Pharisee-publican: the two souls, and the essential Mystery

(Lk 18:9-14)

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

The many conventional depictions and interpretations of the episode lead us astray.

The one parable set in the Temple is a volcano of paradoxical, extraordinary scope that you would not expect.

The Jews pray standing, a sign of their readiness to immediately put into action what the Lord asks.

For us, standing means that we celebrate as risen children.

But here the phenomenon of religiosity and morality "standing, he prayed thus to himself" (v.11): he does not converse with God, nor does he realise anything!

Perhaps he is convinced he is praying, but he is doing something else entirely: he does not listen, he does not pay attention, he does not perceive the message and the meaning of the presence, he just distances himself from it.

I remember in the great hall of the Apostolic Penitentiary the epigraph 'Pax omnium rerum tranquillitas ordinis'.

A mentality that, if mediated by approximate moralisms, does not stay with us; it does not bring us or infuse us with depth and relationships.

On this basis, if the two protagonists of the passage had presented themselves in confession, I would have sentenced: the Pharisee lacks humility, the other repays the damage.

Even the head of L'Osservatore Romano reiterates the motto-epigraph 'Unicuique Suum' - a fundamental principle of property law in the Latin world.

Isn't Justice enough? [Would Jesus be needed?]

The point is: to know Love, a rich reality: not to exchange favours with God. And take the position that does not pollute or corrupt life. That is the whole game.

"I renounce, I leave everything, I leave, I think, I say, I plan, I will be impeccable and faithful by always making others see me "in my way" [i.e. as I am not]": this is the ideal nursery rhyme that overturns the adventure of Faith.

The subject of the religious man is himself and what he does for God - as well as how he acts (in an artificial way); so on.

Ridiculous - not just deeply reductive. But from this idea springs the consideration of the other and the different as irredeemable.

Instead, one's life is full of inner antinomies and counterfactuals.

Let us try to turn the parable around from a moralistic level to a theological one, because Lk - mind you - stages the best of spirituality and the worst of the morality of the time.

Here is his boomerang: he wants to start a reflection on ourselves.

"Thieves": Jesus defines as such precisely the religious leaders and the "Pharisees" [back], inside full of robbery, although on the outside they look like who knows what.

"Unjust": [just to make a long story short] St Theresa said that God is just because he takes our difficulties into account.

"Adulterers": but theological adultery is precisely queuing up to an idol (here the father-ego contemplating the external self).

In the biblical concept, 'adultery' properly means an improper devotional relationship, as with an inauthentic deity.

In this way, even an impeccable formal relationship - and vice versa - takes the side of the fetish.

In short, the 'saint' does not address the Father, but the God-form he has in mind - although he even wants to impress him with exaggerations (v.12).

But he does not agree with the thought of the Eternal.

He does not perceive the plan of the Most High: to build up the human family. To help and enrich one another.

So he will never allow himself to be changed - even convinced that he is exactly reproducing his tutelary genius.

For the professionals of the sacred mania for false perfection, Salvation is the final prize of an individual climb.

Not the re-creative and gratuitous Work of a Parent who ferries our complex vicissitudes, leaving space and way for them to evolve into a saved life.

Thus, both personal and communal experience is inculcated, because standard 'religion' inculcates and retains a deformed image of one's character, and of the Ideal.

The Almighty in Love takes on in the unconscious the guise of the Master of Heaven, earth, and the underworld - distributor of rewards and punishments.

Here, devotion will sooner or later rhyme with 'separation'.

Instead, Justification alludes to a sharper, more respectful, wise arrangement.

Position towards God [who is not a notary] and towards humanity, which is all ours; it would be puerile to have contempt for it.

Genuineness and Spirit go in synergy.

No one is recommended by Christ to "make himself holy" or "separate", as recommended by the ancient Law (Lev 19:2) and by a whole archaic spirituality.

The new criterion is inclusive: the conviviality of differences and the fruitful recovery of opposites. Precisely, the Love that flourishes in naturalness.

If we really want, the meaning of the journey in the Spirit could be identified in the critical passage from the First to the New Testament.

But it would still be too banal to imagine that in the Old God is forensic Judge and in the New "judge of the heart". 

The Justification that the Father works concerns the intimate form of what 'moves', and the sense of what motivates and prods us.

The misguided scientists of the pious life have always portrayed Salvation as the ultimate prize of a gruelling climb.

A poor, well-motivated, yet plagued, harassed and misguided soul used to tell me: 'the more you climb the more you acquire'.

Instead, when God works, He creates, placing us in the right attitude and leading us in a fruitful direction - not said uphill.

All for the purpose of fulfilling and completing us, not to exhaust and annihilate the bearing lines of our personality, unrepeatable, incomparable.

A configuration of balances that we well know is not ordinary, not mechanical, not predictable.

The Father is not a coach who only delights in the strongest of his forwards.

He is not attracted by the virtues of a few, but by the many needs of all.

While waiting for unresolved solutions, he does not look at the merits of people, but at their need to be completed.

Therefore he who does good deserves absolutely nothing: he only has to thank Providence, which has led him early on the road to an experience of fullness of being, on the Path of Joy.

Sticking to his trunk, the arrogant veteran of the sacred and of discipline (and of respectable or veteran ways) remains there.

Mired in the self-satisfied 'his' - bent over the navel of the works of law with which he wanted to buy God's approval - artificially showing himself to be his friend.

And he returns home, that is, to the community (v.14), the same as before: one-sided, like a sphinx.

They are the whitewashed sepulchres before whom we must bow down to kiss the sacred slippers, otherwise we do not pass.

They are the separated from the rest of the crowd, because for them people can only be: helpful, or annoying.

There is nothing to do. Certain complacent, self-sufficient people, who have never experienced humus and gratis, God cannot make them right.

They are not accustomed to look at reality, not even their own - but to emphasise every separation he disdains. And only what is prescribed; from which there is no escape.

They seem to be men all of a piece and possess a high sense of divine exclusivity.

Yet there are no deep spiritual energies in them - those who know how to see beyond to the most varied fragrances.

The first not to know how to entrust themselves to the Mystery, they continue to plague the air, certain of their spiritual rank and accolades - claiming (of course) duties wherever they concede.

Not even the Father can justify them, that is, place them in the right place before Him and their brothers.

The sense of holiness by which they feel cloaked leads them to the disdain of others, and there is no way around it.

How can we also discern the traces of religious conceit in ourselves? This is the relevant theme of the parable (v.9).

From the Prayer itself, it is clear that our own face possesses a hammering, devilish image of the Eternal.

Like one who is an accountant, that is, who pays according to merit and punishes according to fault.

Whereas the biblical God gives in pure loss. Why?

In the Spirit we grasp an energy that must do its work in the moment [so frequently without equal], or in the even disjointed rhythm of multiple happenings and relationships.

Here we sense the partial and paradoxical deity of the 'fellow travellers' - such as the blameless and the sinner, who remind us of the Mission.

Co-present characters in the soul: unique deviations that complement and perfect, becoming our unrepeatable Originality.

Life of Faith and Prayer do bring healing, but sometimes they seem to disappear, as if we were approaching the transgressor of the Gospel.

They give answers, but sometimes they also seem fortuitous.

They have the same disorganised and interrupted pace (the real change comes unexpectedly) but the same symbiotic composition, structure, complex figure, of a shrub and love.

A beautiful lush plant has its seasons; not even it dreams of possessing a connotation without nuances and opposing sides.

It may be disconcerting, but the realities of nature do not dispense with the roots because they mingle with muck, slime, darkness and worms - creeping parasites; like the publican, immersed in sin up to his neck.

If a rose were to cut off the hidden, festering base from which it rises, the whole plant would collapse, losing even its spectacular individuality.

It is the confusion - even fetid and nauseating - that creates a fertile soil welcoming all roles, and the non-monochromatic ripening space open to every strand of life.

There are seemingly obscuring phases and presences to take note of, on which we are as if sitting.

Almost in a reversal of plans, it is the encounter with our shadows that makes us soar and affirm.

The Pharisee's merit, and the publican's need, are symbiotic aspects. 

By ancient upbringing of believing in codes, we are almost dazed by new things.

But we can only plant the seed of growth by embracing life without presumptuous expectations.

From discriminating certainties, induced maniacal intentions, obvious platitudes, we do not derive development, realisation, blossoming with exponential results - in all our sides.

Even in love, for example, we do not want to fixate on a false idea, made up of prejudices, ideological schemes, and divisions.

Then - but precisely in order to save ourselves - frailties surface.

They can lead us to dependence, but also to seeking new communication, for a better completeness.

If the past remains a primordial totem, as artificial as sophisticated, disembodied ideologies - everything becomes fantasy, regret, confusion, disaster.

On the spiritual path, woe betide the great artificial loves, with their enveloping and overflowing, yet aseptic charm.

Frenzy that invades and occupies life, blocks and repudiates every project; it does not free the soul from distinctions.

It does not allow new destinies to be noticed. It makes us abdicate. It settles us on the surface and does not overturn destinies (cf. v.14).

Thus our natural, emotional and supernatural organism: convinced only of something and unable to break those compartments.

It would die - if it lost the completeness of polarities, the most obvious spontaneity, and was sterilised. Transmitting its own death, all around.

As in created realities, in the spiritual vicissitude it is the contradictory sides that compose the wealth of faculties, inclinations, destinies, faces, and capacities.

Sometimes it is precisely the particular crises to be faced with special qualities and resources not in line with the usual or imperative inclinations - that bring us back on our true path.

It is in the ceaseless Encounter with the crowd of characters intimate to us, and in turning around to notice and perceive, that the limiting caducity is decanted, and man is unified.

All this so that he becomes solid and open, reliable and creative, capable of being both inside and outside the home.

And the Father gives us time for a varied formation, to wait until we encounter every facet in the ambivalence of the process.

Too many filters, too many censures, too many brakes, would not prepare the evolutionary metamorphosis that belongs to us: the one capable of overcoming difficult moments not with a laboured or sweaty opening, but with a dream, and with the caress of a real twist.

In the oration-monologue, the narcissist that we sometimes are, merely informs the motionless Principle of his achievements, because he sees nothing but himself.

