of his own impetus; of the divisions involved [acceptable or not, friend or foe, near or far, pure and impure, sacred and profane, etc.].

The divine Kingdom starts from the Seed, not from outward gestures or forms; nor does it use conformist sweeteners that leave roles untouched.

In order to grasp the very rhythm of God (who wisely creates) souls must take the pace of things, which mature in linear terms until they overthrow or multiply - not in a 'printed' way, but in a personal way.

The events themselves regenerate spontaneously, outside and even within us; no need to force it.

The growth and destination also remains thanks to the spring of external mockeries and constraints.

In the Tao Tê Ching we read: 'If you want to obtain something, you must first allow it to be given to others'. The flowering will be unforced.

Then, steadfastness in the tribulation, acceptance and endurance of profiteers, the superficial and the vain becomes the offspring of a new child, of an unthought-of Genesis that is just weaving its first roots with that very marshy soil.

From ingots nothing is born, from the obstinate the usual things are born, from the hasty the exact opposite; from dung new flowers are born, which we did not even plant.

The suspension experienced in Mystery opens our fate of already decreed foolishness to trust in a new, unrepeatable Act of Being.

It opens up the Sense that you do not expect, in a climate of inventiveness that overrides the action-reaction instinct - so that the chain of normality does not take over the prodigy of vocational Identity, of our character and realisation.

Non-violence is thus not a norm of mere exquisiteness of mind, but a superior Arrow, pointing in a direction of non-mechanical Research, which advances from discovery to discovery.

The truly exemplary life is always of another kind, out of the ordinary.

Exactly, letting everyone, even the opportunists [and holiness actors] move on, does not immediately put us in the saddle or in the shop window, but finally neither will it make us pay too much in person.

It creates the right detachment so that when we are ready, the time will come when we will realise that our mortification was a crossroads: it opened up our destiny to a less short-lived, life-expanding hope.

Says the Tao: "New beginnings are often disguised as painful losses [but] what is yielding overcomes what is hard. The slow overtakes the fast'.If the others are not as we dreamed, it is fortunate: the doors slammed in our faces and their prodding bring us into contact with our deepest virtues, and with resources to which we have not yet given space.

Betrayals, abuse, spite, revenge, outrages, mortifications... that would like to make us uneasy and dishearten us... are preparing our development.

The adventure of extreme Faith is indeed for a Beauty that wounds and an abnormal, prominent Happiness. But only he who knows how to wait finds his Way.

The First Testament recognised the principle of justice 'one is worth one' in the right of vengeance.

Thus stemming the volume of retaliation and the overwhelming power of the strong [their possible blind violence as a result of trifles] over the weak within the limits of equality.

But this is not enough not to pervert relationships and allow the Father to propose to us a special realisation-configuration, which imposes 'Suspensions' from the homologising spiral.

Generating confusions all our own, it pales that very story of salvation that is on the contrary creating an unprecedented: it cuts it off at the root.

The whirlpool of returning the offence can occupy all our space and time.

Thus such a vortex dampens the ability to correspond to the new tinkling of the Call.

It takes away the silence, the care, the Listening to the Newness of God that is germinating.

The steadfastness in the tribulation, acceptance and endurance of profiteers, the superficial and vain becomes the Seed of a new son, of an unthought-of Genesis, which is just weaving its first roots in that very marshy soil.

From the 'perfect' and 'brilliant' nothing is born, from the obstinate the usual things are born, from the hasty the exact opposite; from dung new flowers are born, which we did not even plant.

Waiting for God opens our destiny of relentless and already decreed foolishness to trust in a new Sap and Power.

It opens up the Meaning you do not expect, in a climate of inventiveness that overrides the action-reaction instinct, so that the chain of normality does not take over the mystery of our Identity-character and Destination.

Non-violence is not a norm, but a superior Arrow, pointing a direction of Search, which advances from discovery to discovery.

Truly exemplary life is always of a different kind, out of the ordinary.

Letting everyone get ahead does not put us in the saddle or in the shop window, but neither will it make us pay too much in person and sense.

It creates the right detachment so that when we are ready, the time will come when we will realise that our humiliation was a dividing line, a critical point.

It has unexpectedly opened up destiny to a less short-lived, life-expanding hope.

A new, unrepeatable Act of Being will take place.

If the others are not as we dreamed, it is fortunate: the doors slammed in our faces and their sting are preparing us for other joys.

The adventure of extreme Faith is for a Beauty that wounds - sharpening the perception, shifting the gaze, dilating the heart - and for an abnormal, prominent Joy.

The 'win-or-lose' alternative is false: we must come out of it.

The Gospel [...] contains some of the most typical and forceful words of Jesus' preaching: "Love your enemies" (Lk 6: 27). It is taken from Luke's Gospel but is also found in Matthew's (5: 44), in the context of the programmatic discourse that opens with the famous "Beatitudes". Jesus delivered it in Galilee at the beginning of his public life: it is, as it were, a "manifesto" presented to all, in which he asks for his disciples' adherence, proposing his model of life to them in radical terms.

But what do his words mean? Why does Jesus ask us to love precisely our enemies, that is, a love which exceeds human capacities?

Actually, Christ's proposal is realistic because it takes into account that in the world there is too much violence, too much injustice, and therefore that this situation cannot be overcome except by countering it with more love, with more goodness. This "more" comes from God: it is his mercy which was made flesh in Jesus and which alone can "tip the balance" of the world from evil to good, starting with that small and decisive "world" which is the human heart.

This Gospel passage is rightly considered the magna carta of Christian non-violence. It does not consist in succumbing to evil, as a false interpretation of "turning the other cheek" (cf. Lk 6: 29) claims, but in responding to evil with good (cf. Rom 12: 17-21) and thereby breaking the chain of injustice.

