News January 2024

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Today we will pause to reflect on the vice of wrath. Now we are talking about vices and virtues: today it is time to reflect on the vice of wrath. It is a particularly dark vice, and it is perhaps the easiest to detect from a physical point of view. The person dominated by wrath finds it difficult to hide this impulse: you can recognize it from the movements of his body, his aggressiveness, his laboured breathing, his grim and frowning expression.

In its most acute manifestation, wrath is a vice that concedes no respite. If it is born of an injustice suffered (or believed to be suffered), often it is unleashed not against the offender, but against the first unfortunate victim. There are men who withhold their rage in the workplace, showing themselves to be calm and composed, but at home they become unbearable for the wife and children. Wrath is a pervasive vice: it is capable of depriving us of sleep, of barring the way to reason and thought.

Wrath is a vice that destroys human relationships. It expresses the incapacity to accept the diversity of others, especially when their life choices diverge from our own. It does not stop at the misconduct of one person, but throws everything into the cauldron: it is the other person, the other as he or she is, the other as such, who provokes anger and resentment. One begins to detest the tone of their voice, their trivial everyday gestures, their ways of reasoning and feeling.

When the relationship arrives at this level of degeneration, lucidity is lost. Wrath makes us lose lucidity, doesn’t it? Because one of the characteristics of wrath, at times, is that sometimes it fails to mitigate with time. In these cases, even distance and silence, instead of easing the burden of mistakes, magnifies them. For this reason, the Apostle Paul – as we have heard – recommends to Christians to face up to the problem straight away, and to attempt reconciliation: “Do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Eph 4:26). It is important that everything dissipate immediately, before sundown. If some misunderstanding arises during the day, and two people can no longer understand each other, perceiving themselves as far apart, the night cannot be handed over to the devil. The vice would keep us awake at night, brooding over our reasons and the unaccountable mistakes that are never ours and always the other’s. It is like that: when a person is enraged, they always, always say that the other person is the problem. They are never capable of recognizing their own defects, their own shortcomings.

In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus makes us pray for our human relations, which are a minefield: a plane that is never in perfect equilibrium. In life, we have to deal with trespassers who are in fault with us, just as we have never loved everyone in the right measure. To some we have not returned the love that was due to them. We are all sinners, all of us, and we all have accounts to settle: do not forget this. We are indebted, we all have accounts to settle, and therefore we all need to learn how to forgive so as to be forgiven. Men do not stay together if they do not also practice the art of forgiveness, as far as this is humanly possible. Wrath is countered by benevolence, openness of heart, meekness and patience.

But, on the subject of wrath, there is one last thing to be said. It is a terrible vice, it was said, that is at the origin of wars and violence. The Proem of the Iliad describes the wrath of Achilles, which will be the cause of “infinite woes”. But not everything that stems from wrath is mistaken. The ancients understood well that there exists an irascible part of us that cannot and must not be denied. The passions are to some extent unconscious: they happen, they are life experiences. We are not responsible for the onset of wrath, but always for its development. And at times it is good for anger to be vented in the right way. If a person were never to anger, if a person did not become indignant at an injustice, if he did not feel something quivering in his gut at the oppression of the weak, it would mean that the person was not human, must less a Christian.

Holy indignation exists, which is not wrath but an inner movement, a holy indignation. Jesus knew it several times in His life (cf. Mk 3.5): He never responded to evil with evil, but in His soul, He felt this sentiment, and in the case of the merchants in the Temple, He performed a strong and prophetic action, dictated not by wrath, but by zeal for the house of the Lord (cf. Mt 21:12-13). We must distinguish well: zeal, holy indignation, is one thing; wrath, which is bad, is another.

It is up to us, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to find the right measure for the passions. To educate them well so that they turn to good and not to evil. Thank you.

