(Mt 28:16-20)

Matthew does not describe the Ascension, but conveys the same message as Acts 1:1-11 (using different images): the passing of the baton.

Unlike Luke and John, Matthew places the encounter with the Risen One in Galilee, not in Jerusalem, the sacred centre. The setting has theological significance.

He does not make himself present and visible in the holy city, but rather on the outskirts, and the apostles are invited to follow in the footsteps of the Master, starting from where his mission began.

The members of the communities of Galilee and Syria to whom Matthew addresses himself came from Judaism, but were despised by observant Jews, who considered them double traitors to their culture.

Because of invasions from the north and east, the population of those lands was heterogeneous, and the orthodox viewed this mixture with suspicion. Moreover, by adhering to Christ, they had called into question the customs and authority of traditional teachings.

It is precisely to these lowly people that the Gospel of the Lord is addressed, beginning with the experience of 'the Mount' (v. 16).

In biblical and Semitic culture in general, the mountain is the place of special experience of the Eternal One, of his manifestations.

In Matthew, the term alludes to the setting of the Beatitudes: the place of God's new work of salvation that surpasses the Law.

Jerusalem was no longer to be the centre of worship and religiosity. The veil of the Temple was torn (Mt 27:51): access to the Father was no longer limited to a place.

Every believer in Christ, of whatever background, who decided to supplant the principles of the 'plain' (a competitive and common way of thinking and acting) with those of 'the Mount' was enabled to become a living sanctuary.

The evangelist places Jesus on 'the mountain' when he wants to emphasise a fundamental reference or gesture (as opposed to the fideist imagination).

It is a 'place' in the sense of powerful moments of the Spirit, of coincidences between the divine and human nature: where we experience Christ manifesting his existential 'authority' throughout life.

It is a summit that reveals the criteria of the Mission - with the symbolism of divine Revelation and alluding to its own post-Easter condition (a high, 'heavenly' situation).

And only those who have assimilated the teaching of 'the Mount' - only those who have experienced the Risen One - can carry out this Mission.

In fact, the mandate and sending of the disciples is a decisive act. It introduces a radical change in the relationship with the disciples, who discover the divine in Him (v. 17a) and at the same time remain with their perplexities (v. 17b).

Matthew is aware of the doubts that are spreading. But it is precisely the uncertainty and scandalous behaviour of the first direct followers that allows him to encourage the brothers of the community (even if in his writing there is a tendency to present the apostles as rather upright models).

The 'churches' are not made up of perfect children. Indeed, he recalls (in this way) an unprecedented aspect that Jesus had introduced into the criteria of discernment and real life: the coexistence of faces.

While religious existence was conceived in terms of procedures, the chiselling of feelings, 'evidence' and upward progress, the Master taught the integration of ethnic groups, affections, emotional mixtures and even opposing sides.

According to the new Rabbi, life in the Spirit brings joy because it discovers hidden treasures precisely in the shadows of unstable people and situations. Joseph's own doubt was fruitful (cf. Mt 1:18ff).

It is good to believe in Jesus and, at the same time, to have questions: this is the difference between Faith and common religiosity.

Only Christ is given all 'Ex-ousìa' (v. 18): authority that is not imposed, that emanates from the Mystery without coercion, and is therefore freely accepted (i.e. a kind of authority that comes from being itself).

This is a decisive moment for establishing the criteria for ecclesial action that makes Jesus present. He entrusts us with a task, confers his own 'powers' upon us, and introduces us into the communion of life.

It seems paradoxical, but it is on a platform of mixtures (a solid and oscillating base) that the Church becomes capable of inexplicable recoveries - and that the apostles are sent out (vv. 19-20).

It is the backdrop of competitive and malleable energies, taken up and assimilated, that changes life and prepares God's future—not mass castration or sterilisation.

Faith and religious evidence now clash, sparking sparks.

For this reason – on uncertain ground – there is openness to the whole world (v. 19), whereas in a previous passage Matthew had limited the mission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Mt 10:5-6).

The living experience of conviviality among differences has made it possible to understand the vitality of chaos, which shifts our gaze, broadens it, and forces us to overcome one-sidedness.Confusion and upheaval which, as missionaries well know, solve real problems, opening up unexpected horizons of incalculable value.

Imperfection has been fruitful in unexpected outcomes and has opened up a new era: the novelty of expanded ecclesiology.

Now the light that shone on the people immersed in darkness when Jesus settled from Nazareth in Capernaum (Mt 4:13-) must spread everywhere, through a discipleship extended to all peoples (pagans: v. 19 Greek text) 'every day and until the end of the age' (v. 20).

The particularism previously recognised (perhaps out of respect for the community and space-time limitations) gives way to the new Inauguration.

Now the boundaries fall away, giving way to total universalism - without any frontiers.

The immersion (v. 19: Greek meaning of the term Baptism) in the wonder that surrounds the Person of the Lord permeates the disciple of Christ to the very core - without any need for binding procedures and rules, which are well-established but external.

Light animated by the promise of the Risen One who, recalling Emmanuel - God-With-Us - closes Matthew's Gospel as it was begun and announced by the Prophets (cf. Matthew 1:22-23).

The Ascension is not a cut, a separation, or a departure, but Communion. Prophecy has become permanent reality.

To internalise and live the message:

How do you enter into the New Covenant? Are you attentive to the dialectic between faith and doubt? Do you consider it a driving force, both for new contemplation and for the flowering of new energies?

How does Jesus' self-revelation affect you? What strength has it given you? How important are the experience and vigour of 'the Mountain'?

Jn 3:16-18(7-21)

Lifting up the Cross goes far beyond resilience.

Going up and going down, going beyond or retreating

(Gospel of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross: Jn 3:13-17)

Nothing doing, despite two millennia of Christian symbols, formulas and rituals, especially in Italy, we remain stuck in the same old rut: Guelphs against Ghibellines, even as a shaky fate looms.

Why is our faith so narrow-minded and incapable of freeing us from occasional quibbles? Why, even as we are heading towards a mountain of debt, do we continue to behave like those who never stop feeding off each other?