One then understands that for Christians, non-violence is not merely tactical behaviour but a person's way of being, the attitude of one who is so convinced of God's love and power that he is not afraid to tackle evil with the weapons of love and truth alone.

Love of one's enemy constitutes the nucleus of the "Christian revolution", a revolution not based on strategies of economic, political or media power: the revolution of love, a love that does not rely ultimately on human resources but is a gift of God which is obtained by trusting solely and unreservedly in his merciful goodness. Here is the newness of the Gospel which silently changes the world! Here is the heroism of the "lowly" who believe in God's love and spread it, even at the cost of their lives.

Dear brothers and sisters, Lent, which will begin this Wednesday with the Rite of Ashes, is the favourable season in which all Christians are asked to convert ever more deeply to Christ's love.

Let us ask the Virgin Mary, docile disciple of the Redeemer who helps us to allow ourselves to be won over without reserve by that love, to learn to love as he loved us, to be merciful as Our Father in Heaven is merciful (cf. Lk 6: 36).

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 18 February 2007]

1. Come, let us go up the mountain... (Is 2:3; cf. Mi 4:2). Let us listen today to this invitation of the prophet and reread it as an inner imperative: the imperative of the conscience and the imperative of the heart. The day 18 May morally obliges us to come to this mountain; to pause with prayer on our lips before the graves of the soldiers who fell here; to look at the walls of the monastery that then - thirty-five years ago - was reduced to rubble; to remember those events; to try, once again, to learn from them for the future.

We walk here in the footsteps of a great battle, one that gave the decisive blow to the last war in Europe, to the Second Great World War. This war, in the years 1939-1945, involved almost all the nations and states of our continent, it also involved non-European powers in its orbit, it manifested the heights of the heroism of the military, but it also revealed the dangerous face of human cruelty, it left behind the traces of the extermination camps, it took the lives of millions of human beings, it destroyed the fruits of the labour of many generations. It is difficult to enumerate all the calamities that befell mankind with it, showing him - at its end - even the possibility, through the means of the most modern weapons technology, of a possible future mass annihilation, before which the destruction of the past pales.

2. Who conducted this war? Who did the work of destruction? Men and nations. This was a war of European nations, albeit bound together by the traditions of a great culture: science and art deeply rooted in the past of Christian Europe. The men and the nations: this was their war; and, as victory and defeat was theirs, so also the effects of this conflict belong to them.

Why did they fight against each other, men and nations? Surely the truths of the Gospel and the traditions of great Christian culture did not drive them to this terrible fratricidal slaughter.

They were caught up in the war by the force of a system that, in antithesis to the Gospel and Christian traditions, had been imposed on some peoples with ruthless violence as an agenda, while forcing others to resist with arms in their hands. In gigantic struggles, that system suffered a definitive defeat. 18 May was one of the decisive stages in that defeat.

As we come to Montecassino on the XXXV anniversary of that day, we wish, through the eloquent evocation of that day, to understand before God, and before history, the meaning of the whole terrible experience of the Second World War. This is not easy; indeed, in a way, it becomes impossible to express in short words what has been the subject of so much research, study and monographs, and certainly will be for a long time to come. Our entire generation survived this war, which burdened its maturation and development, but still continues to live in the orbit of the consequences of such a conflict. It is therefore not easy to talk about a problem that has such a profound dimension in the lives of us all. Of an issue that is still alive and bound in a certain sense in the blood and pain of so many hearts and nations.

3. However, if we endeavour to understand this problem before God and history, then more than any settling of accounts with the past, the lessons for the future come to the fore. These impose themselves with great force, since history is not only the great polygon of events, but is also, above all, an open book of those same lessons; it is the source of the wisdom of life for men and nations.

What we read in this book, so painfully open before us, leads us to ardent prayer, to a fervent cry for reconciliation and peace. We have come here, above all, to pray for this, and for this to cry out to God and to men. Since, however, peace on earth depends on the goodwill of men, it is difficult not to reflect, at least briefly, in which direction all the efforts of people of goodwill must be directed if we are to secure this great good of peace and reconciliation for ourselves and for future generations.

Today's Gospel contrasts two agendas. One based on the principle of hatred, revenge and strife. Another on the law of love. Christ says: "Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors" (Mt 5:44). This is a great need.

Those who have survived war, like us, who have encountered occupation, cruelty, the violation of all human rights, the most brutal, know how serious and difficult this demand is. Yet, after such terrible experiences as the last war, we become all the more aware that on the principle that says: "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" (Mt 5:38) and on the principle of hatred, revenge, and strife, peace and reconciliation between men and between nations cannot be built; it can only be built on the principle of justice and mutual love. And so it was this conclusion that the United Nations Organisation drew from the experiences of the Second World War by proclaiming the 'Charter of Human Rights'. Only on the basis of full respect for the rights of men and the rights of nations - full respect! - peace and reconciliation of Europe and the world can be built in the future.

4. Let us pray, therefore, at this place of great struggle for freedom and justice, that the words of today's liturgy may be incarnated in life.

Let us pray to God, who is the Father of men and peoples, as the prophet prays today: "that he may show us his ways and that we may walk in his paths ... he will be a judge among the nations and an arbiter among many peoples. They shall forge their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks; one people shall not lift up the sword against another people, they shall no longer practise the art of war...". (Is 2:3-4).

Let us pray thus, bearing in mind that it is no longer a question of swords or spears, but of nuclear weapons; the means of destruction, which are capable of reducing the earth inhabited by men to nothingness.