But he neither rules nor regulates what is human or divine.

Nor does he wonder to which God he is addressing himself, and in what posture he stands.

He has not prayed, he has not tuned his thoughts to those of the Father. He has only wearied souls, extinguished and ruined relationships.

He is in a position of cynicism and inability to grasp the distance between the true man and the Creator.

This prevents him from surrendering to Him, and not surrendering makes the ability to receive a new Vocation within the Vocation [which is never 'right' and satisfactory] pale.

It believes perfection as a safe harbour; it imagines reflecting God on earth, having the same mentality and His same relationships...

After all, the unkind, resolute, closed-circle friends he associates with would be the same as his well-shaped but worthless Totem.

Like him, they too remain in the static sphere, devoid of desire - but with a mountain of scruples. Or without a reality principle.

A milieu of the petty and ridiculous: measured men, as infantile as their object (subject) of worship, namely the self - who can see no further than the pond of dead water at hand.

The drawing-room 'Pharisee' or devotee is not even touched by doubt.

A dangerous position, which will never allow one to reflect on the innermost paradoxes that start and restart the Exodus, activating new passions.

Fearing what ends, it will never experience the ineffable Joy of the Gift now, which ignites history and changes lives.

Nothing in terms of wonderment is inaugurated, based on an identity of characteristics or views.

This is especially so if the distinctive lines remain imprisoned in the past (or future). If they remain, in the way of living and understanding 'of before' (or 'of after') that returns to direct us.

And they do not trust the Love that prepares the fruit of the Spirit: it is coming; as it is.

He who has no lapidary certainties, does not let himself be led in an artificial manner.

Rather, he lets himself be taken as if by a current of insecurity, which will nevertheless lead him to know profound Happiness, the great flourishing.

The breaking of the waters of a further birth: life in the round.

In short, once habits, abstract ideas, identifications, common opinions, even glamorous fashions have been put in the background, the founding Eros of our personal Calling will still be able to take the field. 

Achieving migrations, manifesting all his Fire.

In life we have been victims, sometimes even executioners.

God knows this and allows our freedom to emerge: conversely, in any enclosure, in any cadenced choice, the possibilities of the inner world remain closed.

So - to question ourselves - we give the no-moments, the opposing presences and preferences, as well as the most unexpected voices from within.

Other profiles, which also belong to us; anything other than the ways of being we already know [they have not yet expressed themselves, but sooner or later they will want to find space].

Simply, it is good to take on their traits - and to house them in us in an absolutely honest way.

So that they do not become lacerating disorders, or to be supplemented with perversions, profiteering, the exercise of power, sectarian attitudes: bad habits, barely covered by affable stylistic features.

The buried and perhaps as yet undiscovered sides are not meant to disturb the fundamental option to goodness, but the useless, all-predictable existence.

They are as many Calls, surprising, but which by innate force know where to lead us.

There are paths that belong to us that have not yet emerged, or of which we have lost memory.

Thus, precisely by virtue of such inner congeries - phase after phase - the character that is pertinent to the person... spontaneously and providentially traces its course.

Only if we are imbued with that which is infinite and at the same time with that which lies at the base of the soul, will our Pharisee self not become detached from the publican self.

Mouldable energies, faces that correspond to us deeply and in fact; masters of practice and concept; not of manners.

They are in varying mixtures and according to the ages of life, the real facets of our variegated spiritual essence.

Binary tracks that run below or parallel, but sometimes intersect and outclass each other, creating a magma that waits moment by moment to be performed.

To realise the Destination that is all ours, there have already been many doors to open.

And we have frequently verified that the Flower we sought was hiding right among our ailments.

So much for already considering ourselves close to Paradise!

Well: God introduces us into another kind of coexistence, within and without: balance, serenity, Communion.

For in that which truly impels to the eternal, everything is recovered. In the Fullness, nothing is separated from nothing.

It is the authentic turning point, which gives dignity to what happens. And opens the door to Completion.

Reiterates the Tao (xxvii):

"That is why the saint always well helps men and therefore there are no rejected men, always well helps creatures and therefore there are no rejected creatures; this is called transfusing illumination. Thus the man who is good is master of the man who is not good, the man who is not good is profit to the good man. Whoever does not appreciate such a master, whoever does not cherish such a profit, even if he is wise falls into grave deception: this is called the essential mystery".

To internalise and live the message:

When do I meet myself as a Pharisee and when as a publican?

How can I meet myself contemplating God? And by encountering others?

When God comes close to you, do you abandon yourself or do you fear what will end?

What were the experiences of undeserved love that changed your life?

Have you found greater understanding within or outside the Church? From friends and acquaintances or from supertitles of the sacred? How so?

Almsgiving, prayer and fasting characterize the Jew who observes the law. In the course of time these prescriptions were corroded by the rust of external formalism or even transformed into a sign of superiority.

In these three practices Jesus highlights a common temptation. Doing a good deed almost instinctively gives rise to the desire to be esteemed and admired for the good action, in other words to gain a reward. And on the one hand this closes us in on ourselves and on the other, it brings us out of ourselves because we live oriented to what others think of us or admire in us.

In proposing these prescriptions anew the Lord Jesus does not ask for formal respect of a law that is alien to the human being, imposed by a severe legislator as a heavy burden, but invites us to rediscover these three pious practices by living them more deeply, not out of self-love but out of love of God, as a means on the journey of conversion to him. Alms-giving, prayer and fasting: these are the path of the divine pedagogy that accompanies us not only in Lent, towards the encounter with the Risen Lord; a course to take without ostentation, in the certainty that the heavenly Father can read and also see into our heart in secret.

[Pope Benedict, S. Sabina homily 9 March 2011]

6. "Two men went up to the temple to pray: one was a Pharisee and the other a publican" (Lk 18:10). However, only one returned home justified. And it was precisely the publican (cf. Lk 18:14). This means that only he reached the inner mystery of the temple, the mystery united to his consecration. Only he, although both had gone there to pray.

Thus it turns out that the same sacred space, the temple, the cathedral, must be further filled with another totally interior and spiritual space: "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you?" - writes St Paul (1 Cor 3:16).

In fact, your cathedral, like so many others in the world, is filled with an almost infinite number of those inner temples, which are the human 'hearts'. To whom do these human 'hearts' most resemble? The Pharisee or the publican? The temple is a sign of man's reconciliation with God in Jesus Christ. However, the reality of this reconciliation - which is indicated by the external sign of the temple - ultimately passes through the human heart, through this sanctuary of justification and holiness.

7. The Pharisee returned "unjustified" because he was "full of himself". In the "space" of his heart there was no room for God. The Pharisee was present in the material temple; but God was not present in the temple of his heart. Why, on the other hand, is the publican "justified" again? Because - unlike the Pharisee - he humbly acknowledges that he needs to be justified. He does not judge others. He judges himself.

The publican 'stands at a distance', yet - and perhaps he does not exactly realise it - he is closer than ever to the Lord, because 'the Lord, as the Psalm says (33:19), is close to the one whose heart is wounded'. God is by no means distant from the sinner, if this sinner has a 'wounded heart', i.e. is repentant, and trusts, like the publican, in divine mercy: 'O God, have mercy on me a sinner'. The publican, therefore, does not glory in himself, but in the Lord. He does not exalt himself. He does not put himself first, but recognises in God his majesty, his transcendence. He knows that God is great and merciful, and that he bends to the cry of the poor and humble.

The publican "stands at a distance", but at the same time he trusts. Here is the right attitude towards God. To feel unworthy of him, because of one's sins; but to trust in his mercy, precisely because he loves the repentant sinner.

[Pope John Paul II, homily Perugia 26 October 1986]

Jesus wants to show us the right attitude for prayer and for invoking the mercy of the Father; how one must pray; the right attitude for prayer. It is the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector (cf. Lk 18:9-14). Both men went up into the Temple to pray, but they do so in very different ways, obtaining opposite results.

The pharisee stood and prayed using many words. His is yes, a prayer of thanksgiving to God, but it is really just a display of his own merits, with a sense of superiority over “other men”, whom he describes as “extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even,” for example, referring to the other one there, “like this tax collector” (v. 11). But this is the real problem: that pharisee prays to God, but in truth he is just self-lauditory. He is praying to himself! Instead of having the Lord before his eyes, he has a mirror. Although he is standing in the Temple, he doesn’t feel the need to prostrate himself before the majesty of God; he remains standing, he feels secure, as if he were the master of the Temple! He lists all the good works he has done: he is beyond reproach, observing the Law beyond measure, he fasts “twice a week” and pays “tithes” on all he possesses. In short, rather than prayer, he is satisfied with his observance of the precepts. Yet, his attitude and his words are far from the way of God’s words and actions, the God who loves all men and does not despise sinners. On the contrary, this pharisee despises sinners, even by indicating the other one there. In short, the pharisee, who holds himself to be just, neglects the most important commandment: love of God and of neighbour.

It is not enough, therefore, to ask how much we pray, we have to ask ourselves how we pray, or better, in what state our heart is: it is important to examine it so as to evaluate our thoughts, our feelings, and root out arrogance and hypocrisy. But, I ask myself: can one pray with arrogance? No. Can one pray with hypocrisy? No. We must only pray by placing ourselves before God just as we are. Not like the pharisee who prays with arrogance and hypocrisy. We are all taken up by the phrenetic pace of daily life, often at the mercy of feelings, dazed and confused. It is necessary to learn how to rediscover the path to our heart, to recover the value of intimacy and silence, because the God who encounters us and speaks to us is there. Only by beginning there can we in our turn encounter others and speak with them. The pharisee walked toward the Temple, sure of himself, but he was unaware of the fact that his heart had lost the way.