We need a beautiful conversion, with the pyramids of 'primacy' and glory overturned: the arrogant, aggressive, intransigent and powerful becoming humble, meek, benevolent and weak.

Never be in need? Be in great need! All the more reason to cling to the Crucified One.

After all, one of Francis' first companions, Brother Egidio, said: "The way to go up is to go down." We ask ourselves: what is the meaning of this paradox?

Today's feast is called the Exaltation (or Invention, from the Latin: discovery). The Gospel, however, speaks of 'Lifting up'.

Certainly, this is synonymous with being seen and noticed, but in a 'contrary way'. So, how can we elevate our lives by fixing our gaze on Jesus crucified? The passage about Nicodemus suggests an answer.

The doctor of the Law, a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin, is 'in the night' because he has been miseducated about the normal idea of a successful man: if God is 'someone', then his followers must also resemble him in attributes of possession, power and glory.

However, the moment comes when even popular or theological customs and the antiquated way of seeing things are shaken by doubt, by the alternative offered by Christ.

Is it really the person who evolves who imposes himself? Is the successful man really the one who rises above others - treated as a stool - or is it not perhaps the one who has the freedom to come down and let us breathe?

All with spontaneity and fluidity, without effort: imposing on oneself a ladder of renunciation and pain is not therapeutic and does not bring out the best in us. On the contrary, it separates us from the plasticity and simplicity that produce the best things in the world.

The Cross is not a standard discipline of purification, such as wanting to change your life, fix your relationships by stifling your inconsistencies, setting your mind on achieving goals and succeeding (even spiritually) at all costs...

These are the usual clichéd improvement programmes that often make us unnatural, full of artifice, and unable to be open with ourselves, and therefore with others.

In Christ, the Cross opens up new horizons because it no longer takes anything for granted. It is a new Judgment, global and based on merit.

Other possibilities emerge, which allow us to encounter the change that solves real problems - precisely in the midst of disorderly vacillations.

When lived in Faith, this wavering mixture is a deeply energetic, malleable and evolutionary reality.

It does lead to a situation of chaos and disorder, but out of this emerges a better relationship with our actions and our destiny, even recovering everything we thought was unattainable.

This happens in the uncertainty that brings us closer to our essence - in the days when events become serious and we call for resources, fresh air and more solid relationships.

We then need to take a leap forward, not retreat [staying where we are and turning in on ourselves to identify problems and flaws, then correcting them in a hasty and unnatural way...].

This would be an absurd waste of virtue and opportunities for growth in the search for our territory.

Even on the spiritual path, in fact, we do everything to achieve a full life, total fulfilment and strong freedom. Not to be seen as perfect.

The passage through a climate of social contempt will be inevitable.

The Crucified One does not say 'how we should be and are not yet' (in a conventional way): because we approach our Vocation only if we surprise ourselves and others - precisely when common and conformist opinion judges us to be inconsistent.

This does not mean that we are rejecting the gallows.

Situations of condemnation can become creative, so the gallows that belong to us in that situation - even if it compromises our reputation - should not torment our soul beyond measure.

Misadventures, upheavals, adversity, bitter circumstances... reshape the soul and our point of view, calling into question the idea (we have already formed) of ourselves.

They open up, indeed they throw open, astonishing new paths - realisations that would otherwise have been stifled from the outset by external convictions.

This is why there is something paradoxical and absurd in Jesus' proposal: in order to grow, to reach fulfilment and completeness, one must lose; one must not be opportunistic, quick to act or take advantage. These are all insipid and childish attitudes that do not regenerate, that bring us back to friction and unreliable conformism, and accentuate them.

The logic of the Cross is disconcerting: at first glance, it seems to humiliate us. On the contrary, it protects us from the poison of vain religiosity, good manners and bad habits.

Empty, consolatory or merely theatrical spirituality produces conflictual but inert environments [they make us give up: useless and infesting].

Everyone knows that we must learn to accept the inevitable adversities of existence. But this is not the meaning of the Cross.

God does not redeem through pain, but through Love - the kind that does not fold up and crumple, but expands life and unexpressed abilities.

The providential Cross is not given by God, but actively taken up and accepted by the disciple. In the Gospels, it signifies the acceptance of the inevitable shame that follows Jesus - even in a comically vain, albeit papier-mâché, setting.

For those who choose to be themselves in a world of appearances and reputation, the (external) fate of persecution, misunderstanding, mockery and slander, lack of credit and laurels - as if we were failures - is sealed.

But in the Judgment of the Crucified One, this is the right position to become children who find human fulfilment, stand firm in their important choices, and bear corresponding fruit: often the best time of their lives.

A free gift, for a Life Saved, the Cross redeems us from the attractions of social appreciation, which readily bestows ample credit on the trivial and extrinsic, but which stifles our complete personal growth.

It saves us from the dangers of pedestals that crumble, on which it is not worth continuing to climb in order to be noticed and uselessly - astutely - to please. Just as any manipulator who loves power would do; even pious, full of attributes of vigour, but inexorably old and doomed to death - bogged down and sterile - incapable of generating new creatures and reviving himself.

The best opportunities for development, fulfilment and completion emerge from sides of ourselves and situations we do not want. Indeed, even from deep wounds that affect our entire way of being, doing and appearing.

It is not the end of the world. Today, the global crisis has already destroyed our powerful appearance, yet it is allowing the virtue of our fragile side to shine through, previously overshadowed by the demands of social appearances.

Here is the Crucified One, who bleeds not only to heal, soften and remove burdens, but to overturn, replace horizons and supplant the entire system of habitual conformism; and even so-called alternative 'points', ways of thinking that seemed to be something else entirely.

All this, through Faith. Not with tension and a specific plan, but through a baptismal attitude towards the new integrity that is coming: given, accepted, recognised.

Thus, the Cross embraced saves us.

It seems like sabotage to our 'infallible' side, but it is the antidote to a city slumbering on the same paths as before - in the usual ways of being and taking the field (now without a future).

Lifting the Cross goes far beyond the capacity for resilience.

«From there he will come to judge»: Genesis Rebirth Judgement

Jn 3:16-21(7-21)

Every man faced with the Mystery does not fully understand what he feels until he accepts the challenge and enters into a new existence.

