(Mt 28:16-20)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Faith and religious evidence now clash, sparking sparks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To internalise and live the message:

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

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

Jn 3:16-18(7-21)

Lifting up the Cross goes far beyond resilience.

Going up and going down, going beyond or retreating

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This does not mean that we are rejecting the gallows.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thus, the Cross embraced saves us.

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

Lifting the Cross goes far beyond the capacity for resilience.

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

Jn 3:16-21(7-21)

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

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

It is like passing through an emptying of the heart.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A reversal of perspectives; a complete change of view.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

According to a Wisdom that makes many unexpected opinions heard.

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

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

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

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

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

To internalise and live the message:

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

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

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

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

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

He loved so much, and He gave

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Holy Trinity

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

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

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

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

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

He is "the One who will be" [Ex 3:14 Hebrew text] i.e.: in the unfolding of events people have an essential experience of the Living One as Deliverer, and Bridegroom [cf. Hosea's fluctuating affective story].

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

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

Such becomes the intimate expression of the authentic woman and man; a cipher of the identity of the Church, which is not pronounced in the least.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He thus removes dishonour and the sense of inadequacy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing can undermine us.

The world we do not see has transmutative capabilities.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We experience it in action: in the moments when its impetus produces inexplicable recoveries that "give glory to God" (v.14) - that is, they renew relationships and put people who do not even have self-esteem back on their feet.

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

Only in this way is the Plan of Salvation realised.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

After the Easter Season that ended last Sunday with Pentecost, the Liturgy has returned to "Ordinary Time". This does not mean, however, that Christians must be less any committed: indeed, having entered divine life through the sacraments, we are called daily to be open to the action of divine Grace, to progress in love of God and of neighbour. This Sunday of the Most Holy Trinity, in a certain sense sums up God's revelation which was brought about through the Paschal Mysteries: Christ's death and Resurrection, his Ascension to the right hand of the Father and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The human mind and language are inadequate to explain the relationship that exists between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; yet the Fathers of the Church sought to illustrate the mystery of the Triune God by living it with deep faith in their own lives. 

The divine Trinity takes up his abode in us on the day of our Baptism: "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit". Every time we sign ourselves with the sign of the Cross we remember God's name in which we were baptized. With regard to the sign of the Cross a theologian, Romano Guardini, remarked: "We do it before praying so that... we may put ourselves spiritually in order; focus thoughts, heart and will on God; after praying, so that what God has given us may remain within us.... It embraces the whole being, body and soul... and everything is consecrated in the name of the Triune God" (Lo spirito della liturgia. I santi segni, Brescia, 2000, pp. 125-126). 

The sign of the Cross and the name of the living God therefore contain the proclamation that generates faith and inspires prayer. And just as in the Gospel Jesus promises the Apostles that: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth" (Jn 16: 13), so it happens in the Sunday Liturgy, from week to week, when priests dispense the bread of the Word and of the Eucharist. The Holy Curé d'Ars also reminded his faithful of this. "Who welcomed your soul", he asked, "at the beginning of your life? The priest. Who feeds your soul and gives it strength for its journey? The priest. Who will prepare it to appear before God, bathing it one last time in the blood of Jesus Christ? The priest, always the priest" (Letter inaugurating the Year for Priests). 

Dear friends, let us make our own the prayer of St Hilary of Poitiers: "Keep uncontaminated this upright faith that is in me and, until my last breath, grant me likewise this voice of my conscience, that I may be ever faithful to what I professed in my regeneration when I was baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (De Trinitate, XII, 57, CCL 62/A, 627). Invoking the Blessed Virgin Mary, the first creature to be fully inhabited by the Blessed Trinity, let us ask her protection and help to make good progress on our earthly pilgrimage.

[Pope Benedict, Angelus, 30 May 2010]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

1. On her pilgrimage to full communion of love with God, the Church appears as "a people made one with the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit". St Cyprian's marvellous definition (De Orat. Dom. 23; cf. Lumen gentium, n. 4) takes us into the mystery of the Church, which has been made a community of salvation by the presence of God the Trinity. Like the ancient People of God, she is guided on her new Exodus by the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, symbols of God's constant presence. In this perspective, let us contemplate the glory of the Trinity which makes the Church one, holy, catholic and apostolic. 