Instead the tax collector — the other man — presents himself in the Temple with a humble and repentant spirit: “standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast” (v. 13). His prayer was very brief, not long like that of the pharisee: “God, be merciful to me a sinner”. Nothing more. A beautiful prayer! Indeed, tax collectors — then called “publicans” — were considered impure, subject to foreign rulers; they were disliked by the people and socially associated with “sinners”. The parable teaches us that a man is just or sinful not because of his social class, but because of his way of relating to God and how he relates to his brothers and sisters. Gestures of repentance and the few and brief words of the tax collector bear witness to his awareness of his own miserable condition. His prayer is essential. He acts out of humility, certain only that he is a sinner in need of mercy. If the pharisee asked for nothing because he already had everything, the tax collector can only beg for the mercy of God. And this is beautiful: to beg for the mercy of God! Presenting himself with “empty hands”, with a bare heart and acknowledging himself to be a sinner, the tax collector shows us all the condition that is necessary in order to receive the Lord’s forgiveness. In the end, he is the one, so despised, who becomes an icon of the true believer.

Jesus concludes the parable with the judgment: “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted” (v. 14). Of these two, who is the corrupt one? The pharisee. The pharisee is the very icon of a corrupt person who pretends to pray, but only manages to strut in front of a mirror. He is corrupt and he is pretending to pray. Thus, in life whoever believes himself to be just and criticises others and despises them, is corrupt and a hypocrite. Pride compromises every good deed, empties prayer, creates distance from God and from others.

If God prefers humility it is not to dishearten us: rather, humility is the necessary condition to be raised by Him, so as to experience the mercy that comes to fill our emptiness. If the prayer of the proud does not reach God’s heart, the humility of the poor opens it wide. God has a weakness for the humble ones. Before a humble heart, God opens his heart entirely. It is this humility that the Virgin Mary expresses in the Canticle of the Magnificat: “he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden […] his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation” (Lk 1:48, 50). Let her help us, our Mother, to pray with a humble heart. And we, let us repeat that beautiful prayer three times: “Oh God, be merciful to me a sinner”.

[Pope Francis, General Audience 1 June 2016]

Third Lent Sunday (year A) [8 March 2026]

May God bless us and the Virgin Mary protect us! Have a good Lenten journey as we pause today with Jesus at the well, a place of life-changing encounters.

*First Reading from the Book of Exodus (17:3-7)

Looking at a map of the Sinai desert, Massa and Meriba are nowhere to be found: they are not specific geographical locations, but symbolic names. Massa means 'challenge', Meriba means 'accusation'. These names recall an episode of challenge, of protest, almost of mutiny against God. The episode takes place in Rephidim, in the middle of the desert, between Egypt and the Promised Land. The people of Israel, led by Moses, advanced from stage to stage, from one water source to another. But at Rephidim, the water ran out. In the desert, under the scorching sun, thirst quickly becomes a matter of life and death: fear grows, panic takes over. The only right response would have been trust: 'God wanted us to be free, he proved it, so he will not abandon us'. Instead, the people give in to fear and react as we often react ourselves: they look for someone to blame. And the culprit seems to be Moses, the 'government' of the time. What is the point, they say, of leaving Egypt only to die of thirst in the desert? Better to be slaves but alive than free but dead. And, as always happens, the past is idealised: they remember the full pots and abundant water of Egypt, forgetting the slavery. In reality, behind the accusation against Moses, there is a deeper accusation: against God himself. What kind of God is this, they ask themselves, who frees a people only to let them die in the desert? The protest: Why did you bring us out of Egypt? To let us, our children and our livestock die of thirst? It becomes increasingly harsh, until it turns into a real trial against God: as if God had freed the people only to get rid of them. Moses then cries out to the Lord: What shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me!

And God replies: he orders him to take the staff with which he had struck the Nile, to go to Mount Horeb and to strike the rock. Water gushes forth, the people drink, and their lives are saved (cf. Exodus 17). That water is not only physical relief: it is a sign that God is truly present among his people, that he has not abandoned them and that he continues to guide them on the path to freedom. For this reason, that place will no longer be called simply Rephidim, but Massah and Meribah, 'Testing and Accusation', because there Israel tested God, asking themselves: Is the Lord among us or not? In modern language: 'Is God for us or against us?' This temptation is also ours. Every trial, every suffering, reopens the same original question: can we really trust God? It is the same temptation recounted in the Garden of Eden (Genesis): the suspicion that God does not really want our good poisons human life. This is why Jesus Christ, teaching the Our Father, educates his disciples in filial trust. Do not abandon us to temptation could be translated as: "Do not let our Refidim become Massa, do not let our places of trial become places of doubt." Continuing to call God "Father," even in difficult times, means proclaiming that God is always with us, even when water seems to be lacking.

*Responsorial Psalm (94/95), 

In the Bible, the original text of the psalm reads as follows: "Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts as at Massah and Meribah, as on the day of Massah in the desert, where your fathers tested me even though they had seen my works." This psalm is deeply marked by the experience of Massah and Meribah. This is why the liturgy proposes it on the third Sunday of Lent, in harmony with the story of the Exodus: it is a direct reference to the great question of trust. In a few lines, the psalm summarises the whole adventure of faith, both personal and communal. The question is always the same: can we trust God?

For Israel in the desert, this question arose at every difficulty: ' Is the Lord really among us or not?' In other words: can we rely on Him? Will He really support us? Faith, in the Bible, is first and foremost trust. It is not an abstract idea, but the act of 'relying' on God. It is no coincidence that the word 'Amen' means 'solid', 'stable': it means 'I trust, I have faith' . This is why the Bible insists so much on the verb 'to listen': when you trust, you listen. It is the heart of Israel's prayer, the Shema Israel: Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God... You shall love Him, that is, you shall trust Him. 'To listen' means to have an open ear. The psalm says: 'You have opened my ear' (Ps 40), and the prophet Isaiah writes: The Lord God has opened my ear. Even 'obeying' in the Bible means this: listening with trust. This trust is based on experience. Israel has seen the 'work of God': liberation from Egypt. If God has broken the chains of slavery, He cannot want His people to die in the desert. This is why Israel calls him 'the Rock': it is not poetry, it is a profession of faith. At Massah and Meribah, the people doubted, but God brought water out of the rock: since then, God has been the Rock of Israel. Even the story of the Garden of Eden (Genesis) can be understood in the light of this experience: every limitation, every command, every trial can become a question of trust. Faith is believing that, even when we do not understand, God wants us to be free, alive and happy, and that from our situations of failure he can bring forth new life. Sometimes this trust resembles a 'leap of faith' when we cannot find answers. Then we can say with Simon Peter in Capernaum: 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life'. When Paul of Tarsus writes: ' Be reconciled to God', it is like saying: stop suspecting God, as at Massah and Meribah. And when the Gospel of Mark says, 'Repent and believe in the Gospel', it means: believe that the Good News is truly good, that God loves you. Finally, the psalm says, 'Today'. It is a liberating word: every day can be a new beginning. Every day we can relearn to listen and to trust. This is why Psalm 94/95 opens the Liturgy of the Hours every morning and Israel recites the Shema twice a day. And the psalm speaks in the plural: faith is always a journey of a people. 'We are the people He guides'. This is not poetry: it is experience. The Bible knows a people who, together, come to meet their God: "Come, let us acclaim the Lord, let us acclaim the rock of our salvation." It is faith that comes from trust, renewed today, day after day.

*Second Reading from the Letter of St Paul to the Romans (5:1-2, 5-8)

Chapter 5 of the Letter to the Romans marks a decisive turning point. Up to this point, Paul of Tarsus had spoken of humanity's past, of pagans and believers; now he looks to the future, a future transfigured for those who believe, thanks to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. To understand Paul's thinking clearly, we can summarise it in three fundamental statements. 1. Christ died for us while we were sinners. Paul affirms that Christ died 'for us'. This expression does not mean 'in our place', as if Jesus had simply replaced those who were condemned, but 'on our behalf'. When humanity was incapable of saving itself, marked by violence, injustice, greed for power and money, Christ took this reality upon himself and fought it to the point of giving his life.

Humanity, created for love, peace and sharing, had lost its way. Jesus comes to say, with his life and death: "I will show you to the very end what it means to love and forgive. Follow me, even if it costs me my life."

2. The Holy Spirit has been given to us: God's love dwells in us. The second great affirmation is this: the Holy Spirit has been given to us, and with him, God's own love has been poured into our hearts. It is no coincidence that Paul speaks of the Spirit for the first time when he speaks of the cross. For him, passion, cross and gift of the Spirit are inseparable. Here Paul is in complete harmony with the evangelist John. In his Gospel, during the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus promises "living water," explaining that he was speaking of the Spirit (cf. Gospel of John (7:37-39). And at the moment of the cross, John writes: Bowing his head, Jesus gave up his spirit (Jn 19:30). The promise is fulfilled: from the cross comes the gift of the Spirit. 3. Our 'boast' is the hope of God's glory. Paul also speaks of 'pride', but he makes it clear: we cannot boast about ourselves, because everything is a gift from God; but we can boast about God's gifts, about the wonderful destiny to which we are called. The Spirit already dwells in us, and we know that one day this same Spirit will transform our bodies and hearts into the image of the risen Christ.

The account of the Transfiguration has given us a foretaste of this glory.

From Massah and Meribah to glory. What an immense journey compared to Massah and Meribah, where the people doubted God! Now, thanks to our faith in Christ, we can say with Paul: "Through him we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God" (5:2). In conclusion, the Spirit that Jesus has given us is the very love of God. This certainty should overcome all fear. If God's love has been poured into our hearts, then the forces of division will not have the last word.

For believers, and for all humanity, hope is well-founded, because "the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (5:5).