The old life presents only bills to pay, which always re-emerge; conversely, the new Call supplants categories of judgement and normalised choices.

It is like passing through an emptying of the heart.

In fact, the Tao [Way] Tê Ching (xxi) says:

'The containment of those who have the virtue of emptiness is only in accordance with the Tao. For creatures, the Tao is indistinct and indeterminate [...] in its bosom it contains images [...] in its bosom it contains archetypes [...] in its bosom it contains the essence of being! This essence is very genuine [...] and thus consents to all beginnings'.

Outside the cosmic and personal Way, human existence has no generative meaning.

Even the spiritual journey of the experienced and well-integrated stagnates until it can no longer silence the great questions of meaning, its fiction, or its sloth.

Life in the Spirit proceeds through new births and breathes where it wills.

Not according to a progress marked by mechanisms, manners, respectability, skills, or instruction manuals: in a disconcerting way - but it brings different refreshment, and even sudden Peace.

It is a present and active reality, albeit inexplicable, but one that enriches us, allowing us to penetrate or plunge into another configuration of reality.

Another kingdom, which in the 'Son of Man' unites the two worlds.

Nicodemus was a master of the Old Testament alone. He controlled every stagnation or progress by comparing them to the wisdom of God's things on the basis of well-known expectations.But it is not uncommon for our growth to proceed in visions and leaps - not even according to natural 'intelligence'. Let alone in the spiritual life.

It is not enough to practise and agree with the ideas of our fathers or with fashionable trends, nor to remain in agreement with normal intentions.

Assimilating the knowledge of others and acquiring expected skills is often just clutter that blocks true development - the kind that belongs to us.

Unfortunately, in religious life we often proceed in a mechanical way, and there seems to be no need to let ourselves be saved or surprised by events.

At most, we expose ourselves to a slight breeze, slaves to earthly languages, limited to the dimension of 'phenomena' that are entirely down to earth - which exclude and dismiss Christ.

In the disorienting adventure of pioneering faith, the divine plan and the radical work of the Son do not unfold in a reasonable way, but rather through boundless love.

This is a level of Eternity that brings those who accept it into a unique one-to-one relationship with the Father and his exuberant Life.

The unit of measurement of the Spirit is different from that of agreed customs. Its impetus is an elusive Wind, 'visible' only in ecclesial and personal effects.

The Secret is 'from above' (v. 7), beyond scale. It lurks in the unpredictability of crossroads, excesses, and new creations.

Bliss does not proceed by boring arguments: it protrudes or fades away.

In this way, one can often hold the Eucharist or the Scriptures in one's hands and not understand that the well-trodden path can only give illusions of spiritual doctorate.

'From there he will come to judge' is an article of the Apostles' Creed.

The success or failure of life will be judged 'by the Cross', that is, by the criterion of new perception, self-giving and renewal to the very end.

A reversal of perspectives; a complete change of view.

Source of Hope and a new leap forward: where humiliation is transformed into authentic Birth and the triumph of indestructible Life.

This is the Beatitude that discovers blossoms, hidden treasures and precious pearls behind our dark sides.

Here, even the persecutions of enemies and mockers become vectors that introduce different energies, forcing us to improve.

And it was imagined that divine life belonged only to the heavenly sphere; instead, paradoxically, it comes within our reach.

Nicodemus knew that many had fallen victim to pitfalls in the desert, but Jesus makes it clear that the Israelites were not healed for free by a bronze effigy, but by 'lifting up their eyes'.

The Lord refers to this episode and interprets it as the backdrop for his teaching, a symbol of his extreme experience.

Those who contemplate him already have within themselves the full, acute and total meaning of the Scriptures, and the very Life of the Eternal One.

In this sense, it is necessary to be 'born from above', to shift one's contemplative perception, to recognise oneself, and to keep one's eyes fixed on true love.

It is for a new Genesis of our own being and of the criteria by which we stake our lives that the Crucified One becomes the reference point for all our choices.

Not for masochistic pain and false consolation. Not to use it as a trinket, to adorn oneself with it.

Not as an amulet; nor as an emblem placed by force on high ground, indicating the conquest of territories.

Nor is it the sacralisation of an environment or a 'cultural' figure.

According to the rabbinic style, Matthew 25 uses the image of the Last Judgement to recall the importance and consequences of the choices we make.

In John, the theme of Judgment seems to be reversed: it is as if we are the ones 'judging' God - in the sense that we are and will find ourselves disarmed in his presence, recognising that his Heart is much greater than ours.

So too in the experience of the life of Faith, which attracts and opens up the impossible future.

The fourth Gospel, in fact, excludes the Father from judging his children. John speaks of a Judgment that takes place in the Present, which is only redemption - exclusively in our favour: for a life of salvation.

"When" God acts, he creates. He justifies: he does something new, global, incomparable.

He does not repeat himself. He brings forth other surpluses, in varied ways, in the fabric of history, 'imposing' right positions - above all where there is no justice.

According to a Wisdom that makes many unexpected opinions heard.

Although using different backgrounds and language, both Matthew and John find themselves in the same 'truth' (v. 21).

Judgment is pronounced from the Cross - according to criteria that are different from worldly ones, which are always hasty or mannered (and very banal).

The Lord makes his opinions heard and seen in the face of any event or choice, warning against options that lead to authentic death.

The work of those who mismanage and waste their lives 'will be burned up, and they will be punished, but they themselves will be saved, though only as through fire' (1 Cor 3:15).

The differences are already measured against the Person of the Son. The Judgment has already begun.

To internalise and live the message:

What do you consider to have been your Births? And your authentic choices?

Are you still following the gentle breeze of your ancestors or the fads of the moment?

Are you setting your sails according to the direction of the Wind of the Spirit, which blows away your securities, even those of groups or denominations?

What do you admire, and what have you placed 'high' in your life? Is it perhaps straw that has already been burned?

What has excited you so far, and what did you think would elevate you?