Let us also recall that at Monte Cassino, Pope Paul VI proclaimed St Benedict Patron of Europe in 1964, during the Second Vatican Council, referring to the millennial Benedictine traditions of work, prayer and culture as the fruit of peace and reconciliation.

Let us remember, finally, that the place on which we stand has been made fertile by the blood of so many heroes: before their death for the great cause of freedom and peace we have come to bow our heads once again.

5. Dear countrymen!

It is unusual at this time, when I can together with you participate in this great anniversary. Thirty-five years ago the battle of Monte Cassino ended, one of those that decided the fate of the last war. For us, who at that time, in 1944, experienced the terrible oppression of occupation, for Poland, which was on the eve of the Warsaw Uprising, this battle was a new confirmation of that unwavering will to live, of the striving for the full independence of the Fatherland, which never left us for a single moment. At Monte Cassino the Polish soldier fought, here he died, here he shed his blood, with his thoughts fixed on the Fatherland, which for us is such a beloved Mother, precisely because love for it demands so many sacrifices and renunciations.

It is not my task to pronounce on the significance of this battle, on the subject of the Polish soldier's achievements here on these rocky slopes. The people of this beautiful country, Italy, remember that the Polish soldier brought their homeland liberation. They remember him with esteem and love. We know that this soldier, in order to return to Poland, travelled a long and winding road: 'from Italian soil to Poland...' as Dabrowski's legions once did. The awareness of a just cause guided him. It is precisely for this just cause that the nation's right to existence, to independence, to a social life that respects the spirit of its convictions, national and religious traditions, to the sovereignty of its state, arose and continues to exist. This right of the nation, violated during more than a hundred years of dismemberment, was brutally violated and threatened again in September 1939. And so, during this time, from 1 September to Monte Cassino, this soldier travelled many roads, with his gaze fixed on God's Providence and the justice of history, with the image of the Mother of Jasna Gora in his eyes... came and again fought like the previous generation 'for our and your freedom'.

6. Today, standing here in this place, at Monte Cassino, I wish to be a servant and herald of this order of human, social, international life, which is built on justice and love: according to the indications of the Gospel of Christ. And that is precisely why I feel with you - especially all of you who fought here 35 years ago - the moral eloquence of this struggle. I feel it together with you, dear countrymen, and at the same time together with all those who rest here: your comrades-in-arms. Together with everyone, starting with the Supreme Commander and the Military Bishop. Everyone, down to the youngest private soldier.

Many times I have come to this cemetery. I have read the inscriptions on the gravestones, which give testimony to each of those who fell here, and indicate the day and place of their birth. These inscriptions have reverberated in the eyes of my soul the image of the Fatherland, of that in which I was born. These inscriptions, from so many places in the Polish land - from all sides, from east to west and from south to north - do not cease to cry out here, in the very heart of Europe, at the foot of the abbey that recalls the time of St Benedict, they do not cease to cry out, just as the hearts of the soldiers who fought here have cried out: 'O God, who hast protected Poland, for so many centuries...'.

We bow our foreheads before the heroes.

We commend their souls to God.

We commend the Fatherland to God. Poland, Europe, the World.

[Pope John Paul II, Montecassino Polish cemetery 18 May 1979]

In this Sunday’s Gospel (Mt 5:38-48) — one of the passages that best illustrates Christian “revolution” — Jesus shows us the way of true justice through the law of love which is greater than the law of retaliation, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. This ancient law imposed the infliction on wrongdoers of a punishment equivalent to the damage they caused: death for those who killed, amputation for those who injured, and so on. Jesus does not ask his disciples to abide evil, but asks them to react; however, not with another evil action, but with good. This is the only way to break the chain of evil: one evil leads to another which leads to another evil.... This chain of evil is broken and things truly begin to change. Evil is, in fact, a “void”, a void of good. It is not possible to fill a void, except with “fullness”, that is, good. Revenge never leads to conflict resolution. “You did this to me, I will do it back to you”: this never resolves conflict, nor is it even Christian.

According to Jesus, the rejection of violence can also involve the sacrifice of a legitimate right. He gives a few examples of this: turn the other cheek, give up your coat or money, accept other sacrifices (v. 39-42). But such sacrifice does not mean that the demands of justice should be ignored or contradicted. No, on the contrary, Christian love, which manifests itself in a special way in mercy, is an achievement superior to justice. What Jesus wants to teach us is the clear distinction that we must make between justice and revenge. Distinguishing between justice and revenge. Revenge is never just. We are permitted to ask for justice. It is our duty to exercise justice. We are, however, not permitted to avenge ourselves or, in any way foment revenge, as it is an expression of hatred and violence.

Jesus does not wish to propose a new system of civil law, but rather the commandment to love thy neighbour, which also includes loving enemies: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. (v. 44) And this is not easy. These words should not be seen as an approval of evil carried out by an enemy, but as an invitation to a loftier perspective, a magnanimous perspective, similar to that of the Heavenly Father, who, Jesus says, “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust”. (v. 45). An enemy, in fact, is also a human being, created as such in God’s image, despite the fact that in the present, that image may be tarnished by shameful behaviour.

When we speak of “enemies”, we should not think about people who are different or far removed from us; let us also talk about ourselves, as we may come into conflict with our neighbour, at times with our relatives. How many hostilities exist within families — how many! Let us think about this. Enemies are also those who speak ill of us, who defame us and do us harm. It is not easy to digest this. We are called to respond to each of them with good, which also has strategies inspired by love.