*From the Gospel according to John (4:5-42) 

Jesus meets us today at the well. And this detail is not secondary. In the Bible, the well is never just a place where water is drawn: it is a place of decisive encounters, where life changes direction. At a well, Abraham's servant  meets Rebecca, who will become Isaac's wife; at a well, Jacob  falls in love with Rachel. At the well, relationships, alliances and the future are born. When John places Jesus at a well, he is telling us that something decisive is about to happen. Jesus arrives at Jacob's well in Samaria. It is midday. Jesus is tired and sits down. The Gospel immediately shows us a God who stops, who accepts fatigue, who enters our life as it is. Salvation begins with a pause, not with a spectacular gesture. At that hour, a woman arrives. She is alone. Jesus says to her, 'Give me a drink'. It is a surprising request. Jesus, a Jew, speaks to a Samaritan woman; a man speaks to a woman; a righteous man speaks to a person whose life has been wounded. God does not enter our lives by imposing himself, but by asking. He becomes a beggar for our hearts. From that simple request, a dialogue arises that goes ever deeper. Jesus leads the woman from the external well to her inner thirst: "If you knew the gift of God..." The water that Jesus promises is not water to be drawn every day, but a spring that gushes within, a life that does not run dry. It does not eliminate daily life, but transfigures it from within. Then Jesus touches on the truth of the woman's life. He does not judge her, he does not humiliate her. In the Gospel, truth does not serve to crush, but to liberate. Only those who accept to be known can receive the gift. The woman then asks a religious question: where should God be worshipped? On the mountain or in the temple? Jesus responds by shifting the focus: no longer where, but how. 'In Spirit and truth'. God is no longer encountered in one place as opposed to another, but in a living relationship. The true temple is the heart that allows itself to be inhabited. When the woman speaks of the Messiah, Jesus makes one of the most powerful revelations in the entire Gospel: 'I am he, the one who is speaking to you'. The Messiah does not manifest himself in the temple, but in a personal dialogue, at a well, to a woman considered unclean. As in the ancient stories of wells, here too the encounter opens up a promise: but now the Bridegroom is Jesus Christ and the covenant is new. The woman leaves her jug behind. It is a simple but decisive gesture. The jug represents old certainties, repeated attempts to quench a thirst that never goes away. Those who have encountered Christ no longer live to draw water, but to bear witness. The woman runs into town and says, 'Come and see'. She does not give a lesson, she recounts an encounter. And many believe, to the point of saying, 'Now we no longer believe because of what you said, but because we ourselves have heard'. Today's Gospel tells us this: Christ does not take us away from the well of life, but transforms the well into a place of salvation. Our thirst becomes an encounter, the encounter becomes a gift, the gift becomes a source for others. This is Lent: allowing ourselves to be encountered by Christ and becoming, in turn, living water for those who are thirsty.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

Second Lent Sunday (year A)  [1st March 2026]

*First Reading from the Book of Genesis (12:1-4)

The few lines we have just read constitute the first act of the entire adventure of our faith: the faith of the Jews, then, in chronological order, of Christians and Muslims. We are in the second millennium BC. Abram* lived in Chaldea, that is, in Iraq, and more precisely in the extreme south-east of Iraq, in the city of UR, in the Euphrates valley, near the Persian Gulf. He lived with his wife Sarai, his father Terah, his brothers (Nahor and Aran) and his nephew Lot. Abram was seventy-five years old, his wife Sarai sixty-five; they had no children and, given their age, would never have any. One day, his old father, Terah, set out on the road with Abram, Sarai and his nephew Lot. The caravan travelled up the Euphrates valley from the south-east to the north-west with the intention of then descending towards the land of Canaan. There was a shorter route, of course, connecting the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, but it crossed a huge desert. Terah and Abram preferred to travel along the 'Fertile Crescent', which lives up to its name. The last stop in the north-west is called Harran. It is there that old Terah dies. And it is above all there that, for the first time, about 4000 years ago, around 1850 BC, God spoke to Abram. 

"Leave your land," says our liturgical translation, but it omits the first two words, probably to avoid excessive interpretations, which have not always been avoided. In fact, in Hebrew, the first two words are "You, go!" Grammatically, they mean nothing else. It is a personal appeal, a setting aside: it is a true story of vocation. And it is to this simple invitation that Abram responded. It is often translated as "Go for yourself," but this is already an over-interpretation of faith. "Go for yourself": we must be aware that we are moving away from the literal meaning of the text and entering into an interpretation, a spiritual commentary. It is Rashi, the great 11th-century Jewish commentator (in Troyes in Champagne), who translates "Go for yourself, for your own good and for your happiness". In fact, this is what Abram will experience in the course of the days. If God calls man, it is for man's own good, not for anything else! God's merciful plan for humanity is contained in these two little words: 'for you'. God already reveals himself as the one who desires the good of man, of all men**; if there is one thing to remember, it is this! 'Go for yourself': a believer is someone who knows that, whatever happens, God is leading him towards his fulfilment, towards his happiness. So here are God's first words to Abram, the words that set off his whole adventure... and ours! Go, leave your country, your family and your father's house, and go to the land that I will show you. And what follows are only promises: I will make you a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing... All the families of the earth shall be blessed in you. Abram is torn from his natural destiny, chosen, elected by God, invested with a universal vocation. Abram, for the moment, is a nomad, perhaps rich, but unknown, and he has no children; his wife Sarai is well past childbearing age. Yet it is he whom God chooses to become the father of a great people. This is what that 'for you' meant earlier: God promises him everything that, at that time, constitutes a man's happiness: numerous descendants and God's blessing. But this happiness promised to Abram is not only for him: in the Bible, no vocation, no calling is ever for the selfish interest of the one who is called. This is one of the criteria of an authentic vocation: every vocation is always for a mission in the service of others. Here is this phrase: 'In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed'. It means at least two things: first, your success will be such that you will be taken as an example: when people want to wish someone happiness, they will say, 'May you be as happy as Abram'. Second, this 'in you' can mean through you; and then it means 'through you, I, God, will bless all the families of the earth'. God's plan for happiness passes through Abram, but it surpasses him, it overflows him; it concerns all humanity: 'In you, through you, all the families of the earth will be blessed'. Throughout the history of Israel, the Bible will remain faithful to this first discovery: Abraham and his descendants are the chosen people, chosen by God but for the benefit of all humanity, from the first day, from the first word to Abraham. The fact remains that other nations are free not to enter into this blessing; this is the meaning of the seemingly curious phrase: "I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I will curse" (12:3). It is a way of expressing our freedom: anyone who wishes to do so can share in the blessing promised to Abram, but no one is obliged to accept it! The time for the great departure has come; the text is extraordinary in its sobriety: it simply says, "Abram departed as the Lord had commanded him" (12:4), and Lot went with him. One cannot be more laconic! This departure, at the simple call of God, is the most beautiful proof of faith; four thousand years later, we can say that our faith finds its source in that of Abraham; and if our whole lives are illuminated by faith, it is thanks to him! And all human history becomes the place of the fulfilment of God's promises to Abraham: a slow, progressive fulfilment, but certain and sure.

Notes: *At the beginning of this great adventure, the man we call Abraham was still called only Abram; later, after years of pilgrimage, he would receive from God the new name by which we know him: Abraham, which means 'father of multitudes'. 

**This 'for you' should not be understood as exclusive, even if it was not immediately understood at first. Only after a long discovery of God's Covenant were believers able to access the full truth: God's plan concerns not only Abraham and his descendants, but all of humanity. This is what we call the universality of God's plan. This discovery dates back to the Exile in Babylon in the 6th century BC.

Addition: At another point in Abraham's life, when he offers Isaac as a sacrifice, God uses the same expression, "Go," to give him the strength to face the trial, reminding him of the journey he has already made. The Letter to the Hebrews takes Abraham's departure to explain what faith is (cf. Heb 11:8-12). 

*Responsorial Psalm (32/33)

The word 'love' appears three times in these few verses, and this insistence responds very well to the first reading: Abraham is the first in all human history to discover that God is love and that he has plans for the happiness of humanity. However, it was necessary to believe in this extraordinary revelation. And Abraham believed, he agreed to trust in the words of the future that God announced to him. An old man without children, yet he would have had every reason to doubt this incredible promise from God. God says to him: Leave your country... I will make you a great nation. And the text of Genesis concludes that Abram left as the Lord had told him.

This is a beautiful example for us at the beginning of Lent: we should believe in all circumstances that God has plans for our happiness. This was precisely the meaning of the phrase pronounced over us on Ash Wednesday: "Repent and believe in the Gospel." To convert means to believe once and for all that the Newness is that God is Love. Jeremiah said on behalf of God: 'I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope' (Jer 29:11). Thus, the first two Sundays of Lent invite us to make a choice: on the first Sunday, we read in the book of Genesis the story of Adam: the man who suspects God in the face of a prohibition (not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil), imagining that God might even be jealous! These are the insinuations of the serpent, which means poison. For this second Sunday of Lent, however, we read the story of Abraham, the believer. A little further on, the book of Genesis says of him: Abram believed in the Lord, who counted him as righteous. And, to help us follow the same path as Abraham, this psalm suggests words of trust: 'The eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his love to deliver them from death'. At the beginning, we read: 'The earth is full of love...' and then the expression 'those who fear him' is explained in the next line: 'those who hope in his love', so far from fear, quite the opposite! The temptation is to want to be free and do whatever we want... to obey only ourselves. All this comes from experience, and that is why the chosen people can say: 'the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his love' because God has watched over them like a father over his children. When it says that he frees them from death, it is not talking about biological death. We must remember that at the time this psalm was composed, individual death was not considered a tragedy; what mattered was the survival of the people in the certainty that God would keep his people alive. At all times, and especially in times of trial, God accompanies his people and delivers them from death. The reference to times of famine is certainly an allusion to the manna that God sent during the Exodus, when hunger became threatening. All the people can bear witness to this care of God in every age; and when we sing "The word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness," we are simply repeating the name of the merciful and faithful God who revealed himself to Moses (Ex 34:6). The conclusion is a prayer of trust: "May your love be upon us, Lord, as we hope in you" is an invitation to believers to offer themselves to this love.