He loved so much, and He gave

"God so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (Jn 3:16). Here is the heart of the Gospel, here is the foundation of our joy. The content of the Gospel, in fact, is not an idea or a doctrine, but Jesus, the Son whom the Father gave us so that we might have life. Jesus is the foundation of our joy: it is not a beautiful theory about how to be happy, but it is the experience of being accompanied and loved on the journey of life. “He so loved the world that he gave his Son.” Let us pause for a moment, brothers and sisters, on these two aspects: “he so loved” and “he gave.”

First of all, God loved so much. These words, which Jesus addressed to Nicodemus – an elderly Jew who wanted to know the Master – help us to see the true face of God. He has always looked upon us with love, and out of love he came among us in the flesh of his Son. In him, he came to seek us in the places where we were lost; in him, he came to lift us up from our falls; in him, he wept our tears and healed our wounds; in him, he blessed our lives forever. Whoever believes in him, the Gospel says, will not be lost (ibid.). In Jesus, God has spoken the definitive word on our lives: you are not lost, you are loved. Always loved.

If listening to the Gospel and practising our faith do not open our hearts to grasp the greatness of this love, and we perhaps slip into a serious, sad, closed religiosity, then it is a sign that we need to stop for a while and listen again to the proclamation of the good news: God loves you so much that He gave you His whole life. He is not a god who looks down on us indifferently from above, but a Father, a Father in love who is involved in our history; he is not a god who rejoices in the death of sinners, but a Father who is concerned that no one should be lost; he is not a god who condemns, but a Father who saves us with the blessing embrace of his love.

And so we come to the second word: God 'gave' his Son. Precisely because he loves us so much, God gives himself and offers us his life. Those who love always go out of themselves – do not forget this: those who love always go out of themselves. Love always offers itself, gives itself, spends itself. The strength of love is precisely this: it shatters the shell of selfishness, breaks down the barriers of overly calculated human security, tears down walls and overcomes fears, in order to give itself. This is the dynamic of love: it is giving itself, giving itself away. Those who love are like this: they prefer to risk giving themselves rather than withering away by holding back. This is why God comes out of himself, because “he so loved”. His love is so great that he cannot help but give himself to us. When the people journeying through the desert were attacked by poisonous snakes, God made Moses make a bronze snake; in Jesus, however, raised on the cross, He himself came to heal us from the poison that brings death, he made himself sin to save us from sin. God does not love us with words: he gives us his Son so that whoever looks at him and believes in him may be saved (cf. Jn 3:14-15).

The more we love, the more we are capable of giving. This is also the key to understanding our lives. It is beautiful to meet people who love one another, who care for one another and share their lives; we can say of them, as we say of God: they love one another so much that they give their lives. It is not only what we can produce or earn that counts, but above all the love we are capable of giving.

And this is the source of joy! God so loved the world that he gave his Son. This is where the invitation that the Church addresses to us on this Sunday takes on meaning: 'Rejoice [...]. Rejoice and be glad, you who were in sorrow: be filled with the abundance of your consolation' (Entrance Antiphon; cf. Is 66:10-11). I think back to what we experienced a week ago in Iraq: a tormented people rejoiced with joy, thanks to God and his mercy.

Sometimes we look for joy where there is none, we look for it in illusions that vanish, in dreams of greatness for ourselves, in the apparent security of material things, in the cult of our image, and in many other things... But life experience teaches us that true joy is feeling loved unconditionally, feeling accompanied, having someone who shares our dreams and who, when we are shipwrecked, comes to rescue us and lead us to a safe harbour.

[Pope Francis, homily on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the evangelisation of the Philippines, 14 March 2021]

Holy Trinity

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

The children's identity card is faith in a God who creates, makes Covenant, is close, redeems, allows flourishing in any event or age.

Thus on the journey we take we no longer rely on the outside, and we stop underestimating ourselves.

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

The Eternal One 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] i.e.: in the unfolding of events people have an essential experience of the Living One as Deliverer, and Bridegroom [cf. Hosea's fluctuating affective story].

But in the fullness of his heart, only Jesus manifests this - still in the First Covenant confused with a sullen lawgiver, notary, judge who intervenes to cut or distinguish, then waits for the reckoning.

The Almighty dreams of imparting life and creating Family, not dividing pristine 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, which is not pronounced in the least.

In short, specific to sons and daughters is adherence to a Living One who transmits and brightens life, compromises and saves, enables all growth, recovers - creates a harmonious dynamism of opposites.

The First Reading highlights the Father's Project, which unfolds its being while being assisted by the delightful figure of Wisdom.

Creation reflects the purpose of divine love, which manifests itself in the enchantment of a joyful walk with us. He desires to remain on earth, unconditionally.

The joy of the Creator Father is just this: delighting like an Artist bursting with joy over his work. He is happy to be on the globe, especially among the sons of man (vv. 30-31).

His Bliss? Our own; of every creature, who loves to flourish despite conflict.

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

Disorder, piled-up materials, havoc, unseen at every turn; but we are not lost: within the soul there remains a guiding image, the Dream and prototype of an unfolding intimate and cosmic harmony.

It evolves in our wandering. He allows trial and error, indeed He makes use of them.

It is a Design that recovers all scattered things and interrupted paths, creating understandings, unthinkable varieties; hence diverse essences.

Not only with skill, but by Ideal Wisdom. And at the same time incomparable Novelty: of one who does not repeat, but rather brings into being.

It is the miracle of life, always new - indeed, riding on our attempts and mistakes!

The Father is exuberant, not a totem that does not accept decomposed energies. He does not express himself by enacting laws like a sovereign.

He creates unprecedented symphonic polychromes, other essences - multifaceted - as would a parent who rejoices in his rich offspring, in the different works of his intimates (in the most diverse fields) manifested in a thousand facets.

The key to everything - the accompanying Horizon, correlating stages and redefining itself - is the Creator's. His is the guiding Project.

The 'unique' summit and exemplary Action - the Work - is a historically configured event: the Word-event and Person of the Son.

The Second Reading makes it clear that the Eternal Father did not consider his activity concluded, granting mere input to being and essences - then abandoning reality and men, and retiring up there into heaven.

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

Not even our radical incompleteness is cause for rancour, for He who did not create us angelic - but dreamy, yes.