31.01.24

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Today's Gospel shows us Jesus freeing a person possessed by an "evil spirit" (see Mk 1:21-28), tormenting and making them scream (see. vv. 23, 26). This is how the devil acts this is the way he acts: he wants to take possession of us in order to "enchain our souls." To enchain our souls: this is what the devil wants. We must be careful with the "chains" that suffocate our freedom, because the devil always takes away our freedom. Let us try to name some of the chains that can shackle our hearts.

I am thinking of addictions, which enslave us and make us constantly dissatisfied, and which devour our energies, goods, and relationships. Another chain I am thinking of is dominant trends that encourage the pursuit of impossible perfectionisms, consumerism, and hedonism, which commodify people and spoil relationships. And yet more chains: there are temptations and conditionings that undermine self-esteem, that undermine peacefulness, and the ability to choose and love life. Another chain is fear, which makes us look to the future with pessimism, and dissatisfaction, which always blames others. Then there is a very ugly chain, which is the idolatry of power, which generates conflicts and resorts to weapons that kill or uses economic injustice and thought manipulation.

Many are our chains, there truly are many in our lives.

And Jesus came to free us from all these chains. Today, facing the devil who challenges him by shouting, "What have you to do with us? Have you come to destroy us?" (v. 24), Jesus answers, "Quiet! Come out of him!" (v. 25). Jesus has the power to drive out the devil. Jesus frees us from the power of evil but – let us be careful – he drives out the devil but he never negotiates with him! Jesus never negotiated with the devil and when he was tempted in the desert, Jesus’ responses were always words from the Bible, never a dialogue. Brothers and sisters: with the devil there must be no dialogue! Be careful: with the devil there can be no dialogue, because if you start speaking to him, he will always win. Be careful.

So, what should we do when we feel tempted and oppressed? Negotiate with the devil? No: there must be no negotiating with him.

We must invoke Jesus: let us call on Him from those places where we feel that the chains of evil and fear are tightest.

Once more, by the power of His Spirit, the Lord wants to say to the evil one today: "Be gone, leave that heart in peace, do not divide the world, do not divide our families and communities; let them live serenely so that the fruits of my Spirit may flourish there, not yours- this is what Jesus says. Let love, joy, meekness reign among them, and instead of violence and shouts of hatred, let there be freedom and peace.

Let us ask ourselves: Do I really want to be freed from those chains that shackle my heart? And also, am I capable of saying "no" to the temptations of evil before they creep into my soul? Finally, do I invoke Jesus, allowing Him to act in me, to heal me from within?

May the Holy Virgin guard us from evil.

28.01.24

In the Gospel we have just heard, a lawyer calls Jesus “Teacher”. He does not want to learn anything from Jesus, but rather “to test him”. Even greater insincerity is evident in the question he asks: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Lk 10:25). To do in order to inherit, to do in order to possess: these are the signs of a distorted religiosity based on getting rather than giving, in which God becomes a means to obtaining what I want, rather than an end to be loved with all our heart. Yet Jesus is patient; he asks the lawyer to find the answer in the Law itself, which commands: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself” (Lk 10:27).

Then that man, seeking to justify himself, asks a second question: “And who is my neighbour?” (Lk 10:29). If the first question risked reducing God to our own needs, this question attempts to divide: to separate people into those we should love and those we should shun. This kind of division is never from God; it is from the devil, who divides. Jesus does not answer in the abstract, but tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, a pointed story that challenges us as well. Because, dear brothers and sisters, the people who failed to do good, who proved callous, were the priest and the Levite, who were more concerned with respecting their religious traditions than with coming to the aid of a suffering person. The one who demonstrates what it means to be a “neighbour” is instead a heretic, a Samaritan. He draws near, he feels compassion, he bends down and gently tends the wounds of that brother. He is concerned for him, regardless of his past and his failings, and he puts himself wholly at his service (cf. Lk 10:33-35). Jesus can thus conclude that the right question is not: “Who is my neighbour?” but “Do I act like a neighbour?” Only a love that becomes gratuitous service, only the love that Jesus taught and embodied, will bring separated Christians closer to one another. Only that love, which does not appeal to the past in order to remain aloof or to point a finger, only that love which in God’s name puts our brothers and sisters before the ironclad defense of our own religious structures, only that love will unite us. First our brothers and sisters, then the structures.