*Second reading from the second letter of St Paul the Apostle to Timothy (1:8b-10) 

Paul is in prison in Rome, he knows that he will soon be executed, and here he gives his last recommendations to Timothy: "My dear son, with the strength of God, suffer with me for the Gospel." This suffering is the persecution that is inevitable for a true disciple of Christ, as Jesus had said (cf. Mk 8:34-35). Both at the beginning and at the end of the passage, there is a reference to the Gospel, which is presented as an inclusion. In the middle, framed by these two identical references, Paul explains what this Gospel is. He uses the word Gospel in its etymological sense of good news, just as Jesus himself said at the beginning of his preaching in Galilee: "Repent and believe in the Gospel, the Good News" means that Christian preaching is the proclamation that the kingdom of God has finally been inaugurated. For Paul, it is in the central sentence of our text that we discover what the Gospel consists of: ultimately, it can be summed up in a few words: God has saved us through Jesus Christ.  *"God saved us": it is a past tense, something that has been accomplished; but at the same time, in order for people to enter into this salvation, it is necessary that the Gospel be proclaimed to them. It is therefore truly a holy vocation that has been entrusted to us: "God saved us and called us to a holy vocation" (1:9). It is a holy vocation because it is entrusted to us by God who is holy; it is a holy vocation because it involves proclaiming God's plan; it is a holy vocation because God's plan needs our collaboration: each of us must play our part, as Paul says. But the expression "holy vocation" also means something else: God's plan for us, for humanity, is so great that it fully deserves this name. The particular vocation of the apostles is part of this universal vocation of humanity.

*"God has saved us": in the Bible, the verb "to save" always means "to liberate". It took a long and gradual discovery of this reality on the part of the people of the Covenant: God wants man to be free and intervenes incessantly to free us from every form of slavery. There are many types of slavery: political slavery, such as servitude in Egypt or exile in Babylon; and each time Israel recognised God's work in its liberation; social slavery, and the Law of Moses, as the prophets never cease to call for the conversion of hearts so that every person may live in dignity and freedom; religious slavery, which is even more insidious. The prophets never ceased to transmit this will of God to see humanity finally freed from all its chains. Paul says that Jesus has freed us even from death: Jesus "has conquered death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (1:10). Paul affirms this 

as he prepares to be executed. Jesus himself died, and we too will all die. Jesus, therefore, is not speaking of biological death. What victory is he referring to then? Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, gives us his own life, which we can share spiritually, and which nothing can destroy, not even biological death. His Resurrection is proof that biological death cannot destroy it, so for us biological death will be nothing more than a passage towards the light that never sets: in the funeral liturgy we say: "Life is not taken away, but transformed". If biological death is part of our physical constitution, made of dust – as the book of Genesis says – it cannot separate us from Jesus Christ (cf. Rom 8:39). In us there is a relationship with God that nothing, not even biological death, can destroy: this is what St John calls 'eternal life'.

*From the Gospel according to Matthew (17:1-9)

"Jesus took Peter, James and John with him": once again we are faced with the mystery of God's choices. It was to Peter that Jesus had said shortly before, in Caesarea: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the powers of death will not prevail against it" (Mt 16:18). But Peter is accompanied by two brothers, James and John, the two sons of Zebedee. "And Jesus led them up a high mountain, apart": on a high mountain Moses had received the Revelation of the God of the Covenant and the tablets of the Law; that Law which was to progressively educate the people of the Covenant to live in the love of God and of their brothers and sisters. On the same mountain, Elijah had received the revelation of the God of tenderness in the gentle breeze... Moses and Elijah, the two pillars of the Old Testament... On the high mountain of the Transfiguration, Peter, James and John, the pillars of the Church, receive the revelation of the God of tenderness incarnate in Jesus: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased". And this revelation is granted to them to strengthen their faith before the storm of the Passion. Peter will write about it later (cf. 2 Pt 1:16-18).

The expression "my beloved Son: listen to him" designates Jesus as the Messiah: to Jewish ears, this simple phrase is a triple allusion to the Old Testament, because it recalls three very different texts, but ones that are well present in everyone's memory; all the more so because the expectation was intense at the time of Jesus' coming and hypotheses were multiplying: we have proof of this in the numerous questions addressed to Jesus in the Gospels. "Son" was the title usually given to kings, and the Messiah was expected to have the characteristics of a king descended from David, who would finally reign on the throne of Jerusalem, which had been without a king for a long time. The beloved, in whom I am well pleased, evoked a completely different context: it refers to the "Songs of the Servant" in the book of Isaiah; it meant that Jesus is the Messiah, no longer in the manner of a king, but of a Servant, in the sense of Isaiah (Is 42:1). 'Listen to him' meant something else: that Jesus is the Messiah-Prophet in the sense that Moses, in the Book of Deuteronomy, had announced to the people: 'The Lord your God will raise up for you, from among your own brothers, a prophet like me; you shall listen to him' (Dt 18:15). ' "Let us make three tents": this phrase of Peter suggests that the episode of the Transfiguration may have taken place during the Feast of Tabernacles, or at least in a climate linked to it, a feast celebrated in memory of the crossing of the desert during the Exodus and the Covenant made with God, in the fervent experience that the prophets would later call the betrothal of the people to the God of tenderness and fidelity. During this feast, people lived in huts for eight days, waiting and imploring a new manifestation of God that would be fulfilled with the coming of the Messiah. On the Mount of Transfiguration, the three apostles suddenly find themselves faced with this revelation of the mystery of Jesus: it is not surprising that they are seized with the fear that grips every man before the manifestation of the holy God. nor is it surprising that Jesus raises them up and reassures them: the Old Testament had already revealed to the people of the Covenant that the most holy God is the God who is close to man and that fear is not appropriate. But the revelation of the mystery of the Messiah, in all its dimensions, is not yet within everyone's reach; Jesus orders them not to tell anyone for the time being, before the Son of Man has risen from the dead. By saying this last sentence, Jesus confirms the revelation that the three disciples have just received: he is truly the Messiah whom the prophet Daniel saw in the form of a man, coming on the clouds of heaven (cf. Dan 7:13-14). Daniel himself presents the Son of Man not as a solitary individual, but as a people, whom he calls "the people of the Most High". The fulfilment is even more beautiful than the promise: in Jesus, Man-God, it is the whole of humanity that will receive this eternal kingship and be eternally transfigured. But Jesus said clearly: Tell no one anything before the Resurrection. Only after Jesus' Resurrection will the apostles be able to bear witness to it.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

First Lent Sunday [22 February 2026]

May God bless us and may the Virgin protect us. I apologise if I dwell too long  today on the presentation of the texts, but it is central to Christian life to understand in depth the drama of Genesis (first reading), which St Paul takes up in the second reading, bringing it to full understanding. Similarly, the responsorial psalm can be understood starting from the drama recounted in Genesis chapter 3, and likewise the Gospel shows us how to react in order to live in the kingdom of God already on this earth. In my opinion, it is a vision of life that must be clearly focused in order to understand the drama of the practical and often unconscious rejection of God that is consummated in the world in the face of the crucial question: why is there evil in the world? Why does God not destroy it?  

 Have a good Lent.

*First Reading from the Book of Genesis (2:7-9; 3:1-7a)

In the first chapters of Genesis, two different figures of man appear: the first who lives happily in complete harmony with God and with woman. and creation (chap. 2), and then the man who claims his autonomy by taking for himself the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (chap. 3). Jesus sums up in himself 'all our weaknesses' (Heb 4:15), and, put to the test, he will be the sign of the new humanity: 'the last Adam became a life-giving spirit' (1 Cor 15:45).  Before tackling this text, we must remember that its author never claimed to be a historian. The Bible was written neither by scientists nor by historians, but by believers for believers. The theologian who wrote these lines, probably at the time of Solomon in the 10th century BC, seeks to answer the questions that everyone asks: why evil? Why death? Why misunderstandings between couples? Why is life so difficult? Why is work so tiring? Why is nature sometimes hostile? To answer these questions, he draws on a certainty shared by his entire people: the goodness of God. God freed us from Egypt; God wants us to be free and happy. Since the famous exodus from Egypt, led by Moses, and the crossing of the desert, during which God's presence and support were experienced at every new difficulty, there can be no doubt about this. The story we have just read is therefore based on this certainty of God's benevolence and seeks to answer all our questions about evil in the world. With a good and benevolent God, how is it possible that evil exists? Our author has invented a parable to enlighten us: a garden of delights (this is the meaning of the word 'Eden') and humanity represented by a couple charged with cultivating and caring for the garden. The garden is full of trees, each more attractive than the next. The one in the middle is called the 'tree of life'; its fruit can be eaten like all the others. But somewhere in the garden – the text does not specify where – there is another tree, whose fruit is forbidden. It is called the 'tree of the knowledge of what makes one happy or unhappy'. Faced with this prohibition, the couple can have two attitudes: either to trust, knowing that God is only benevolence, and rejoice in having access to the tree of life; if God forbids us the other tree, it is because it is not good for us. Or they can suspect God of having evil intentions, imagining that he wants to prevent us from accessing knowledge. This is the serpent's argument: he addresses the woman and feigns understanding: 'So, did God really say, "You must not eat from any tree in the garden"?' (3:1). The woman replies: "We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God has said, 'You must not eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, nor touch it, or you will die'" (3:2-4) . Have you noticed the shift: simply because she has listened to the voice of suspicion, she now speaks only of that tree and says 'the tree in the middle of the garden'; now, in good faith, she no longer sees  the tree of life in the centre of the garden, but the tree 'of the knowledge of what makes one happy or unhappy'. Her gaze is already altered, simply because she has allowed the serpent to speak to her; then the serpent can continue its slow work of demolition: "No, you will not die at all! Indeed, God knows that on the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (3:5). Once again, the woman listens too well to these beautiful words, and the text suggests that her gaze is increasingly distorted: 'The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom' (3:6). The serpent has won: the woman takes the fruit, eats it, gives it to her husband, and he eats it too. And so the story ends: "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked" (v. 7).  The serpent had spoken well: "your eyes will be opened" (3:5); the woman's mistake was to believe that he was speaking in her interest and revealing God's evil intentions. It was nothing but a lie: her gaze changed, it is true, but it became distorted. It is no coincidence that the suspicion cast on God is represented by the features of a serpent: Israel, in the desert, had experienced poisonous snakes. Our theologian at Solomon's court recalls this painful experience and says: there is a poison more serious than that of the most poisonous snakes; the suspicion cast on God is a deadly poison, it poisons our lives. The idea of our anonymous theologian is that all our misfortunes come from this suspicion that corrodes humanity. To say that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is reserved for God is to say that only God knows what makes us happy or unhappy; which, after all, is logical if he is the one who created us. Wanting to eat the fruit of this forbidden tree at all costs means claiming to determine for ourselves what is good for us: the warning 'You must not eat it and you must not touch it, otherwise you will die' clearly indicated that this was the wrong path to take. 