Nor would we be able to scratch it and make it impure, as if it were someone at hand whom we can pollute by reaching out to him of our own accord - pulling ourselves up with our genius, by dint of muscle or scaffolding.

The Person, Word and Event of Jesus tell of a Kingdom in which there is no fear of holiness being endangered by the incompleteness of creatures and contact with the world.

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

In front of our peers we glory in achievements, roles, titles and successes. It also happens in the path of religious perfection.

But the Lord is not like an athletic trainer who delights in the quickest of his players - while he inflicts humiliation, travails, benches and punishments on the unfit and unwieldy.

The Son proclaims the authentic Face of the Father: only unreserved understanding - undeserved, because the perfect Work is solely of Christ the man; our 'accomplice'.

He thus removes dishonour and the sense of inadequacy.

In this way, the exclusive prominence of woman and man, and the motor of solid growth, is His unreserved Love. The only reliable reality - unambiguous of duplicity or hysterical dissociation.

Often in the face of the show society even some religious people become complacent about their achievements.

In the presence of the Eternal, they display their own merits - like a struggling merchant, who displays all the best in his shop window.

Faith-Hope (Heb 11:1; Rom 5:4), on the other hand, places one in the right position with the brethren, and before the Lord. Without alibi.

We learn transparently and finally that the obsession with being admired from the outside - and the pleasure of approval at any cost - are by no means 'the' Way.

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

Nothing can undermine us.

The world we do not see has transmutative capabilities.

Of course, the inner Friend does not 'make us righteous' by dressing us outwardly and in a timely manner, but in an existential process, which shifts the balance (vv.3-4).

The Lord works within through experience. He also does this by besieging the "other" us-ourselves that we have cast aside.

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

As Paul testified, Salvation is not a vicarious and dated mechanism.

The Mystery dwells, meets us and passes through us as protagonists, and despite our whims expresses itself in a saved life.

Faith in God the Son is to be aware that Love can register partial failures, not defeat and ultimate annihilation.

Of course there are falls - either because of precariousness or because it is not immediate to understand the logic of the Crucified One: here is the Action of the Spirit.

Today's Gospel appeals to the mysterious, unknown sense of total self-giving. 

It is reborn by yielding: it is not easy to carry that "burden" [Jn 16:12 alludes to the Cross] nor to grasp its implications and imagine its paradoxical Fruitfulness.

The Development that flows from the superabundance and intensity of the Father-Son relationship is the empathy, the bearing, the action of the Spirit.

It is an impulse and a gesture that erupts within and precisely intuits the fertility of Gratuity.

It is the Spirit that internalises this not only very strange, but absurd proposal: that of triumph in loss, and even of Life from death.

We experience it in action: in the moments when its impetus produces 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.

But the Spirit suggested that the soul is reactivated by welcoming, rather than fighting anxieties, fears, indecisions, bitterness, fears of growing.

Only in this way is the Plan of Salvation realised.

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

Are the old ideas and old constructions creaking? It is perhaps time to move beyond fashions or past fads and artificial horizons - which only generate common ideas, concerns, and patterns.

Unlike the listening-and-transcending aroused by the unfettered Unveiling of Faith, beliefs refractory to the Exodus need doctrinal compactness: codes, customs, fixed cultural and social locations - otherwise they crumble.

But their construct settles for adequate schemes. That distorts us from valued or comfortable ways.

In the dynamics of the adventure of Faith, that is, in the Revelation of the accepted, tender and inclusive eccentric Love, accepted Diversity becomes an impulse for enrichment and a matrix for development.

The Love that does not betray and does not abandon - the only boast (not its own production) - makes the Newness of God practicable, the impossible Dream that no philosophy can tame.

Social identification is no longer involved. In us there is more.

He himself is "He who will be": let the ballasts go, the Best is yet to come. Reason for no longer running away from great Desires.

Consequently this Name clearly expresses that the God of the Bible is not some kind of monad closed in on itself and satisfied with his own self-sufficiency but he is life that wants to communicate itself, openness, relationship. Words like "merciful", "compassionate", "rich in grace" all speak to us of a relationship, in particular, of a vital Being who offers himself, who wants to fill every gap, every shortage, who wants to give and to forgive, who desires to establish a solid and lasting bond. Sacred Scripture knows no other God than the God of the Covenant who created the world in order to pour out his love upon all creatures (cf. Roman Missal, Eucharistic Prayer IV) and chose a people with which to make a nuptial pact, to make it become a blessing for all the nations and so to form a great family of the whole of humanity (cf. Gn 12: 1-3; Ex 19: 3-6). This revelation of God is fully delineated in the New Testament though the word of Christ. Jesus showed us the Face of God, one in Essence and Triune in Persons: God is Love, Father Love - Son Love - Holy Spirit Love. And it is precisely in this God's Name that the Apostle Paul greets the Community of Corinth: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God [the Father] and the fellowship of the Holy Sprit be with you all" (II Cor 13: 14). 

There is contained, therefore, in these Readings, a principal that regards God and in effect today's Feast invites us to contemplate him, the Lord. It invites us in a certain sense to scale "the mountain" as Moses did. This seems at first sight to take us far from the world and its problems but in fact one discovers that it is precisely by coming to know God more intimately that one receives fundamental instructions for this our life: something like what happened to Moses who, climbing Sinai and remaining in God's presence, received the law engraved on stone tablets from which the people drew the guidance to continue, to find freedom and to form themselves as a people in liberty and justice. Our history depends on God's Name and our journey on the light of his Face. From this reality of God which he himself made known to us by revealing his "Name" to us comes a certain image of man, that is, the exact concept of the person. If God is a dialogical unity, a being in relation, the human creature made in his image and likeness reflects this constitution: thus he is called to fulfil himself in dialogue, in conversation, in encounter. 