Brothers and sisters, among ourselves, we should never have to ask: “Who is my neighbour?” For each baptized person is a member of the one Body of Christ; what is more, everyone in this world is my brother or my sister, and all together we compose that “symphony of humanity” of which Christ is the Firstborn and Redeemer. As Saint Irenaeus, whom I had the joy of proclaiming the “Doctor of Unity”, observed: “One who seeks the truth should not concentrate on the differences between one note and another, thinking as if each was created separately and apart from the others; instead, he should realize that one and the same person composed the entire melody” (Adv. Haer., II, 25, 2). In other words, not “Who is my neighbour?” but “Do I act like a neighbour?  Do I, and then my community, my Church, my spirituality, act like a neighbour? Or are they barricaded in defense of their own interests, jealous of their autonomy, caught up in calculating what is in their own interest, building relationships with others only in order to gain something for themselves? If that were the case, it would not only be a matter of mistaken strategies, but of infidelity to the Gospel.

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” That is how the dialogue between the lawyer and Jesus began. Today, however, that initial question is reversed, thanks to the Apostle Paul, whose conversion we celebrate in this Basilica dedicated to him. When Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor of Christians, encountered Jesus in the burst of light that enveloped him and changed his life, he immediately asks: “What am I to do, Lord?” (Acts 22:10). Not “What must I do to inherit?” but “What am I to do, Lord?” The Lord is the object of the question; he is the real “inheritance”, the supreme good. Paul’s life is not changed because he changes his goals in order better to achieve his aims. His conversion was the result of an existential reversal, in which his devotion to the Law gave way to docility to God and total openness to his will. It was not his devotion, but his docility: from devotion to docility. If God is our treasure, our ecclesial plan of action must surely consist in doing his will, in fulfilling his desires. On the night before he offered his life for us, he prayed fervently to the Father for all of us: “that they may be one” (Jn 17:21). That, we see, is his will.

All efforts to attain full unity are called to follow the same route as Paul, decentralizing our own ideas in order to hear the Lord’s voice and give him the space to take the initiative. This was clearly understood by yet another Paul, that great pioneer of the ecumenical movement, Abbé Paul Couturier, who was accustomed to pray for the unity of Christians “as Christ wills it and in accordance with the means he wills”. We need this reversal of perspective and above all this conversion of heart, for, as the Second Vatican Council stated sixty years ago: “There can be no ecumenism worthy of the name without interior conversion” (Unitatis Redintegratio,, 7). As we pray together, may we acknowledge, each of us starting with himself or herself, our need for conversion, for letting the Lord change our hearts. This is the path before us: journeying together and serving together, giving priority of place to prayer. For when Christians grow in the service of God and neighbour, they also grow in reciprocal understanding. As the Council went on to say: “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 love” (ibid.).

That is why we are here tonight, coming as we do from different countries, cultures and traditions. I am grateful to His Grace Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to Metropolitan Polycarp, who represents the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and to all of you, who make present many Christian communities. I offer a special greeting to the members of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, as they celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the dialogue, and to the Catholic and Anglican bishops taking part in the meeting of the International Commission for Unity and Mission. It is nice that today, with my brother, Archbishop Justin, we can confer on these joint groups of bishops the mandate of continuing to testify to the unity willed by God for his Church in their respective regions, as they move forward together “to extend the mercy and peace of God to a world in need” (Appeal from the IARCCUM Bishops, Rome, 2016). I also greet the scholarship holders of the Committee for Cultural Collaboration with the Orthodox Churches at the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, and the participants in the study visits organized for young priests and monks of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, and those organized for the students of the Bossey Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches.