May the Virgin Mary help us follow Jesus on this demanding path, which truly exalts human dignity and lets us live as children of our Father who art in Heaven. May she help us exercise patience, dialogue, forgiveness, and to be artisans of communion, artisans of fraternity in our daily life, and above all in our families.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 19 February 2017]

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

Most Holy Trinity

Prov 8:22-31;  Rom 5:1-5;  Jn 16:12-15 (year C)

Scripture testifies that the Lord proceeds with his people and manifests himself in history, but he is not bound to a particular territory or sacred ‘heights’, but to woman and man.

The Eternal is «God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob» (Mt 22:32; Mk 12:26; Lk 20:37; cf. Ex 3:6).

He is «The One who Will Be» [Ex 3:14 Hebrew text] that is: in the unfolding of events, people have an essential experience of the Living One as Liberator, and Bridegroom [cf. Hosea's fluctuating affective story].

But in the fullness of His Heart, only Jesus manifests Him - still in the First Covenant confused with a sullen legislator, notary, judge who intervenes to cut or distinguish, then waits for the reckoning.

The Almighty dreams of spreading life and creating Family, not dividing uncontaminated friends from impure enemies, or capable and incapable.

Such becomes the intimate expression of the authentic woman and man; a cipher of the identity of the Church that does not pronounce itself to a minimum.

Sons’ identity card is the faith in a God who creates, makes covenants, is Close, redeems, allows flourishing in any event or age.

The first Reading highlights the Father's Plan, which unfolds his mastery being while being assisted by the delightful figure of Wisdom.

Creation reflects the purpose of divine Love, manifested in the enchantment of a joyful walk with us.

He desires to remain on earth, unconditionally.

His Bliss? The same as ours; of every creature, who loves to flourish in spite of conflicts.

This is precisely - if the son, though unsteady, does not feel himself to be the fruit of chance, but rather grasps the moments of confusion in life as if they were those of a building site [because the Design knows where to go].

Disorder, piled-up materials, mess, novelties at every turn; but you don't get lost: inside the soul is the prototype-image of a 'programme' that allows for trial and error, indeed relies on them.

It is a Project that recovers all the scattered energies and interrupted paths, creating unthinkable varieties, hence diverse essences. As would a Parent who rejoices in the rich offspring, in the different works of his intimates in the most varied fields, manifested in thousand facets.

If the guiding Plan is of the Creator, the apex and the Work belong to the Son.

The second Reading makes it clear that the Father did not consider his activity concluded by granting mere input to being and essences - then abandoning reality and men; by withdrawing up there.

By Grace, in the Faith we are partakers of God, we have direct access to His independent action, to Himself (Rom 5:2).

The Person and story of Jesus tell of a Kingdom in which holiness is not feared to be endangered by contact with the world.

There is only one problem that cuts through the Dialogue with the Most High (v.3): the believing that our boasting is of an obvious kind.

In front of our fellow men we glory in achievements, roles, titles and successes [it also happens in the path of religious perfection]. But the Son announces that the Father is only undeserved Understanding.

We finally learn that the obsession with being admired from the outside, and the pleasure of approval at any cost - are not “the” Way at all.

In fact, the true Shah - the genuine Work - is solely of the Son, who, having fully corresponded to the initiative of God the Father, Justifies.

The Inner Friend then does not 'make righteous' by dressing us outwardly and in a punctually manner, but in an existential process that shifts the balance (vv.3-4).

Lord works within through experience. He also does this by besieging “the other" self of ourselves that we have set aside.

Thus changing the shrunken heart and improving us with his passionate Friendship, re-proposed in new life opportunities.

The Gospel appeals to the mysterious, unknown sense of the total self-giving.

It is not easy to bear its «weight» [Jn 16:12: alludes to the Cross] nor to grasp its implications and imagine its paradoxical Fruitfulness.

The Development that flows out of it is the empathy, the deep reach, the action of the Spirit.

Unfolded Gesture that internalizes this not only strange, but absurd proposal: that of triumph in loss, and even of Life from death.

We experience it in act: in the inexplicable recoveries that give glory to God (v.14) [that is, they renew relationships] and put people who do not even have self-esteem back on their feet.

Only in this way can the Plan of Salvation be carried out.

Stepping out from the shadow of others, the opportunist becomes righteous, the doubter more secure, the unhappy person regains hope; all can live happily.

Accepted Diversity becomes an impulse for enrichment and a matrix for development.

Social identification is no longer involved. There is something else in us.

God Himself is «He who Will Be»: away from the ballasts, the Best is yet to Come. Reason not to run away from great Desires any more.

[Most Holy Trinity, June 15, 2025]

Jn 16:12-15 (5-20) [Jn 15:26-16:20].

Satisfying Solutions vs Spirit of Truth

(Jn 15:26-16:4a)

Faith in the Master is already eternal life, or rather Life of the Eternal (in action here and now).

He Himself is Bread of authentic and indestructible existence, though still earthly.

In short, the intimate life of God reaches us in our time.

First step is the adventure of Faith that gives a Vision; irruption of the Spirit that gives rebirth from above.

Impulse that animates a different - not empty - existence.

The sign of such adherence is believing Jesus as Son: man manifesting the divine condition.

Christ is Bread of life also because His Word is creative, and the path of following Him transmits to us the qualities of indestructible Life.

The outpouring of the Spirit stirs in us the same beating Heart of the Eternal.

We experience this in the deaths and resurrections of daily life and in the long rigmarole of the Vocation, reaffirmed from path to path.

Even in persecution, he who 'sees' the Son has the Life of the Eternal within him.

Life that regenerates and always arranges new births, other premises and questions, different paths, in an uninterrupted; growing form.

The passion for the Friend unites us to Him, Bread: that is, the Revealer of the Truth that satiates men on their journey towards themselves and the world.

Souls that sometimes change skin, opinions, lifestyles.

In the Vision, we are empowered to directly appropriate, thereby drawing in and realising the Newness of God - even in advance, wisely.