2. First of all the Chuch is one. The baptized, in fact, are mysteriously united to Christ and form his Mystical Body by the power of the Holy Spirit. As the Second Vatican Council says:  "The highest exemplar and source of this mystery is the unity, in the Trinity of Persons, of one God, the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit" (Unitatis redintegratio, n. 2). Although in the past this unity has suffered the painful trial of many divisions, the Church's inexhaustible Trinitarian source spurs her to live ever more deeply that koinonia, or communion, which was resplendent in the first community of Jerusalem (Acts 2: 42; 4: 32).

Ecumenical dialogue draws light from this perspective, since all Christians are aware of the Trinitarian foundations of communion:  we stress "the God-givenness of the koinonia and its Trinitarian character. The point of departure is the baptismal initiation into the Trinitarian koinonia by faith, through Christ in his Spirit. The Spirit-given means to sustain this koinonia are the Word, ministry, sacraments, charisms" (Perspectives on Koinonia, Report from the third quinquennium, 1985-89, of the Catholic-Pentecostal dialogue, n. 31). In this regard the Council reminds all the faithful that "the closer their union with the Father, the Word and the Spirit, the more deeply and easily will they be able to grow in mutual brotherly love" (Unitatis redintegratio, n. 7). 

3. The Church is also holy. In biblical language, even before being an expression of the moral and existential holiness of the faithful, the concept of "holy" refers to the consecration wrought by God through the election and the grace offered to his people. It is the divine presence, then, which "sanctifies" the community of believers "in the truth" (Jn 17: 17, 19). 

The loftiest sign of this presence is constituted by the liturgy, which is the epiphany of the consecration of God's People. In it there is the Eucharistic presence of the Body and Blood of the Lord, but also "our "Eucharist', that is to say, our giving God thanks, our praise of him for having redeemed us by his death and made us sharers in immortal life through his Resurrection. This worship, given therefore to the Trinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, above all accompanies and permeates the celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy. But it must fill our churches also" and the life of the Church (Dominicae Cenae, n. 3). And precisely, "if we continue to love one another and to join in praising the Most Holy Trinity ... we will be faithful to the deepest vocation of the Church and will share in a foretaste of the liturgy of perfect glory" (Lumen gentium, n. 51). 

4. The Church is catholic, sent to proclaim Christ to the whole world in the hope that all leaders of the peoples will gather with the people of the God of Abraham (cf. Ps 47: 9; Mt 28: 19). As the Second Vatican Council says:  "The Church on earth is by her very nature missionary since, according to the plan of the Father, she has her origin in the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

This plan flows from "fountain-like love', the love of God the Father. As the principle without principle from whom the Son is generated and from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son, God in his great and merciful kindness freely creates us and graciously calls us to share in his life and glory. He generously pours out, and never ceases to pour out, his divine goodness, so that he who is Creator of all things might at last become "all in all' (1 Cor 15: 28), thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our happiness" (Ad gentes, n. 2).

5. Lastly, the Church is apostolic. In accordance with Christ's command, his Apostles must go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that he has commanded them (cf. Mt 28: 19-20). This mission is extended to the whole Church, which through the Word is made living, luminous and effective by the Holy Spirit and the sacraments, and thus "fulfils God's plan, to which Christ lovingly and obediently submitted for the glory of the Father who sent him in order that the whole human race might become one People of God, form one Body of Christ, and be built up into one Temple of the Holy Spirit" (Ad gentes, n. 7). 

The one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church is the People of God, the Body of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Spirit. These three biblical images point to the Trinitarian dimension of the Church. In this dimension are found all disciples of Christ, who are called to live it ever more deeply and in an ever more intense communion. Ecumenism itself finds its solid foundation in this reference to the Trinity, because the Spirit "binds the faithful to Christ, the mediator of all salvific gifts, and who through him gives them access to the Father, whom they may invoke as "Abba, Father', in the same Spirit" (Lutheran-Roman Catholic Joint Commission, Church and Justification, n. 64). In the Church, then, we find a magnificent epiphany of Trinitarian glory. Let us therefore accept the invitation which St Ambrose extends to us:  "Rise, you who were lying fast asleep.... Rise and hurry to the Church:  here is the Father, here is the Son, here is the Holy Spirit" (In Lucam, VII).