But wait! The story goes even further: during the journey through the desert, God gave the Law (the Torah) which from then on had to be observed, what we call the commandments. We know that the daily practice of this Law is the condition for the survival and harmonious growth of this people; if we truly knew that God only wants our life, our happiness, our freedom, we would trust and obey the Law with a good heart. It is truly the "tree of life" made available to us by God.

I said at the beginning that this is a parable, but it is a parable whose lesson applies to each of us; since the world began, it has always been the same story. St Paul (whom we read this Sunday in the second reading) continues his meditation and says: only Christ trusted the Father in everything; he shows us the way of Life.

Note: In the Hebrew text, the serpent's question is deliberately ambiguous: 'Did God really say, "You shall not eat of any tree in the garden"? 'הֲכִי־אָמַר אֱלֹהִים לֹא תֹאכְלוּ מִכֹּל עֵץ הַגָּן? " Ha-ki amar Elohim lo tochlu mikol etz ha-gan? Put this way, the question can be understood in a restrictive sense: "Did God really say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" interpreting "all trees" as a total negation. Or in a general and colloquial sense: "Did God really say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" interpreting "all" in an absolute sense, or as all trees except one, the tree of life or the other of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent uses this ambiguity to sow doubt and suspicion, insinuating that God might be lying or withholding something good. In the oldest Hebrew manuscripts, there are no punctuation marks as we know them today, so the play on words and the double meaning were intentionally stronger. Exegetes note that the serpent does not make a clear statement but forms a subtle question that shifts the focus to doubt: "Perhaps God is deceiving you?" This account in Genesis has many resonances in the meditation of the people of Israel. One of the reflections suggested by the text concerns the tree of life: planted in the middle of the garden of Eden, it was accessible to man and its fruit was permitted. One might think that its fruit allowed man to remain alive, to that spiritual life that God had breathed into him: "The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being" (Gen 2:7). The rabbis then made the connection with the Law given by God on Sinai. In fact, it is accepted by believers as a gift from God, a support for daily life: 'My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life and bring you peace' (Pr 3:1-2). . 

NB For further clarification, I would add this: There is the first prohibition: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2:16-17, God sets only one limit on man: "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat." The tree of life is not forbidden at this point. The prohibition concerns only the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because God is the one who decides what is good and what is evil, and man is called to trust, not to replace God. Eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge means saying, 'I do not trust God; I decide what is good and what is evil'. After sin, there is a second prohibition (the tree of life) because the situation changes radically. In Genesis 3:22-24, we read: 'Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever'. Only after sin does God prevent access to the tree of life. Why? Because man, separated from God by sin, cannot live forever like this. Living eternally with the consequences of sin would be a condemnation, not a gift. God therefore protects man from a distorted immortality. In other words, God does not take life away as punishment, but to prevent evil from becoming eternal.

*Responsorial Psalm (50/51)

"Have mercy on me, O God, in your love; according to your great mercy, blot out my sin. Wash me completely from my guilt, purify me from my offence." The people of Israel are gathered for a great penitential celebration in the Temple of Jerusalem. They recognise themselves as sinners, but they also know God's inexhaustible mercy. After all, if they are gathered to ask for forgiveness, it is because they already know in advance that forgiveness has been granted. This, let us remember, was King David's great discovery: David took Bathsheba, with whom he had fallen in love, and had her husband Uriah killed, because a few days later, Bathsheba was expecting a child by him. When the prophet Nathan went to David, he did not first seek a word of repentance from him; instead, he began by reminding him of all God's gifts and announcing his forgiveness, even before David had had time to make the slightest confession (2 Sam 12). In essence, he said to him, 'Look at all that God has given you... well, know that he is ready to give you anything else you want!'. And a thousand times throughout its history, Israel has been able to verify that God is truly 'the merciful and compassionate Lord, slow to anger and rich in love and faithfulness', according to the revelation he granted to Moses in the desert (Ex 34:6). The prophets also transmitted this message, and the few verses of the psalm we have just heard are full of these discoveries of Isaiah and Ezekiel. Isaiah, for example: "It is I, I who blot out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins" (Is 43:25); or again: "I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you" (Is 44:22).

This proclamation of God's gratuitous forgiveness sometimes surprises us: it seems too good, perhaps; for some it even seems unfair: if everything is forgivable, what is the point of making an effort? Perhaps we are too quick to forget that we all, without exception, need God's mercy; so let us not complain about it! And let us not be surprised if God surprises us, for, as Isaiah says, "God's thoughts are not our thoughts". And Isaiah himself points out that it is above all in the matter of forgiveness that God surprises us most. The only condition required is to recognise ourselves as sinners. When the prodigal son (Lk 15) returns to his father, for reasons that are not very noble, Jesus puts a phrase from Psalm 50 on his lips: "Against you, against you alone, have I sinned," and this simple phrase restores the bond that the ungrateful young man had broken. Faced with this ever-renewed proclamation of God's mercy, the people of Israel — for it is they who speak here, as in all the psalms — recognise themselves as sinners: the confession is not detailed, as it never is in the penitential psalms, but the essential is said in this plea: "Have mercy on me, O God, in your love, according to your great mercy, blot out my sin... And God, who is all mercy, that is, as if drawn by misery, expects nothing more than this simple recognition of our poverty. The word "mercy" has the same root as the word "alms": literally, we are beggars before God. Two things remain to be done. First of all, simply give thanks for the forgiveness granted without ceasing; the praise that the people of Israel address to God is the recognition of the goodness with which he has filled them since the beginning of their history. This clearly shows that the most important prayer in a penitential celebration is thanksgiving for God's gifts and forgiveness: we must begin by contemplating Him, and only then, when this contemplation has revealed to us the gap between Him and us, can we recognise ourselves as sinners. The ritual of reconciliation says this clearly in its introduction: 'We confess God's love together with our sin'. And the song of gratitude will flow spontaneously from our lips: we need only allow God to open our hearts. "Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise"; some recognise here the first sentence of the Liturgy of the Hours each morning; in fact, it is taken from Psalm 50/51. This alone is a true lesson: praise and gratitude can only arise in us if God opens our hearts and our lips. St Paul puts it another way: 'God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba!", that is, "Father!"' (Gal 4:6). This irresistibly brings to mind a gesture of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark: the healing of a deaf-mute; touching his ears and tongue, Jesus said, 'Ephphatha', which means 'Be opened'. And then, spontaneously, those present applied to Jesus a phrase that the Bible reserved for God: "He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak" (cf. Is 35:5-6). Even today, in some baptismal celebrations, the celebrant repeats this gesture of Jesus on the baptised, saying: "The Lord Jesus has made the deaf hear and the mute speak; may he grant you to hear his word and proclaim your faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father". The second thing to do, and what God expects of us, is to forgive in turn, without delay or conditions... and this is a serious undertaking in our lives.

*Second Reading from the Letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Romans (5:12-19)

Adam was a figure of the one who was to come, Paul tells us; he speaks of Adam in the past tense because he refers to the book of Genesis and the story of the forbidden fruit, but for him Adam's drama is not a story of the past: this story is ours, every day; we are all Adam at times; the rabbis say, 'everyone is Adam to himself'.

And if we were to summarise the story of the Garden of Eden (which we reread in this Sunday's first reading), we could say this: by listening to the voice of the serpent rather than God's command, by allowing suspicion about God's intentions to invade their hearts, by believing that they could allow themselves everything, that they could 'know' everything - as the Bible says — man and woman placed themselves under the dominion of death. And when we say, 'everyone is Adam to himself', it means that every time we turn away from God, we allow the powers of death to invade our lives. St Paul, in his letter to the Romans, continues the same meditation and announces that humanity has taken a decisive step in Jesus Christ; we are all brothers and sisters of Adam and we are all brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ; we are brothers and sisters of Adam when we allow the poison of suspicion to infest our hearts, when we presume to make ourselves the law. We are brothers and sisters of Christ when we trust God enough to let him guide our lives. We are under the dominion of death when we behave like Adam; when we behave like Jesus, that is, like him, 'obedient' (i.e. trusting), we are already resurrected in the kingdom of life, the one John speaks of: 'He who believes in me, even if he dies, will live', a life that biological death does not interrupt. Let us return to the account in the Book of Genesis: The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground; he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. This breath of God that makes man a living being – as the text says – was not given to animals: yet they are very much alive in a biological sense; we can therefore deduce that man enjoys a life different from biological life. St Paul affirms that because of Adam, death has reigned: he uses the terms 'reign' and 'reign over' several times, showing that there are two kingdoms that confront each other: the kingdom of sin when humanity acts like Adam, which brings death, judgement and condemnation. Then there is the kingdom of Christ, that is, with him, the new humanity, which is the kingdom of grace, of life, of free gift, of justification. However, no man is entirely in the kingdom of Christ, and Paul himself recognises this: 'I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want' (Rom 7:19). . Adam, that is, humanity, was created to be king, to cultivate and keep the garden, as we read in the book of Genesis, but, ill-advised by the serpent, he wants to do everything by himself, with his own strength, cutting himself off from God. Jesus Christ, on the contrary, does not 'claim' this kingship: it is given to him. As Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians: "though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself" (2:6, NRSV). The story of the Garden of Eden says the same thing in images: before the Fall, man and woman could eat the fruit of the tree of life; after the Fall, they no longer have access to it. Each in its own way, these two texts – that of Genesis on the one hand and that of the letter to the Romans on the other – tell us the deepest truth of our lives: with God, everything is grace, everything is a free gift; and Paul here insists on the abundance, on the profusion of grace, even speaking of the 'disproportion' of grace: It is not like the fall, the free gift... much more, God's grace has been poured out in abundance on the multitude, this grace given in one man, Jesus Christ. Everything is a gift, and this is not surprising since, as St John says, God is Love. It is not because Christ behaved well that he received a reward, and Adam received punishment because of his misconduct. Paul's discourse is deeper: Christ lives in total trust that everything will be given to him in God... and everything is given to him in the Resurrection. Adam, that is, each one of us, often wants to take possession of what can only be received as a gift, and for this reason finds himself 'naked', that is, deprived of everything. We could say that by birth we are citizens of the kingdom of Adam; through baptism we have asked to be naturalised in the kingdom of Christ. Obedience and disobedience in Paul's sense could thus be replaced: 'obedience' with trust and 'disobedience' with mistrust; as Kierkegaard says: "The opposite of sin is not virtue; the opposite of sin is faith." If we reread the story of Genesis, we can see that the author intentionally did not give proper names to the man and woman; he spoke of Adam (derived from adamah, meaning earth, dust), which means 'human being taken from the earth', while Eve (derived from Chavah, meaning life) is the one who gives life. By not giving them names, he wanted us to understand that the drama of Adam and Eve is not the story of particular individuals, but the story of every human being, and has always been so.