Through Him 'we have a part'... in the Father's love for the Son who manifests Himself as personal Lord, as well as in the outgoing dilated life of the authentic Church.

The 'hidden' God of the First Testament, an obstacle that seemed insurmountable, now presents itself in the specifics of Faith, without the need for fatuous fires to support it.

Because the world of God in the soul is different.

One does not enter the Mystery with normal intentions and perfect expectations, let alone success and recognition.

Here (in the Gospel passage) the apostles' incomprehension comes into play.

Indeed, even to us, Jesus' manner of manifestation often seems undecipherable.

Even the Jews [actually: the returning Judaizers in the communities of the late 1st century] were waiting to grasp it in an overt way, perhaps on an occasion of public life.

Instead, even in times of 'glorification', the Master seems to want to trace the outwardly humble inappearance of his earthly ministry.

Many expected sensational fireworks at that time that they considered 'final'. Instead, no yielding to power ideology or religion-show.

So things did not go as expected: doubts were not dispelled; ambiguities, neither.

The titles of Israel's former nationalist and imperial glory did not reappear at all, quite the contrary!

Even today, the choice of Faith is not given to the apparatuses that would guarantee its visibility: no parachutes, no discounts.

Everything then seems to proceed as before, in the summary: to toil for a living and buy, to travel and not, to laugh and cry, to get sick and get well, to work and party... and so on.

Often in seemingly senseless pain; perhaps no decisive breakthroughs.

But in the same old things there is a different Light, planted on a new, immediate Relationship of needy humanity with the Father who regenerates us.

He stimulates new births, to reconnect desires, deep needs, external paths; to increase the intensity of life.

And it is in the mutual knowledge of the roots and grooves of reality that this circle of love between God and his children exists in the first place.

All that has not yet been understood will be called forth by the action of the Spirit. The only reliable impetus, which does not point to vain things.

A bond between man and Heaven, in us - not above.

Friendship that does not primarily contemplate resignation, effort, humiliation; rather, it is reworked in deepening.

This is where the true scope of our hearts - so limited, yet endowed with a mysterious imprint - for the complete, and personal, life of character comes into play.

In order to avoid intimidation, marginalisation, annoyance, some church members advocated a kind of covenant between Jesus and the Empire.

They proclaimed a Christ so vague and uninhibited that he would not scratch anyone.

Some ambitious people, who were the zealots of 'life in the spirit', felt that the time had come to shake off the earthly story of the carpenter's son.

Figure that was considered weak in itself, short-term, out of place and time; already extinguished.

Jn intends to rebalance the attempt at proclamation, diluted in compromises. 

The evangelist emphasises that the Risen One is the cipher and engine that bears the soul and generates us in today.

It was the same Son of God who sustained a harsh denunciation and several battles with the authorities.To the opportunists of his time, the Master had dared to touch positions, vanity, and the bag of commerce.

Thus persecuted, tried, vilified, condemned as subversive, and cursed by God.

In short, the Holy Spirit does not go after butterflies.

Action of the Spirit [which internalises and actualises] and historical memory of Jesus must always be combined.

Only in such a frank perspective is it possible to grasp the Truth of the Eternal, and the Truth of Man, in all times and circumstances.

In addition: the Father is the Creator of each of our deepest inclinations, to which he affixes an indelible signature.

It manifests itself in an innate instinct, which wants to germinate, find space, express itself.

We have rooted in our innermost being a unique, invincible Vocation and (plural) faces; each one.

We cannot deny ourselves, our Roots - even where an open-faced testimony would be unappealing.

The Truth about each 'Person' is consequential.

By Grace, we are depositaries of an astounding dignity.

Even in error, or what is considered error, it imparts exceptional Desires. 

Truth that still restores Dreams: an unseen hope, which activates enthralling passions.

In vain would we have peace and happiness by seeking cultural and social concord, or by playing roles, characters, tasks that do not belong to us - albeit appeasing.

We become outsiders.

Truth: Faithfulness to God in Christ. And frankness in every choice, with our character in relation and situation.

The rest is calculation - deep disturbance, which will leave us disassociated and sick inside.

To internalise and live the message:

Do you take a stand and face the consequences? When your vocational character is at stake, do you stand up and put your face to it or do you blend in?

Are you being vague, do you value reciprocation and seek tribute or protection from satisfactory synagogues? Or do you wish to unite your life with Christ?

Paraclete, Sin Justice Judgment

(Jn 16:5-11)

In ancient times there were no lawyers, and one had to defend oneself by finding witnesses.

The accused could e.g. be guilty but worthy of forgiveness, or innocent yet unable to show proof.

In such cases absolution was secured by an esteemed person from the audience, who rose from the assembly and stood silently beside the accused, vouching for him and thus justifying him.

This is the action of the Spirit, in Jn referred to as the Paraclete: 'called alongside'.

Jesus was condemned by the expert teachers of the official religion as a lunatic, a heretic, and an unforgivable sinner.

It is normal to expect that those who renounce simulation and accept Christ as Lord of their lives will be judged in the same way: they will feel their identity of destiny with Him on the inside and deep inside.

But in us there is a silent force of conviction that harmonises even accusations, that frees us from externally induced tensions.

Correspondence that reknots the threads of the vocational weave, that brings the soul back to the inner concert, for the mission; and makes one restart even after the labours of idiotic harassment.

This intimate and friendly power is not related to obstinacy, but to listening to oneself - outside of any local, cultural, social or religious conditioning parameters.

All for the task at hand, and without exhausting our sharp energy in direct confrontations.

There is an inner world of Presence that opens doors.

It has a secret power of authority (devoid of judgement or imposition) that releases the soul from the incessant struggle against adversity.