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience, 14 June 2000]

Today, the Feast of the Holy Trinity, the Gospel of St John gives us part of the long farewell discourse pronounced by Jesus shortly before his Passion. In this discourse, he explains to the disciples the deepest truths about himself, and thus he outlines the relationship between Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit. Jesus knows that the fulfillment of the Father’s plan is approaching and will be completed with his death and resurrection. Because of this he wants to assure his followers that he won’t abandon them, because his mission will be prolonged by the Holy Spirit. It will be the Holy Spirit who continues the mission of Jesus, that is, guide the Church forward.

Jesus reveals what this mission is. In the first place, the Spirit guides us to understand the many things that Jesus himself still had to say (cf. Jn 16:12). This doesn’t refer to new or special doctrines, but to a full understanding of all that the Son has heard from the Father and has made known to the disciples (cf. v. 15). The Spirit guides us in new existential situations with a gaze fixed on Jesus and at the same time, open to events and to the future. He helps us to walk in history, firmly rooted in the Gospel and with dynamic fidelity to our traditions and customs.

But the mystery of the Trinity also speaks to us of ourselves, of our relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In fact, through baptism, the Holy Spirit has placed us in the heart and the very life of God, who is a communion of love. God is a “family” of three Persons who love each other so much as to form a single whole. This “divine family” is not closed in on itself, but is open. It communicates itself in creation and in history and has entered into the world of men to call everyone to form part of it. The trinitarian horizon of communion surrounds all of us and stimulates us to live in love and fraternal sharing, certain that where there is love, there is God.

Our being created in the image and likeness of God-Communion calls us to understand ourselves as beings-in-relationship and to live interpersonal relations in solidarity and mutual love.

Such relationships play out, above all, in the sphere of our ecclesial communities, so that the image of the Church as icon of the Trinity is ever clearer. But also in every social relationship, from the family to friendships, to the work environment: they are all concrete occasions offered to us in order to build relationships that are increasingly humanly rich, capable of reciprocal respect and disinterested love.

The Feast of the Most Holy Trinity invites us to commit ourselves in daily events to being leaven of communion, consolation and mercy. In this mission, we are sustained by the strength that the Holy Spirit gives us: he takes care of the flesh of humanity, wounded by injustice, oppression, hate and avarice.

The Virgin Mary, in her humility, welcomed the Father’s will and conceived the Son by the Holy Spirit. May she, Mirror of the Trinity, help us to strengthen our faith in the trinitarian mystery and to translate it in to action with choices and attitudes of love and unity.

[Pope Francis, Angelus, 22 May 2016]

Clear and clean

(Mt 5:33-37)

«Yes when it is yes, No when it is no». There is no need to give strength to trust.

Every oath - even sacred ones - is a loophole that does not heal an already dull reality.

The theatre of bombastic formulas only admits the conviction that the Other cannot be fully trusted.

Total transparency in relationships does not need stools to support it. 

It is ludicrous to try to foster reciprocity by inventing the aid of the oath, which reinforces a person's word with something greater than him [capable of punishing in the event of non-compliance; then, be it as it may].

Good relationships, the ideal of justice, credit, and our whole life, come to perfection in a clear way.

There is no need to go round and round, to become artificial, to lean on other cautions that then renege on their words, even if they are well and perfectly staged.

Let us come to the theological point: what counts for the Father is the Person, not his symbolic expressions or his 'merits' - fake props to the you-for-you, to be set up in the window to hijack it.

Face to face is worth the whole lot: far more than what sounds by ear, far more than the accounting of what woman and man have fulfilled.

Our strong loyalty before God is not there; indeed, we need it. It is useless to hide the dust under a carpet of high-sounding mottos and claptrap.

Even the pile of “perfectly” absolved works of law provides no support.

In fact, the scaffolding may seem lofty and phenomenal, but it is an epidermal thing (often unfortunately insincere: castles of paper and papier-mâché) with double goal.