*From the Gospel according to Matthew (4:1-11)

Every year, Lent begins with the story of Jesus' temptations in the desert: we must believe that this is a truly fundamental text! This year we read it according to St Matthew. After recounting the baptism of Jesus, Matthew immediately continues: "Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil" . The evangelist thus invites us to make a connection between Jesus' baptism and the temptations that immediately follow. Matthew had said a few verses earlier: Jesus "will save his people from their sins", which is precisely the meaning of the name Jesus. John the Baptist baptises Jesus in the Jordan even though he did not agree and had said: " I need to be baptised by you, and yet you come to me!" (Mt 3:14)... And it came to pass that when Jesus came up out of the water after his baptism, the heavens opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him. And a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

This phrase alone publicly announces that Jesus is truly the Messiah: because the expression 'Son of God' was synonymous with King-Messiah, and the phrase 'the beloved, in whom I am well pleased' (3:17) refers to one of the songs of the Servant in Isaiah. In a few words, Matthew reminds us of the whole mystery of the person of Jesus; and it is he, precisely, who is the Messiah, the Saviour, the Servant who will confront the Tempter. Like his people a few centuries earlier, he is led into the desert; like his people, he knows hunger; like his people, he must discover what God's will is for his children; like his people, he must choose before whom to bow down. "If you are the Son of God," repeats the Tempter, thus revealing the real problem; and Jesus is confronted with it, not only three times, but throughout his earthly life. What does it mean, in concrete terms, to be the Messiah? The question takes various forms: solving people's problems with miracles, such as turning stones into bread? Provoking God to test his promises? ... By throwing himself from the temple, for example, because Psalm 91 promised that God would rescue his Messiah... Possessing the world, dominating, reigning at any cost, even worshipping any idol? Even ceasing to be the Son? It should be noted that in the third temptation, the Tempter no longer repeats "If you are the Son of God".

The culmination of these temptations is that they target God's promises: they promise nothing more than what God himself promised to his Messiah. And the two interlocutors, the Tempter and Jesus, know this well. But here's the thing... God's promises are in the order of love; they can only be received as gifts; love cannot be demanded, it cannot be seized, it is received on bended knee, with gratitude. Ultimately, the same thing happens as in the Garden of Genesis: Adam knows, and rightly so, that he was created to be king, to be free, to be master of creation; but instead of accepting gifts as gifts, with gratitude and appreciation, he demands, he claims, he places himself on a par with God... He leaves the order of love and can no longer receive the love offered... he finds himself poor and naked. Jesus makes the opposite choice: 'Get behind me, Satan!' as he once said to Peter, adding, 'Your thoughts are not those of God, but those of men' (Mt 16:23). Furthermore, several times in this text, Matthew calls the Tempter "devil," which in Greek means "the one who divides." Satan is for each of us, as he is for Jesus himself, the one who tends to separate us from God, to see things in Adam's way and not in God's way. On closer inspection, it all lies in the gaze: Adam's is distorted; to keep his gaze clear, Jesus scrutinises the Word of God: the three responses to the Tempter are quotations from the book of Deuteronomy (chapter 8), in a passage that is precisely a meditation on the temptations of the people of Israel in the desert. Then, Matthew points out, the devil (the divider) leaves him; he has not succeeded in dividing, in turning away the Son's heart. This recalls St John's phrase in the Prologue (Jn 1:1): 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God (pros ton Theon, which means turned towards God), and the Word was God'. . The devil has not succeeded in turning the Son's heart away, and so he is then completely available to receive God's gifts: "Behold, angels came and ministered to him."

NB At the request of some, I would also like to present the homily I am preparing for this first Sunday of Lent.

Homily – First Sunday of Lent

Every year, Lent begins with the story of Jesus' temptations in the desert: we must believe that this is a truly fundamental text! This year we read it according to St Matthew. After recounting the baptism of Jesus, Matthew immediately continues: "Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil." The evangelist thus invites us to make a connection between the baptism of Jesus and the temptations that immediately follow. When Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him. And a voice came from heaven, saying, 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'. Jesus is the 'Son of God', the Messiah, the Saviour, the servant of God who will face the Tempter. Satan will say just that: "If you are the Son of God," thus revealing the real problem, which is the attempt to separate Jesus' divine identity from his way of living it, or better yet, to push Jesus to use his divine power without the trust of a son and his humanity without obedience. To understand this better, we must return to the first reading from the book of Genesis, where the tempting serpent promises Eve: "You will be like God" (Gen 3:5). The temptation is not only about a fruit that should not be eaten, but about autonomy from God, the desire to decide for oneself what is good and evil, without trusting the Father. Adam and Eve allowed themselves to be persuaded and found themselves naked. They lost everything!

In the desert, the devil now tempts Jesus, the new Adam, a true man like us except for sin, and launches three provocations: 1. "Say that these stones become bread." The temptation to live without depending on God, to seek immediate satisfaction. There is a hunger that goes beyond bread and that only God can satisfy. But this means trusting God, and Jesus responds: 'It is written: Man shall not live by bread alone' (Mt 4:4). 2nd temptation. The devil raises the stakes: "Throw yourself down" from the temple and the angels will catch you. Here is the temptation to manipulate God, to ask for spectacular signs to confirm one's faith. This is a very subtle temptation today, but one that is very common when we believe in making the liturgy, evangelisation and ecclesial events spectacular. Jesus teaches us to spread the Gospel like yeast in dough and a small seed in the ground: everything happens in silence because we must not believe that we are protagonists but lives always hidden in God, even when we act publicly. It is not our work to convert the world. Let us listen to Jesus who replies: "It is written: You shall not tempt the Lord your God" (Mt 4:7). . 3. In the third temptation, it should be noted that the Tempter no longer repeats 'If you are the Son of God', because Satan believes himself to be the master of the world and so he can say to him, 'I will give you everything if you bow down to me'. It is the temptation of power and compromise, of bending one's life to immediate advantages. It is very dangerous because it often involves the idea that we can accept anything in order to evangelise, but we are not the masters! Jesus replies: "It is written: You shall worship the Lord your God and him alone shall you serve" (Mt 4:10). 

Let us note something decisive: Jesus does not respond with his own intelligence or strength, but always by referring to the Word of God, which is the only true light that can guide man's journey through the desert of life, a journey that is often dark and full of pitfalls. This is because the Word of God is the light of truth that never goes out. St John Chrysostom reminds us: "In Scripture we find not only words, but the strength we need to overcome evil; it is the nourishment of the soul and the light that guides those who walk in darkness" (Homilies on Matthew, 4th century).   Even when the world rejects God, even when the right choices seem uncomfortable or losing, Scripture remains the sure guide. How can we apply this to our lives? Today, being a Christian is often difficult: faith can be mocked or ignored, the Gospel seems useless, Christ is fought against and sometimes tolerated, but not welcomed. Lent invites us to make a daily choice: who guides our lives? Do we want to do everything on our own, like Eve and Adam in Eden, choosing what seems most convenient? Or do we entrust ourselves to God, allowing his Word to enlighten our decisions and give meaning even to our difficulties? Following Christ means choosing fidelity, even when the world goes against it. It means living our lives as Christians without compromise, basing ourselves not on personal strength, but on the living Word of God. We are always sustained by a certain and concrete hope: the Gospel ends with a silent promise: 'Then the devil left him' (Mt 4:11). Those who entrust themselves to God are not left alone in their trials. Temptation may seem powerful, but those who walk in the light of the Word are never defeated.

+Giovanni D’Ercole

Ash Wednesday [18 February 2026]

May God bless us and the Virgin protect us! I am now sending the texts for Ash Wednesday and Wednesday those for Sunday.

*First Reading from the Book of the Prophet Joel (2:12-18)

'Return to the Lord with all your heart'. The book of the prophet Joel is one of the shortest in the Old Testament: it has only seventy-three verses, divided into four chapters, and is generally dated around 600 BC, shortly before the Exile to Babylon. Three major themes are constantly interwoven in this writing: the announcement of terrible scourges, real or symbolic; the urgent call to fasting and conversion; and finally, the proclamation of the salvation that God grants to his people. It is above all the second theme, that of conversion, which the liturgy proposes at the beginning of the Lenten journey. The invitation to conversion opens solemnly with the typical formula of the prophets: "The word of the Lord." It draws attention and asks us to take seriously what follows. And what follows is a decisive word: "Return". It is the fundamental verb of biblical penitential language. God invites his people to return to him, while the people, in turn, implore God to "return", that is, to grant forgiveness and mercy. This return to God must be expressed through fasting, tears and mourning: traditional signs of penance. However, the prophets, and Joel in particular, warn against the risk of stopping at outward appearances. For this reason, the prophet strongly affirms: "Rend your hearts and not your garments". Authentic conversion is not a matter of visible rituals, but a profound change of heart. Joel thus follows in the great prophetic tradition inaugurated by Isaiah, who denounced empty and formal worship, incapable of transforming life: God rejects solemn feasts and multiplied prayers when hands remain stained with injustice. What He asks for is a true purification of the heart and actions, the abandonment of evil and a concrete commitment to good and justice. The same message is expressed in a particularly intense way in Psalm 50/51, which defines true conversion as a "broken and humbled heart". In the light of Ezekiel, this image takes on an even deeper meaning: it is necessary for the heart of stone to be broken so that a heart of flesh may finally be born, capable of listening to God and living according to his will. When Joel calls for hearts to be torn, he means precisely this radical transformation of the human being. Conversion, in Joel's view, aims to obtain God's forgiveness and avert deserved punishment. The prophet reminds us that the Lord is 'tender and merciful, slow to anger and rich in love' and leaves open a hope: perhaps God will retrace his steps, renounce punishment and save his people from humiliation before the nations. But the final announcement exceeds all expectations: forgiveness is not only possible, it has already been granted. The liturgical translation speaks of a God who is 'moved' by his people, but the Hebrew text is even stronger: 'The Lord burns with zeal for his land and has compassion on his people'. This is not a cold or distant pity, but a passionate and faithful love. It remains to be discovered in biblical revelation that this mercy is not reserved for Israel alone. The book of Jonah shows this in a surprising way, recounting the conversion of Nineveh, the pagan city: faced with the fasting and change of life of its inhabitants, God renounces the punishment he had announced. The message is clear: the Lord "burns with zeal" for all people, even those who seem distant or unworthy.