And one gladly relies on such silent virtue: of the independent life that emerges and comes.

'Sin' (vv.8-9) is in fact the inability to accept the Call to follow one's own Seed, one's own Core, one's own 'will' that detests others' dirigisme, efforts, noise.

A kernel that weaves its roots into the ground, and unerringly leads to realisation - as well as correspondence.

Thus testifying to the unrepeatable personal Calling, Pearl without even a heap of pain and obstinacy.

By Way the authentic disciple will understand that the Lord has condoned his 'sin', that is, he has erased the humiliation of the unbridgeable gap [between creaturely condition and perfection].

The latter attribute preached by common religiosity; so grown-up, accommodated, hypocritical and installed that it prevents us from becoming human.

Sinfulness in the moralistic [not theological] sense is something else.

"Justice": divine justice is not retributive, for it would distinguish mine from yours. And from division to division he would fall into the worst injustices.

The Father acts by creating: He makes Justice where there is none; He places in conformed positions, He places debts where they do not yet exist.

In short, Love remains unbalanced: it stands on the irregular side of the free Gift, which is not kept at bay.

Rather, it rewrites the whole story. With much of excess.It is not the mercy of merits: the mereor ("mereor" is in fact the root of "meretriciousness").

"Thence shall he come to judge" - recites the Apostles' Creed: from where? The divine Judgement is not the banal, weighted one of intimist customs.

"Judgement" in the evangelical sense is the active, personal and intimate invitation of Jesus, who gives himself completely, down to the last drop of blood; who communicates his life-giving Spirit (Jn 19:30) and annihilates the accusations decreed by the "world" of convenience.

From where? From the Cross.

The same point from which he who is enlightened by the Spirit who overcomes interest and death, heals and frees from the fetters of 'ne quid nimis' [nothing too much].

The true believer knows how to be with himself in a different way. Regenerating the lives of so many brothers and sisters.

To internalise and live the message:

Do you know the error of "the world"?

Do you defend yourself by your own criteria or do you allow yourself to be exonerated?

"From Mine": the dramatic and happy experience of the origins

(Jn 16:12-15)

"Receive from Mine and proclaim to you [...] receive from Mine and proclaim to you" (vv.14-15).

The teaching imparted by Jesus with his life was not incomplete, but a germ that traced fundamental options, guidelines.

The magisterial insufficiency in the detailed case histories is significant. Christ is not a cast and dead model, but a Motive and Motor.

And God is not a predictor of the future, nor a reassurer - but a vital Presence. Even when in adverse events there seems to be a lack of air.

Although limited in space and time, his story and Word still germinates the main lines of an alternative world, empathetic even in the drama of bad times.

The complete Truth of the Lord (including the meaning of his death) is not about quantity - the number of truths, prescriptions: it is in fieri.

'Truth' itself demands to be deepened, intensified, made qualitative, totalising.

The writings of the New Testament attest to the action of the Spirit, who starting from archaic community situations (Mk) increasingly refines and reveals the sense of what "is to come" (v.13).

In the personal and ecclesial sequelae also extra moenia - it is about the possibility of an ever sharper understanding on our part.

We are not repositories of an aptitude for divination - of course - but for discernment [now capable of appreciating even deviations].

We are given a faculty to grasp the genius of time, even in imbalance and uprooting.

This is in relation to the disciples' capacity to correspond to the vocation that welcomes the new: a slow paradoxical glorification; for them too, 'the way of elevation'.

The penetration of the Mystery and the history of salvation, which had its apex and germinal source in Jesus of Nazareth, acquires more and more surprising clarity; new ways of being.

We discover in the Faith that our life can broaden the horizon. It is not carried out in function of God, as in archaic religions, which cage... but the other way around.

Christ speaks not of new truths, but of 'complete truth': specifically concerning the face of Heaven within; the profile of the integral and authentic woman and man; the character of the new society.

One of the ways in which the early Christians experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit was prophecy, made fruitful by even unpleasant events that incessantly forced them to exodus, to move, to turn their gaze - thus overcoming the fear of growing.

One had to remain... only in individual or ecclesial frankness. 

If anyone had to 'isolate' themselves from the common mentality, it was to rediscover their deep roots, to interrupt the artificial behaviour ready to barter values.

Gradually the community brothers experienced the depth and total dimension of the teaching received.

Even persecutions and 'crosses' were not eradicated hastily.

In the right time, crises were transformed into the spelling of love; into opportunities to experience needs and relationships differently - even paradoxically, for genuine change; from within, natural.

In this perspective, every event was always better understood, internalised, assimilated and made one's own as the historical call of the God who reveals himself.

In the events of the early days, all the situations in which the Church will always find itself are revealed.

In this way and in that spirit, the disciples began a journey of understanding the facts of Easter.

The Lord's intimates were discovering step by step that the story of Christ would embrace all the secrets of God.

In short, the first fraternities observed the "extraordinary" things of living following and 'inner guidance'.

By living the Master's teaching in the most varied circumstances [favourable and joyful, or sad and at a loss] He made Himself close in the soul; and He manifested Himself, taking the step of the brothers.A different Light - no longer neutral, standardised, whatever - animated the lives of the faithful and their coexistence.

They experienced a new Birth, like an unceasing Creation.

From the hearts of the believers in the Son of Man - even those who had previously been maligned - there gushed forth an unprecedented Source of conciliation and harmony of opposites. 

A Wisdom of things unknown to the world of empire and other beliefs was emerging.

The Spirit of the Risen One made it possible to understand the critical fruitfulness of the Cross ["the burden": v.12], thus expanding the solutions and orientations of the conventional competitive life.