The Father is impressed by his creaturely masterpiece, by the frank heart of woman and man; not by the smoke in the eyes of impersonal hype set up for the purpose.

Nor does He allow himself to be blandened by platitudes of ritual expressions, acronyms, catchphrases; or even by our “heroic” fulfilments that risk undermining the character and Calling by Name.

There is nothing higher than our 'face'; the rest is cunning and lies.  Very dangerous means.

The Puritan laymen used to say: «The greater the forms, the lesser the truth». Not: give to believe.

Actions, behaviour, crisp words. This is what it's worth. 

In short, we must not 'improve' to external models and facsimiles - nor set up more events - except with his ‘Gratuity’, far more reliable, permanent, effective, than our [homologating and sometimes vanity] observances.

The power we have in our dowry cannot even affect the natural colour of a hair; this is the reality - behind the grand scenes we put in place to avoid admitting that... something is wrong.

Integrity that counts is quiet, transparent, spontaneous, forthright: it cannot be our stuff. Useless to make and remake 'oaths' to deceive even God.

To internalise and live the message:

Did you find yourself a merchant at the last fair? Have you ever expressed yourself as a forger?

[Saturday, 10th wk. in O.T. 14 June 2025]

Clear and distinct

(Mt 5:33-37)

«Yes, when it is yes; No, when it is no». There is no need to reinforce trust.

Every oath – even a sacred one – is a loophole that does not heal an already dead reality.

The theatre of bombastic formulas only admits the conviction that the Other cannot be fully trusted.

Total transparency in relationships does not need a stool to support it. 

It is ridiculous to try to encourage reciprocity by inventing the crutch of oaths, which reinforce a person's word with something greater than themselves [capable of punishing them in the event of non-compliance; come what may].

Good relationships, the ideal of justice, credit, and our whole life come to perfection in a clear way.

There is no need to beat about the bush, to become artificial, to rely on other precautions that then go back on their word, even if they are well prepared and perfectly staged.

Let us come to the theological point: what matters to the Father is the Person, not his symbolic expressions or his 'merits' - false props in a face-to-face encounter, to be displayed in the window to divert attention.

The face-to-face encounter is worth the whole game: much more than what sounds good to the ear, far beyond the accounting of what women and men have accomplished.

Our strong loyalty before God is not there; indeed, we need it. It is useless to hide the dust under a carpet of slogans and high-sounding rhetoric.

Even the pile of 'perfectly' fulfilled legal works provides no support.

In fact, the scaffolding may seem lofty and phenomenal, but it is superficial (often unfortunately insincere: castles made of paper and papier-mâché) and serves a dual purpose.

The Father is impressed by his creative masterpiece, by the sincere heart of women and men, not by the smoke and mirrors of impersonal structures set up for the occasion.

Nor is he flattered by ritual expressions, acronyms, clichés, or even heroic deeds that risk damaging the core of one's personality and Calling by Name.

There is nothing higher than our 'face'; the rest is cunning and lies. These are dangerous shortcuts.

The puritanical laymen used to say, 'The greater the form, the less the truth'. Not: give credence.

Clear actions, behaviours, words. This is what counts. 

In short, we must not 'improve' ourselves according to external models and facsimiles - nor organise more events - except with His Free Gift, which is far more reliable, permanent and effective than our [conformist and sometimes vain] observances.

The power we have cannot even affect the natural colour of a hair; this is the reality behind the grand stage we set up to avoid admitting that... something is wrong.

The integrity that matters is calm, transparent, spontaneous, and sincere: it cannot be ours. It is useless to make and remake 'vows' to deceive even God.

To internalise and live the message:

Have you ever found yourself a merchant at the last fair? Have you ever expressed yourself like a forger?

The vain water of the sacred that holds back, and the true Source

(Jn 5:1-3, 5-16)

'But he did many things with him, first of all taking him aside from the crowd. On this occasion, as on others, Jesus always acts with discretion. He does not want to impress people; He is not seeking popularity or success, but only desires to do good to people. With this attitude, He teaches us that good must be done without fanfare, without ostentation, without 'blowing the trumpet'. It must be done in silence.