This truth will find its definitive expression in the New Testament, when St Paul affirms that God has manifested his love in a radical way: Christ died for us while we were still sinners (Rom 5:8).

*Responsorial Psalm (50/51)

"Have mercy on me, O God, in your love; in your great mercy blot out my guilt. Wash me clean of my guilt, purify me from my sin." The people of Israel are gathered in the Temple in Jerusalem for a great penitential celebration. They recognise themselves as sinners, but they also know God's inexhaustible mercy. And, after all, if they gather to ask for forgiveness, it is precisely because they know in advance that forgiveness has already been granted. This was the great discovery of King David, who had brought his beautiful neighbour Bathsheba (the wife of an officer, Uriah, who was at war at the time) to his palace and slept with her, and she became pregnant. Some time later, Bathsheba let David know that she was expecting his child. At that point, David arranged for the death of her betrayed husband on the battlefield, so that he could definitively take possession of the woman and the child she was carrying. Now, and this is where God's unexpectedness comes in, when the prophet Nathan went to David, he did not first try to extract a confession of repentance from him; instead, he began by reminding him of all the gifts he had received from God and announcing his forgiveness, even before David had had time to make the slightest admission of guilt (cf. 2 Sam 12). In essence, he said to him, 'Look at all that God has given you... and know that he is ready to give you anything else you want!'. Israel has always been able to verify that God is truly a merciful and compassionate Lord, slow to anger, rich in faithful love, according to the revelation made to Moses in the desert (Ex 34:6). The prophets also reiterated this message, and the verses of the psalm we have heard are imbued with the discoveries of Isaiah and Ezekiel. Isaiah, for example, has God say: "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins" (Isaiah 43:25). The proclamation of God's gratuitous forgiveness sometimes surprises us: it seems too good to be true; to some it even seems unfair. If everything is forgivable, what is the point of making an effort? It is to forget too quickly that all of us, without exception, need God's mercy: so let us not complain about it! And let us not be surprised if God surprises us, because, as Isaiah says, "God's thoughts are not our thoughts". And in forgiving, Isaiah points out, God surprises us more than anything else. Faced with the ever-renewed proclamation of God's mercy, the people of Israel recognise themselves as sinners. The confession is not detailed, as it never is in the penitential psalms, but the essential is said in this supplication: Have mercy on me, O God, in your love, in your great mercy, blot out my sin... And God, who is all mercy, expects nothing more than this simple recognition of our poverty. After all, the word 'mercy' has the same root as the word 'alms': literally, we are beggars before God. At this point, we have two things left to do.

Simply give thanks for this forgiveness that is continually given. When Israel turns to God, it always acknowledges the goodness with which He has filled it since the beginning of its history, and this shows that the most important prayer in a penitential celebration is the acknowledgement of God's gifts and forgiveness: we must begin by contemplating Him; only then, this contemplation, revealing the gap between Him and us, allows us to recognise ourselves as sinners: we confess God's love together with our sin. Then the song of gratitude will flow spontaneously from our lips when God opens our hearts. "Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise" (Psalm 50/51). Praise and thanksgiving can only arise in us if God opens our hearts and our lips. The second thing God expects of us is to forgive in turn, without delay or conditions... and that is quite a programme.

*Second reading from the second letter of St Paul to the Corinthians (5:20-6:2)

"Be reconciled to God," says Paul; but reconciliation implies that there is a quarrel: what quarrel is it? The men of the Old Testament discovered that God is not at odds with man. Psalm 102/103, for example, states: The Lord does not always contend, nor does he keep his anger forever; he does not treat us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities... Isaiah also invites the wicked to abandon their ways, the unrighteous to abandon their thoughts; return to the Lord, who will have compassion on you, to our God, who forgives abundantly (Is 55:7). And the book of Wisdom adds: 'You have mercy on all because you can do all things, and you turn away your gaze from the sins of men to lead them to repentance... You spare them all, because they are yours, Lord, who loves life... Your dominion over all makes you use clemency towards all' (Wisdom 11:23; 12:16). The men of the Bible experienced this, beginning with David. God knew that he had blood on his hands (after the killing of Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, 2 Sam 12), yet he sent the prophet Nathan to tell him in essence: "Everything you have, I have given you, and if that is not enough, I am ready to give you everything else you desire." God also knew that Solomon owed his throne to the elimination of his rivals, yet he listened to his prayer at Gibeon and granted it far beyond what the young king had dared to ask (1 Kings 3). Furthermore, God's very name — the Merciful One — means that he loves us even more when we are miserable. God, therefore, is not at odds with man; yet Paul speaks of reconciliation, because man has always been at odds with God. The text of Genesis (Genesis 2-3) attributes the accusatory phrase to the serpent: "God knows that on the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil" (Gen 3:4). In other words, man suspects that God is jealous and does not want his good. But since that voice is not natural to man (it is the serpent's), he can be healed of this suspicion. This is what Paul says: "It is God himself who calls you; we urge you in the name of Christ: be reconciled to God." And what did God do to remove this quarrel, this suspicion, from our hearts? He who knew no sin, God made him sin for us: Jesus knew no sin even for a moment, he was never at odds with the Father. Paul adds: 'He became obedient' (Phil 2:8), that is, trusting even through suffering and death. He sought to communicate to men this trust and the revelation of a God who is only love, forgiveness, and help for the little ones. Paradoxically, it was precisely for this reason that he was considered blasphemous, placed among sinners and executed as a cursed man (Deut 21:23). The darkness of men fell upon him, and God allowed it because it was the only way to make us realise how far his "zeal for his people" can go, as the prophet Joel says. Jesus suffered in the flesh the sin of men, their violence, their hatred, their rejection of a God of love. On the face of the crucified Christ, we contemplate the horror of human sin, but also God's gentleness and forgiveness. From this contemplation can come our conversion, our 'justification', as Paul says. They will look upon him whom they have pierced (cf. Zechariah 12:10; John 19:37). To discover in Jesus, who forgives his executioners, the very image of God means to enter into the reconciliation offered by God. We are left with the task of proclaiming this to the world: 'We are ambassadors for Christ', says Paul, considering himself sent on mission to his brothers and sisters. It is up to us to continue this mission, and this is probably the meaning of Paul's final quotation: "For it is written in Scripture: 'At the favourable time I answered you, on the day of salvation I helped you.'" Paul here takes up a phrase from Isaiah, who exhorted the Babylonian exiles to proclaim that the hour of God's salvation had come. In turn, Christ entrusted to the Church the task of proclaiming the forgiveness of sins to the world.

*From the Gospel according to Matthew (6:1-6, 16-18)

  Here we have two short excerpts from the Sermon on the Mount, which occupies chapters 5-7 of St Matthew; the entire sermon is built around its central core, the Lord's Prayer (6:9-13), which gives meaning to everything else. The recommendations we read today are not just moral advice: they concern the very meaning of faith. All our actions are rooted in the discovery that God is Father. Thus, prayer, almsgiving and fasting become paths to bring us closer to God the Father: fasting means learning to go out of ourselves, praying means centring ourselves on God, giving alms means centring ourselves on our brothers and sisters. Three times Jesus repeats similar, almost polemical formulations: Do not be like those who flaunt their piety.... It is important to remember how significant religious manifestations were in Jewish society at the time, with the inevitable risk of attributing too much value to outward gestures; and probably even prominent figures did not escape this! Matthew sometimes reports Jesus' rebukes to those who focused more on the length of their fringes than on mercy and faithfulness (Mt 23:5f). Here, however, Jesus invites his disciples to a truth operation: If you want to live as righteous people, avoid acting in front of others to be admired. Righteousness was the great concern of believers: and if Jesus mentions the pursuit of righteousness twice in the Beatitudes, it is because that term, that thirst, was familiar to his listeners: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied" (5:6); "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (5:10). True biblical justice consists in harmony with God's plan, not in the accumulation of practices, however noble they may seem. The famous phrase from Genesis — Abraham believed in the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness (Gen 15:6) — teaches us that justice is first and foremost righteousness, as in a musical instrument, a deep harmony with God's will.

The three practices — prayer, fasting, almsgiving — are paths to righteousness.

Prayer: let God guide us according to his plan: "Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We wait for Him to teach us the true needs of the Kingdom. Jesus precedes the teaching of the Our Father with this recommendation: "When you pray, do not do as the pagans do... your Father knows what you need before you ask him (6:7-8).

Fasting: by ceasing to pursue what we believe is necessary for our happiness, which risks absorbing us more and more, we learn freedom and recognise true priorities; Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Mt 4:4).

Almsgiving: The word almsgiving comes from the same family as eleison: to give alms means to open one's heart to mercy. God wants the good of all his children; justice, understood as harmony with Him, inevitably includes a dimension of social justice. The parable of the Last Judgement (Mt 25:31-46) confirms this: "Come, blessed of my Father... for I was hungry and you gave me food... and the righteous will enter into eternal life." The behaviours that Jesus condemns — do not be like those who show off — are the opposite: they keep man centred on himself, closing his heart to the transforming action of the Spirit.

+Giovanni D'Ercole