Of course there were falls, due to natural precariousness, and to the fact that it was not immediate to understand the logic of the Crucified One.

But the Action of the Spirit of "Truth" [God's Faithfulness] illuminated, guided and stimulated them to interpret the Word of the Lord more deeply: not a storehouse of crystallised statements.

The children discovered that that Call was living, inexhaustible in its meanings and in the possibility of understanding things.

Truth about the Eternal and humanity, pregnant with existential implications.

Those reborn of water and the Spirit began to perceive it as a force of events, a real and overwhelming power.

His intelligence was enriched in history, through assembly events, experiences, dialogues, reflections.

The Spirit of the wounded and Living Christ internalised that Call that renewed women and men, and their relationships.

People who did not even have self-esteem were being revived. The profiteer became righteous, the doubter more secure; the unhappy person began to hope again.

All in mutual help realised that they could live happily.

The assistance of the total and mystical divine Spirit, even today, guides the access and fullness of facets of the Truth; and is a stimulus to an innovative, democratic, multifaceted, personal understanding.

Let us banish insecurity.

We can still be in the sharpest, most energetic and contemplative frankness; in a faithfulness of integral reading-interpretation of the Gospels that eschews all accommodation (vv.14-15).

"One Moment": critical living and recovery of lost time

"A very short time": we are not in the waiting room

(Jn 16:16-20)

The human communion of the first disciples with the Master was suggestive, not exhaustive. It must now renew itself.

This takes place in the passage of Jesus from the world to the Father. Therefore in the journey and dialogue outside any circle, to which the apostles themselves are called.

The earthly separation from the Lord was dramatic. But even today we are impelled to live and grow in the 'outgoing Church'.

A shift that obliges the faithful in Christ to move from community brothers and sisters to an all-encompassing relationship with the human family.

The immediate perception would become unbreakable: Jesus must go and leave us alone so that we enter the Mystery, in search.

This is so that it is the Risen One and the totally Other that emerges in this detachment, in the mist and night of the reaffirmed Exodus, all real and all new.

For us too, certainty becomes a problem; stability knows shocks. 

We are not protégés - as in pagan religion, where the gods descended into difficulties and sided with their friends.

There is a detachment from representations of God, even from our common way of thinking of the Risen One.

He becomes an echo of the soul, guiding. And it becomes 'body' i.e. Church; as well as 'call' to the shattering of idols, to outgoing witness.

The evangelising activity of the genuine apostles goes hand in hand with the Lord, and reflects his events, his teaching, his type of confrontations.

In this way, the Living One becomes present and active in us, seamlessly.

Certainly, the approaching events take on their own configuration - each time particular.

But for Faith in the victory of life over death, we understand: everything is configured in the ways that allow us to express the deepest core of being, our feeling called.

Fontal, authentic joy.

As disciples, we unfold the Risen One in the history of each one: death resurrection manifestations... personal, unprecedented even in the sign of travails - for each believer.

In such a typically Johannine perspective (and practical action) the death-resurrection, the glorification at the right hand of the Father [Ascension] and the Gift of the Spirit become simultaneous.

Like a 'new order' of things [so-called Return to the End of Time].

In short, the integral event of the humanising Messiah allows the believer to feel in communion with God, and united to the Son - without any caesura or temporal delay.

The Faith-Vision catches the innovative and creative Spirit of the Father at work, to build the definitive world.

Therefore, the Judgement from the Cross is now, it will not take place after a nerve-wracking wait, in a distant moment.

Church Time thus does not become 'intermediate'. Nor can it justify dark and empty forms of spirituality.The impact with the divine challenges and exposes. Yet it possesses its own, unique density.

The tribulations would be there - even very serious, full of embarrassment and unprecedented - but they would drag the consciences far beyond the bewilderment and the sudden unfulfilling.

In the experience of the envoys, placed face to face with the Mission, the enigmatic 'in a little while' would have nothing impenetrable about it.

We 'see' it in the Spirit, but not only in the heart.

It is for an Announcement together - without intimism. Free relationship with reality and the Living One, 'from' ourselves.

Jn reflects a question-and-answer catechesis addressed to those who could not understand the meaning of the Master's death and asked for explanations.

The masters of the ancient religion of consensus rejoiced at the disappearance of that subversive and heretic who instead of keeping quiet and making a career had been a thorn in the side of their prestige - and earnings - finally done away with and shamed.

By now a failure and rejection even by God.

Well, "a very short time" or "within a short time" are expressions that reaffirm and mark the continuity between the experience of physical closeness with Jesus and the 'vision' of the Risen One.

Transfigured and Lord-in-us, it is the same Master that we recognise in his earthly life, including the less happy aspects. E.g. of rejection, denunciation, rebuke.

Just like one who does not know how to be in the world.

These are priceless moments: times of rediscovery of cosmic and divine closeness, obviously purified of illusions of glory or social conformity.

Despite the hostile environment, the disciple's inner situation does not change: it is one of permanent unity and is not interrupted, indeed it becomes more incisive and goal-directed.

Faith is a penetrating relationship: even today, no longer linked to feeling, ritual experience, or the signs of a monopolistic and consolidated civitas christiana - but to the acuity and incisiveness of personal adhesion.

Does it sometimes seem to vanish? Immediately after a doubt arises, everything is turned upside down.

The frankness in the harsh confrontation with established power or the ideas of devotion good for festivals and all seasons, makes Him suddenly Present.

Alive and uncomfortable, but astonishing.

It is true: when everything smacks of sadness and trial, in an instant the situation is reversed.

It is the moment of profound Happiness: of the Vision of the invisible Friend manifesting Himself in His real Wisdom and strength.