[…] Healing was for him an 'opening' to others and to the world.

This Gospel story emphasises the need for a twofold healing. First of all, healing from illness and physical suffering, to restore the health of the body, even if this goal is not completely achievable in the earthly horizon, despite the many efforts of science and medicine. But there is a second healing, perhaps more difficult, and that is healing from fear. Healing from the fear that drives us to marginalise the sick, the suffering, and the disabled. And there are many ways to marginalise, even with pseudo-pity or by removing the problem; we remain deaf and mute in the face of the pain of people marked by illness, anguish, and difficulties. Too often, the sick and suffering become a problem, when they should be an opportunity to show a society's concern and solidarity towards the weakest members of society.

[Pope Francis, Angelus, 9 September 2018]

Jesus prefers to break the law than to align himself with the ruthless world and the inviolable society that marginalises the unfortunate.

In the religion of competitive trophies, real abandonment and false or trivial hopes, someone wins the lottery and is healed, but everyone else does not. Only the quickest are healed, not the most needy.In any case, the vast majority remain watching, paralysed by loneliness - on the other hand, those affected ask for life, refreshment; the bubbling song of a truly sacred story.

At that time, in 'holy' places, the cult of sacrifice required a lot of water [to wash the animals before slaughtering and butchering them], especially during major festivals.

Large cisterns collected rainwater, and public baths (to the north) crowded the sick waiting for help or healing from the very isolation to which they were condemned - according to purity rules.

The pools outside were used to wash the lambs before their sacrifice at the Temple, and this method of use gave the water itself an aura of healing holiness.

Many sick people flocked to bathe in the 'motion of the water' (v.3).

It was said that an angel stirred the waters of the public baths [perhaps due to an intermittent spring] and that the first person to enter at the moment when they became restless would be healed.

A symbol of a religion that offers false hope to the infirm, which nevertheless appeals to the imagination of the excluded masses, oppressed by calamities - who do not know the man-God of their destiny.

'But the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, being in a crowd of people' (v. 13).

The Face of the Son is unrecognisable in the crowd, despite the plethora of impeccable guides and devotees - who only distract and are content with the habitual forms of the organisation, which are exaggeratedly solemn.

Abundant conduct purified the Temple and neglected the people.

An icon of a rich and miserable religiosity: vain, useless, harmful; abandoning to themselves those whom it is called to support.

The scribes taught the law to students in the sacred enclosure and the rabbis received their clients under Solomon's portico, on the Temple esplanade, towards the east.

Above, the Torah and its commerce; below and outside, nearby, the betrayal of the poor.

Water flowed in the Temple, but it did not cleanse anyone - on the contrary, it made the situation worse.

This had been going on for an entire era - a 'generation' (v. 5). This symbolises the 38 years (Deut. 2:14) that lacked a welcoming mentality.

The official religious institution kept the crowd at a safe distance, revealing only a ridiculous and brutal caricature of the friendly, hospitable and compassionate Face of the Father.

The crowd of needy people who received the miraculous water only by chance and surprise is a parable of humanity in need, dramatically deprived of everything, even authentic spiritual comfort.

Jesus, on the other hand, approaches the needy on his own initiative (vv. 6, 14) and involves himself - at the risk of his life - with those who are most alone, awkward and clumsy.

He is in us: welcoming faces and the active presence of the Father, instinctively drawn not to people who matter, but to the neglected, the sick—those who are unable even to receive miracles.

We are sent not to the deserving and self-sufficient, but precisely to those who are unable to use their own means to come forward.

Those who are faltering - and there is no need for an imprimatur on this: such a rule is divine law.

No joy on the part of the authorities... only inquiries.

It does not matter: no reverential fear. God is not eager to be obeyed; rather, he wants to fulfil us.

Christ himself does not work to be recognised and acclaimed ['he had withdrawn']. Nor does he care for us solely to bring about religious conversion.

He heals because he perceives the need, not so that the sick may believe in God.

The Tao Te Ching [x] says: 'Let creatures live and nourish them, let them live and do not keep them as your own'. 'Talking a lot and scrutinising rationally is worth less than keeping oneself empty' (v).