In particular, Jesus has revealed to us that man is essentially a "son", a creature who lives in the relationship with God the Father, and in this way in relationship with all his brothers and sisters. Man is not fulfilled in an absolute autonomy, deceiving himself that he is God but, on the contrary, by recognizing himself as a child, an open creature, reaching out to God and to his brethren in whose faces he discovers the image of their common Father. One can easily see that this concept of God and man is at the base of a corresponding model of the human community, and therefore of society. It is a model that comes before any normative, juridical or institutional regulations but I would say even before cultural specifications. It is a model of the human family transversal to all civilizations, which we Christians express confirming that human beings are all children of God and therefore all brothers and sisters. This is a truth that has been behind us from the outset and at the same time is always before us, like a project to strive for in every social construction.

[Pope Benedict, homily, Genoa, 18 May 2008]

1. "Blessed be God the Father and his only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit:  for great is his love for us" (Entrance Antiphon).

The entire liturgy is focused on the Trinitarian mystery, source of life for every believer, but especially today, on the feast of the Blessed Trinity.

"Glory to the Father, glory to the Son, glory to the Holy Spirit":  every time we proclaim these words, the synthesis of our faith, we adore the only true God in three Persons. With amazement we contemplate the mystery that completely surrounds us. Mystery of love, mystery of ineffable holiness.

"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of sabbaoth" we will sing in a little while, entering into the heart of the Eucharistic prayer. The Father created everything with his wisdom and loving providence; the Son redeemed us with his death and resurrection; the Holy Spirit sanctifies with the fullness of his gifts of grace and mercy.

We can correctly define today's solemnity as the feast of holiness. It is a perfect day for the ceremony of the canonization of the five blesseds:  Luigi Scrosoppi, Agostino Roscelli, Bernardo da Corleone, Teresa Eustochio Verzeri, Rafqua Pietra Choboq Ar-Rayès.

2. "Justified ... by faith, we are in peace with God by means of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom 5,1).

For the apostle Paul, as we have heard in the second reading, holiness is a gift which the Father communicates to us through Jesus Christ. Faith in him is the principle of sanctification. By faith man enters the order of grace; by faith he hopes to take part in the glory of God. This hope is not a vain illusion, but the sure fruit of an ascetic path through many trials, that are faced with patience and proven virtue.

This was the experience of St Luigi Scrosoppi, during a life entirely spent for the love of Christ and his neighbour, especially, the weaker and the defenceless.

"Charity, charity":  this exclamation burst from his heart at the moment of leaving the world for heaven. He exercised charity in an exemplary way, above all, in the service of abandoned orphan girls, involving a group of teachers, with whom he was able to start the Congregation of the "Sisters of Divine Providence".

Charity was the secret of his long and untiring apostolate, nourished by a constant contact with Christ, contemplated and imitated in the humility and poverty of his birth at Bethlehem, in the simplicity of his life of hard work at Nazareth, in the complete immolation on Calvary, and in the astonishing silence of the Eucharist. Consequently, the Church holds him up to priests and to the faithful as a model of a deep and effective union of communion with God and the service of his neighbour. In other words, he is a model of a life lived in intense communion with the Holy Trinity.

3. "Great is his love for us". The love of God for men is revealed with special emphasis in the life of St Agostino Roscelli, whom we contemplate today in the splendour of holiness. His existence, entirely permeated by deep faith, can be considered a gift offered for the glory of God and the good of souls. Faith made him ever obedient to the Church and her teachings, in docile adherence to the Pope and to his own bishop. From faith he knew how to draw comfort in bleak times, in bitter difficulties and in painful events. Faith was the solid rock to which he held on tightly in order to avoid yielding to discouragement.

He felt the duty to communicate the same faith to others, above all, to those whom he approached in the ministry of confession. He became a master of the spiritual life, especially for the congregation of sisters founded by him. The sisters always found him serene even in the the most trying situations. St Agostino Roscelli exhorts us always to trust in God, immersing ourselves in the mystery of his love.

4. "Glory to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit".
The evangelical witness of St Bernard of Corleone, elevated to the honour of the altars today, observed within the mystery of the Trinity gains a particular effectiveness. All wondered and asked how a simple lay brother could disccourse so well about the mystery of the Trinity. In fact, his life was entirely directed toward God, by a constant ascetical exertion joined with prayer and penance. Those who knew him agreed in testifying that "he was always at prayer", "never ceased to pray", "prayed constantly" (Summ., 35). From such an uninterrupted conversation with God, which found in the Eucharist its ongoing impulse, he drew the lifeblood for his courageous apostolate, responding to the social challenges of the time, with all their tensions and disquiet.

Even today the world needs saints like Brother Bernard immersed in God and for that very reason able to hand on God's truth and love. The humble example of the Capuchin saint offers an encouragement never to tire of prayer, since prayer and listening to God are the soul of authentic holiness.

St Teresa Eustochio Verzeri:  faith in providence and abandonment to direction of Spirit
5. "The Spirit of truth will lead you into all truth" (Communion antiphon). Teresa Eustochio Verzeri, whom today we contemplate in the glory of God, in her brief but intense life knew how to be led with docility by the Holy Spirit. God revealed himself to her as a mysterious presence before whom we must bow with profound humility. Her joy was to be considered under constant divine protection, feeling herself in the hands of the heavenly Father, whom she learned to trust in forever.
Abandoning herself to the action of the Spirit, Teresa lived the particular mystical experience of the "absence of God". Only an unshakable faith kept her from losing her confidence in the provident and merciful Father, who put her to the test:  "It is right, she wrote, that the spouse after having followed the bridegroom in all the pain that marked his life, should share in the most terrible" (Book of Duties, III, 130).

This was the teaching that St Teresa left to her Institute of the "Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus" founded by her. This is the teaching that she left us all. In the midst of contradictions and inner and exterior sufferings one must keep alive faith in God Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

6. By canonizing Blessed Rafqa Choboq Ar-Rayès, the Church sheds a very particular light on the mystery of love given and received for the glory of God and the salvation of the world. This nun of the Lebanese Maronite Order desired to love and to give her life for her people. In the sufferings which never left her for 29 years of her life, St Rafqa always showed a passionate and generous love for the salvation of her brothers, drawing from her union with Christ, who died on the cross, the force to accept voluntarily and to love suffering, the authentic way of holiness.

May St Rafqa watch over those who know suffering, particularly over the peoples of the Middle East who must face a destructive and sterile spiral of violence. Through her intercession, let us ask the Lord to open hearts to the patient quest for new ways to peace and so hasten the advent of reconciliation and harmony.