Incarnation that continues in the critical witnesses and assemblies that take the form of the Lord's luminous Awakening.

They face the same Passion of love and do not shy away from problems: they make them flourish as the vital Newness of God.

To internalise and live the message:

Is your testimony diluted and sleepy, or is it intense, insightful, pungent?

Revelation at work in the Community

Affliction and joy in the pains of childbirth

(Jn 16:20-23a)

A widespread belief at the time of Jesus was that the last time would be preceded by an excess of tribulation and violence.

The joy of the golden age to come would be heralded by a period of unprecedented trials.

The image of the woman giving birth expressed the sense of the intensely painful history in the turning of the times.

Times that were not expected to be excessively long - compensated by a deliverance that would cause one to rejoice.

The spirit of self-sufficiency and feigned security of the surrounding world (even of the religious caste, preoccupied with safeguarding itself) would lead church members into terrifying loneliness.

The believers contradicted the pious and imperial way of looking at life, based on false certainties and a spirit of affirmation.

The moment in history seemed invaded by sadness and at the same time by an ineffable, radical expectation, which paradoxically arose from the same cause of persecution.

Exclusion produced a sense of discouragement, but it was also a spring that activated incisive glances, and action, for a reverse fulfilment - in the living experience of the divine Presence.

Social estrangement triggered a situation of Freedom: it became an unexpected, fruitful, tangible Gift.

Everything was shown to reconcile the multiplicity of faces with their own scattered history, brothers and sisters, God's future.

No more misunderstandings.

In the light of the real experience of the working Vision-Faith, even in the malaise there would be no questions to put forward: only answers.

The mystery of each person's existence was eloquently clarified, with no more scattering questions: rather, with inner guides.

In the figure of Jesus "greeting" his own, Jn introduces the Gift of the Paraclete. Spirit bearing the joy of the [silent] Presence of the Master.

Still in the midst - He was bringing the new world into being.

The frequent allusions to inner suffering in the text describe the reality of the Johannine communities in late 1st century Asia Minor, tormented by defections.The oppression under Domitian was increasing, and many community brothers were impatient: they needed a profound key to interpretation, and perspective.

They would not have made it on their own, starting from themselves.

Jn intends to sustain the pains of the believers and to avoid flight, encouraging all to see in persecutions a generating mechanism of new life [labour pains: v.21].

Only in this way would those who had death before their eyes not be afraid to continue in their frankness as witnesses: they had to have a strong Hope.

On such a ray of light and in the wake of God in history, step by step everything became clear.

In the life of the woman and the man of Faith, melancholy and joy went hand in hand - indeed, it was the absolute and lacerating trials that unleashed the flow of life.

The death of Christ and his people made a new birth of humanity possible.

Mystery of life, of tribulations, and of being fully new creatures, from genesis to genesis.

In the Bible, Happiness is a perception of fullness of life, a place of celebration that transports the person and the entire fraternity from the ills of the journey - it is the great sign of the New World.

But the primitive communities experienced that intimate joy arose from the tears of a painful birth: this was also to be the case for the world to come; of unprecedented conquest and freedom.

From the labour pains arose a different, primordial life, filled with a different kind of exultation: dissonant from old forms, nomenclatures, and intentions, even for those giving birth.

In short, suffering did not deny the irradiation of the Spirit: it was a law of birth [not a negative force] that could indeed annihilate, but only those whose gaze was averted.

This was also the case for the Kingdom: its establishment happened within a struggle, never harmless - which even though it wounded outside and inside even the human substance, in the depths of the heart and relationships.

But it then reharmonised and more, in the thrill of discoveries, in the suggestions that throbbed - from which a new creation sprang.

To the official notes of the true Church [a holy catholic apostolic] one should perhaps add: harassed, scourged, nailed down. In this way, strengthened by a Word-Person that resonated within.

From all this came an unimpeded 'taste' from the earliest times, which immediately incurs worldly hostility. Nothing to do with empire and its pyramidal-feudal logic.

Precisely in the travail, each trial produced in the children of God the joy of a rediscovered Presence, in the long time of evangelisation - always in danger of going astray and in the temptation to yield.

We must remember this rhythm: sadness of farewell and a new heart, joy and sadness....

Paradoxical synergy that can grow our engaging union with the Risen One, acknowledged Lord.

Spe Salvi

We somehow desire life itself, true life, which is then untouched even by death; but at the same time we do not know what we are being driven towards. We cannot cease striving towards it and yet we know that all that we can experience or realise is not what we long for. This unknown "thing" is the true "hope" that impels us and its being unknown is, at the same time, the cause of all despair as well as of all positive or destructive impulses towards the authentic world and authentic man. The word "eternal life" tries to give a name to this unknown known reality. Necessarily is an insufficient word that creates confusion. "Eternal', in fact, arouses in us the idea of the interminable, and this frightens us; 'life' makes us think of the life we know, which we love and do not want to lose, and which, however, is often at the same time more effort than fulfilment, so that while on the one hand we desire it, on the other hand we do not want it. We can only try to escape with our thoughts from the temporality of which we are prisoners and somehow presage that eternity is not a continuous succession of calendar days, but something like the moment filled with fulfilment, in which totality embraces us and we embrace totality. It would be the moment of diving into the ocean of infinite love, in which time - the before and the after - no longer exists. We can only try to think that this moment is life in the full sense, an ever new immersion in the vastness of being, while we are simply overwhelmed with joy. This is how Jesus expresses it in the Gospel of John: "I will see you again and your heart will rejoice and no one will be able to take your joy away" (16:22). We must think in this direction if we are to understand what Christian hope aims at, what we expect from faith, from our being with Christ.

[Pope Benedict, Spe Salvi n.12]