Let people be free to go through their seasons, not stereotypes.

Let us simply help to open doors that are more genuine and commensurate with the personal journey, even if unexpected or uncontrolled.

We are called upon and sent to accompany each person into the unheard of, the entirely original - guiding them not towards a pre-established sacredness, but towards the plasticity of healthy awareness.

[...] Talking about God means first of all expressing clearly what God we must bring to the men and women of our time: not an abstract God, a hypothesis, but a real God, a God who exists, who has entered history and is present in history; the God of Jesus Christ as an answer to the fundamental question of the meaning of life and of how we should live. Consequently speaking of God demands familiarity with Jesus and his Gospel, it implies that we have a real, personal knowledge of God and a strong passion for his plan of salvation without succumbing to the temptation of success, but following God’s own method. God’s method is that of humility — God makes himself one of us — his method is brought about through the Incarnation in the simple house of Nazareth; through the Grotto of Bethlehem; through the Parable of the Mustard Seed.

We must not fear the humility of taking little steps, but trust in the leaven that penetrates the dough and slowly causes it to rise (cf. Mt 13:33). In talking about God, in the work of evangelization, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we must recover simplicity, we must return to the essence of the proclamation: the Good News of a God who is real and effective, a God who is concerned about us, a God-Love who makes himself close to us in Jesus Christ, until the Cross, and who in the Resurrection gives us hope and opens us to a life that has no end, eternal life, true life [...]

So it is that talking about God means making people realize through our speech and example, that God is no rival in our existence but rather is its true guarantor, who guarantees the greatness of the human person. Thus we return to the beginning: speaking of God is communicating what is essential, forcefully and simply, through our words and through our life: the God of Jesus Christ, that God who showed us a love so great that he took flesh, died and rose again for us: that God who asks us to follow him and to let ourselves be transformed by his immense love in order to renew our life and our relationships; that God who has given us the Church, so that we may walk together and, through the word and the sacraments, renew the entire city of men and women, so that it may become a City of God.

[Pope Benedict, General Audience 28 November 2012]

1. In the Gospels we find another fact that attests to Jesus' consciousness of possessing divine authority, and the persuasion that the evangelists and the early Christian community had of this authority. In fact, the Synoptics agree that Jesus' listeners "were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes" (Mk 1:22; Mt 7:29; Lk 4:32). This is valuable information that Mark gives us from the very beginning of his Gospel. It attests to the fact that the people had immediately grasped the difference between Christ's teaching and that of the Israelite scribes, and not only in the manner, but in the very substance: the scribes based their teaching on the text of the Mosaic Law, of which they were the interpreters and commentators; Jesus did not at all follow the method of a "teacher" or a "commentator" of the ancient Law, but behaved like a legislator and, ultimately, like one who had authority over the Law. Note: the listeners were well aware that this was the divine Law, given by Moses by virtue of a power that God himself had granted him as his representative and mediator with the people of Israel.

The evangelists and the first Christian community who reflected on that observation of the listeners about Jesus' teaching, realised even better its full significance, because they could compare it with the whole of Christ's subsequent ministry. For the Synoptics and their readers, it was therefore logical to move from the affirmation of a power over the Mosaic Law and the entire Old Testament to that of the presence of a divine authority in Christ. And not just as in an Envoy or Legate of God as had been the case with Moses: Christ, by attributing to himself the power to authoritatively complete and interpret, or even give in a new way, the Law of God, showed his consciousness of being "equal to God" (cf. Phil 2:6).

2. That Christ's power over the Law entails divine authority is shown by the fact that he does not create another Law by abolishing the old one: "Think not that I am come to abolish the law or the prophets; I am not come to abolish but to fulfil" (Mt 5:17). It is clear that God could not 'abolish' the Law that he himself gave. It can instead - as Jesus Christ does - clarify its full meaning, make its proper sense understood, correct the false interpretations and arbitrary applications, to which the people and their own teachers and leaders, yielding to the weaknesses and limitations of the human condition, have bent it.