7. "O Lord our God, how great is your name through all the earth" (Ps 8,2.10). Contemplating these outstanding examples of holiness, the psalmist's exclamation comes spontanously to mind.

The Lord does not stop giving to the Church and to the world wonderful examples of men and women who are reflections of the glory of the Trinity. Their witness incites us to raise our eyes to heaven and to seek without pause the kingdom of God and his justice.

May Mary the Queen of all saints, who first heard the call of the Most High, uphold us in our service of God and neighbor. And may you go with us saints Luigi Scrosoppi, Agostino Roscelli, Bernardo da Corleone, Teresa Eustocchio Verzeri, Rafqa Pietra Choboq Ar-Rayès, so that our lives like yours may give praise to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

Amen!

[Pope John Paul II, homily of 10 June 2001]

Today’s Gospel (cf. Jn 3:16-18), on the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, demonstrates — with the Apostle John’s succinct language — the mystery of God’s love for the world, his creation. In the brief dialogue with Nicodemus, Jesus presents himself as the One who brings to fulfilment the Father’s plan of salvation for the world. He affirms: “For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son” (v. 16).

These words are to indicate that the action of the three divine Persons — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — is all a single plan of love that saves humanity and the world; it is a plan of salvation for us. The world God created was good, beautiful, but after sin, the world is marked by evil and corruption. We men and women are sinners, all of us; hence, God could intervene to judge the world, to destroy evil and castigate sinners. Instead, He loves the world, despite its sins; God loves each one of us even when we make mistakes and distance ourselves from him. God the Father loves the world so much that, in order to save it, He gives what is most precious to Him: his only-begotten Son, who gives his life for humanity, rises again, returns to the Father and together with him sends the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is therefore Love, wholly at the service of the world, which He wishes to save and re-create. And today, thinking of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we think of God’s love! And it would be beautiful if we felt that we were loved: “God loves me!”. This is today’s sentiment.

When Jesus affirms that the Father has given his only-begotten Son, we spontaneously think of Abraham and his offering of his son Isaac, of whom the Book of Genesis speaks (cf. 22:1-14): this is the “immeasurable measure” of God's love. And let us also think of how God reveals himself to Moses: full of tenderness, merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (cf. Ex 34:6). The encounter with this God encouraged Moses, who, as the Book of Exodus tells us, was not afraid to stand between the people and the Lord, saying to Him: although it is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thy inheritance (cf. 34:9). And this is what God did, by sending his Son. We are children in the Son with the strength of the Holy Spirit! We are God’s legacy!

Dear brothers and sisters, today’s Feast Day invites us to let ourselves once again be fascinated by the beauty of God; beauty, goodness and inexhaustible truth. But also beauty, goodness, and humble and close truth, which became flesh in order to enter our life, our history, my history, the history of each one of us, so that every man and woman may encounter it and have eternal life. And this is faith: to welcome God-Love; to welcome this God-Love who gives himself in Christ, who moves us in the Holy Spirit; to let ourselves be encountered by him and to trust in him. This is Christian life. To love, to encounter God, to seek God; and He seeks us first; He encounters us first.

May the Virgin Mary, dwelling-place of the Trinity, help us to welcome with an open heart the love of God, which fills us with joy and gives meaning to our journey in this world, always guiding us towards our destination, which is Heaven.

[Pope Francis, Angelus, 7 June 2020]

The authority of Jesus and ours

(Mk 11:27-33)

«By what authority do you do these things? Or who gave you this authority to do these things?» (Mk 11:28).

In the traditional Judaizing milieu of the early communities, questions bounced around about Christ's authority to lay siege to the ordinary religious system, and his distinguishing himself even from recognised prophets like the Baptist.

The only answer: the 'power' of God expressed in the sign of the times - by fermenting consciences.

This in Rome, because of the serious crisis of the civil war in the late 60s. In Palestine, because of the Jewish revolt and the destruction of the holy city.

Jesus' mission was not a regular one: he disconcerted the atmosphere, so his sharp, living Word had to be circumscribed at all costs.

Such bold behaviour would have seemed irreverent to political and spiritual leaders, even if adopted by the expected Messiah himself.

And a landless man could only be a false claimant....

The religious leaders faced by the Lord - entrenched in established patterns of thought and strategies - were always content to fit Heaven into closed dishcloths.

Even the faithful of the Roman communities seemed to be under the tutelage of interests, roads, words and gestures imposed by the imperial climate.

Mk tried to help his small churches: they had to continue fearlessly, and not be seduced by official religious practices, nor polluted by corrupt imperial ideology.

The evangelist also seems to suggest to the faithful in Christ to avoid punctilious diatribes with the representatives of a world only apparently stable - on the contrary, destined to implode on its own contradictions.

After driving out the sellers, usurers and money-changers who were profaning the temple (Mk 11:15–17), Jesus’s fate was sealed (v. 18).

But through his intimates, the new Kingdom - now unencumbered by fetters - must be proposed in the spirit of selflessness, and as a Surprise.

Only the Father can manage seed, roots and development.

No man can give “permission” for any person to be reflective and free from conformity.

There is an unpredictable path even for those accustomed to being directed in every affair. While guarantees clutter the minds and clog the paths that then lead to frontier experiences.

The seed carried by the wind of the Spirit makes its own plant, which does not necessarily resemble the surrounding ones: it does not bind itself in its particular expressiveness, and also flies 'out of bounds'.

In this way, we manifest independence and freedom, because Jesus himself demonstrated it - overriding all expectations and intentions.

Sooner or later, the bosses would have been dismayed by those who cannot stand ratifications, finally acknowledging their ignorance.

They would have run aground permanently, on their own - even by reason of their will not to expose themselves (vv.31-33a). Tactical perplexity, revealing unbelief - lukewarmness - total lack of Faith.

In short, the Silence of those who are in Christ, and who appreciate a more attentive and less outward-looking Church, is often the right echo of God, more eloquent than many brilliant disquisitions (v.33b).

Thus Jesus avoids the ambiguity of mental restriction or evasive semantics: in Him, the non-answer to leaders is transformed into a question.

Indeed, the Lord remains silent, but without sidestepping the question.

[Saturday 8th wk. in O.T.  May 30, 2026]

The words Jesus addresses to the people immediately give access to the will of the Father and to the truth about themselves. This was not the case for the scribes who instead had to make an effort to interpret the Sacred Scriptures with countless reflections. Moreover Jesus united the efficacy of the word with the efficacy of the signs of deliverance from evil. St Athanasius notes that “for his charging evil spirits and their being driven forth, this deed is not of man, but of God”; indeed the Lord “drove away from men all diseases and infirmities”.... Those “who saw his power... will no longer doubt whether this be the Son and Wisdom and Power of God?” (Oratio de Incarnatione Verbi 18,19: PG 25, 128 BC. 129 B).

The divine authority is not a force of nature. It is the power of the love of God that creates the universe and, becoming incarnate in the Only-Begotten Son, descending into our humanity, heals the world corrupted by sin. Romano Guardini wrote: “Jesus’ entire existence is the translation of power into humility... here is the sovereignty which lowers itself into the form of a servant” (Il Potere, Brescia 1999, 141-142).

Authority, for human beings, often means possession, power, dominion and success. Instead for God authority means service, humility and love; it means entering into the logic of Jesus who stoops to wash his disciples’ feet (cf. Jn 13:5), who seeks man’s true good, who heals wounds, who is capable of a love so great that he gives his life, because he is Love. In one of her Letters St. Catherine of Siena wrote: “It is necessary for us to see and know, in truth, with the light of the faith, that God is supreme and eternal Love and cannot want anything but our good” (Ep. 13 in: Le Lettere, vol. 3, Bologna 1999, 206).

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 29 January 2012]

"The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone" (Ps 118:22).

With these words of the Psalm, the Easter liturgy expresses a central truth of faith. The Church believes that God builds his Kingdom in the world. The construction rests on the cornerstone. The Paschal Mystery is the revelation of this stone, upon which God himself builds his Kingdom. The fact that men have discarded this stone reveals even more clearly that God Himself is the builder of the Kingdom, which, however, is realised in men and through men, despite their contradictions; the Kingdom of God, in fact, is their ultimate eternal vocation.

This reality finds its dramatic expression precisely in the paschal mystery: [...] the liturgy has attested to it in a special way. Moreover, she always testifies to this, every day, in every Eucharistic celebration, highlighting the truth about Christ, who is the cornerstone. Discarded by the builders, Christ manifested Himself as the One on whom the whole building of God's Kingdom in the world rests.

[Pope John Paul II, homily 7 April 1991]

How much harm is done by "inconsistent" Christians and "schizophrenic" pastors who do not bear witness, thus distancing themselves from the Lord's style, from his authentic "authority". The Pope's homily at Mass on Tuesday morning, 14 January, at Casa Santa Marta, addressed to God's people, a "meek" and "wise" people who tolerate but know how to distinguish, revolves around these key words.

"Jesus taught as one having authority". The Gospel of Mark (1:21b-28) tells us of Jesus teaching in the temple and the reaction that his way of acting with "authority", unlike the scribes, arouses among the people. It is from this comparison that the Pope immediately took his cue to explain the difference that exists between "having authority", "inner authority" like Jesus, and "exercising authority without having it, like the scribes", who, despite being specialists in the teaching of the law and heard by the people, were not believed.

"What is the authority that Jesus has?" wondered Francis, and explained: "It is that style of the Lord, that 'lordship' - let us say - with which the Lord moved, taught, healed, listened". He added: "this genteel style - which is something that comes from within - makes one see.... What does this show? Consistency. Jesus had authority because he was consistent between what he taught and what he did, [i.e.] how he lived. That consistency is what gives the expression of a person in authority: 'This one has authority, this one has authority, because he is consistent', that is, he bears witness. Authority shows itself in this: consistency and witness'.

On the contrary, the scribes were not consistent and Jesus - the Pope pointed out - on the one hand admonishes the people to "do what they say but not what they do", on the other hand he does not miss an opportunity to reproach them, because "with this attitude - he remarked - they have fallen into a pastoral schizophrenia: they say one thing and do another". And it happens in several episodes of the Gospel that the Pope mentioned: sometimes Jesus reacts - he said - by cornering them, sometimes by not giving them any answer, and at other times, by 'qualifying them'". And here the Pope paused: 'And the word Jesus uses to qualify this inconsistency, this schizophrenia, is "hypocrisy". It is a rosary of qualifiers!". Then, referring to the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, he recalled when Jesus describes them as "hypocrites" and clarified: "Hypocrisy is the way of acting of those who have responsibility over people - in this case pastoral responsibility - but they are not consistent, they are not lords, they have no authority. And the people of God are meek and tolerate; they tolerate so many hypocritical pastors, so many schizophrenic pastors who say and do not do, without consistency'.

But God's people - Francis added - who tolerate so much, know how to distinguish the power of grace. In this regard, Francis referred to the first reading of the liturgy, in which the elderly Eli "had lost all authority" and "only the grace of anointing remained to him, and with that grace" - he explained - "he blesses and performs the miracle" to Anne, who, grief-stricken, is praying to be a mother. Hence the Pope's final remark on the people of God, on Christians and pastors: 'The people of God,' he said, 'distinguish well between the authority of a person and the grace of anointing. "But you go to confession to that, which is this, and this and this...?" - "But for me that is God. Point. That is Jesus'. And this is the wisdom of our people who tolerate so many times, so many inconsistent pastors, pastors like the scribes, and also Christians? - who go to mass every Sunday and then live like pagans. And people say: 'This is a scandal, an inconsistency'. How much harm is done by inconsistent Christians who do not bear witness and inconsistent, schizophrenic pastors who do not bear witness!".

The occasion that offers this reflection, then, is the prayer that the Pope raised to the Lord, at the conclusion of the homily, that all the baptised may have "authority", "which does not consist in commanding and being heard, but in being consistent, being a witness and for this, being companions on the way of the Lord".

[Pope Francis at St. Martha, Osservatore Romano 15.01.2020]