This is why Jesus announces, proclaims and demands a "righteousness" that is superior to that of the scribes and Pharisees (cf. Mt 5:20), the "righteousness" that God Himself has proposed and demands with the faithful observance of the Law in order to the "kingdom of heaven". The Son of Man thus acts as a God who re-establishes what God willed and placed once and for all.

3. In fact, of the Law of God he first proclaims: "Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, not one iota or one sign of the law shall pass away, and all things shall be fulfilled" (Mt 5:18). It is a drastic declaration, with which Jesus wants to affirm both the substantial immutability of the Mosaic Law and the messianic fulfilment it receives in his word. This is a "fullness" of the Old Law, which he, teaching "as one having authority" over the Law, shows to be manifested above all in love of God and neighbour. "On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Mt 22:40). It is a matter of a "fulfilment" corresponding to the "spirit" of the Law, which already transpires from the "letter" of the Old Testament, which Jesus grasps, synthesises, and proposes with the authority of one who is Lord also of the Law. The precepts of love, and also of hope-generating faith in the messianic work, which he adds to the ancient Law by explicating its content and developing its hidden virtues, are also a fulfilment.

His life is a model of this fulfilment, so that Jesus can say to his disciples not only and not so much: Follow my Law, but: Follow me, imitate me, walk in the light that comes from me.

4. The Sermon on the Mount, as it is reported by Matthew, is the place in the New Testament where one sees clearly affirmed and decisively exercised by Jesus the power over the Law that Israel has received from God as the hinge of the covenant. It is there that, after having declared the perennial value of the Law and the duty to observe it (Mt 5:18-19), Jesus goes on to affirm the need for a "justice" superior to "that of the scribes and Pharisees", that is, an observance of the Law animated by the new evangelical spirit of charity and sincerity.

The concrete examples are well known. The first consists in the victory over wrath, resentment, and malice that easily lurk in the human heart, even when an outward observance of the Mosaic precepts can be exhibited, including the precept not to kill: "You have heard that it was said to the ancients, 'You shall not kill; whoever kills shall be brought into judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be brought into judgment" (Matt 5:21-22). The same thing applies to those who offend another with insulting words, with jokes and mockery. It is the condemnation of every yielding to the instinct of aversion, which potentially is already an act of injury and even of killing, at least spiritually, because it violates the economy of love in human relationships and harms others, and to this condemnation Jesus intends to counterpose the Law of charity that purifies and reorders man down to the innermost feelings and movements of his spirit. Of fidelity to this Law Jesus makes an indispensable condition of the same religious practice: "If therefore you present your offering at the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go first to be reconciled with your brother and then return to offer your gift" (Mt 5:23-24). Since it is a law of love, it is even irrelevant who it is that has something against the other in his heart: the love preached by Jesus equals and unifies all in wanting good, in establishing or restoring harmony in relations with one's neighbour, even in cases of disputes and legal proceedings (cf. Mt 5:25).

5. Another example of perfecting the Law is that of the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, in which Moses forbade adultery. With hyperbolic and even paradoxical language, designed to draw attention and shake the mood of his listeners, Jesus announces. "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery, but I say to you . . ." (Mt 5:27); and he also condemns impure looks and desires, while recommending the flight from opportunities, the courage of mortification, the subordination of all acts and behaviour to the demands of the salvation of the soul and of the whole man (cf. Mt 5:29-30).

This case is related in a certain way to another one that Jesus immediately addresses: "It was also said: Whoever repudiates his wife, let him give her the act of repudiation; but I say to you . . ." and declares forfeited the concession made by the ancient Law to the people of Israel "because of hardness of heart" (cf. Mt 19:8), prohibiting also this form of violation of the law of love in harmony with the re-establishment of the indissolubility of marriage (cf. Mt 19:9).

6. By the same token, Jesus contrasts the ancient prohibition against perjury with the prohibition not to swear at all (Mt 5:33-38), and the reason that emerges quite clearly is still founded in love: one must not be unbelieving or distrustful of one's neighbour when he is habitually frank and loyal, and rather one must on the one hand and on the other follow this fundamental law of speech and action: "Let your language be yes, if it is yes; no, if it is no. The more is from the evil one" (Mt 5:37).

[John Paul II, General Audience 14 October 1987]