Together, as brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray with Paul and say: “What are we to do, Lord?” In asking that question, we already have an answer, because the first answer is prayer. Prayer for unity is the primary responsibility in our journey together. And it is a sacred responsibility, because it means being in communion with the Lord, who prayed above all to the Father for unity. Let us also continue to pray for an end to wars, especially in Ukraine and in the Holy Land. Our hearts also reach out to the beloved people of Burkina Faso, and in particular to the communities that prepared the materials for this Week of Prayer for Unity: May love of neighbour replace the violence that assails their country.

“What am I to do, Lord?” The Lord, Paul tells us, said: “Get up and go” (Acts 22:10). Get up, Jesus says to each of us and to our efforts on behalf of unity. So let us get up in the name of Christ from our tired routine and set out anew, for he wills it, and he wills it “so that the world may believe” (Jn 17:21). Let us pray, then, and let us keep moving forward, for that is what God desires of us. This is what he wants from us.

25.01.24

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The development of systems of artificial intelligence, to which I devoted my recent Message for the World Day of Peace, is radically affecting the world of information and communication, and through it, certain foundations of life in society. These changes affect everyone, not merely professionals in those fields. The rapid spread of astonishing innovations, whose workings and potential are beyond the ability of most of us to understand and appreciate, has proven both exciting and disorienting. This leads inevitably to deeper questions about the nature of human beings, our distinctiveness and the future of the species homo sapiens in the age of artificial intelligence. How can we remain fully human and guide this cultural transformation to serve a good purpose?

24.01.24 c

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We are continuing our catechesis on vices and virtues, and today we will talk about avarice, that form of attachment to money that keeps man from generosity.

It is not a sin that regards only people with large assets, but rather a transversal vice, which often has nothing to do with the bank balance. It is a sickness of the heart, not of the wallet.

The desert fathers’ analysis of this evil showed how avarice could even take hold of monks, who, after renouncing enormous inheritances, in the solitude of their cell clung to objects of little value: they would not lend them, they did not share them and were even less willing to give them away. An attachment to little things, which takes away freedom. Those objects became for them a sort of fetish from which they could not detach themselves. A sort of regression to the state of children who clutch their toy repeating, “It’s mine! It’s mine!”. In this claim there lurks a disordered relationship with reality, which can result in forms of compulsive hoarding and pathological accumulation.

To heal from this sickness, the monks proposed a drastic, though highly effective method: meditation on death. However much a person accumulates goods in this world, of one thing we can be absolutely sure: they will not enter the coffin with us. We cannot take property with us! Here the senselessness of this vice is revealed. The bond of possession we create with objects is only apparent, because we are not the masters of the world: this earth that we love is in truth not ours, and we move about it like strangers and pilgrims (cf. Lev 25:23).

These simple considerations allow us to realize the folly of avarice, but also its innermost reason. It is an attempt to exorcise the fear of death: it seeks securities that in reality crumble the very moment we hold them in our hand. Remember the parable of the foolish man, whose land had offered him a very abundant harvest, and so he lulled himself with thoughts of how to enlarge his storehouse to accommodate all the harvest. The man had calculated everything, planned for the future. He had not, however, considered the surest variable in life: death. “Fool!” says the Gospel. “This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”

In other cases, it is thieves who render this service to us. Even in the Gospel they make a good number of appearances and, although their work may be reprehensible, it can become a salutary admonition. Thus preaches Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Mt 6: 19-20). Again, in the accounts of the desert fathers, the story is told of a thief who surprises the monk in his sleep and steals the few possessions he kept in his cell. When he wakes up, not at all disturbed by what has happened, the monk sets out on the thief's trail and, once he finds him, instead of claiming the stolen goods, he hands over the few things that remain, saying: “You forgot to take these!”.

We, brothers and sisters, may be the masters of the goods we possess, but often the opposite happens: they eventually take possession of us. Some rich men are no longer free, they no longer even have the time to rest, they have to look over their shoulder because the accumulation of goods also demands their safekeeping. They are always anxious, because a patrimony is built with a great deal of sweat, but can disappear in a moment. They forget the Gospel preaching, which does not claim that riches in themselves are a sin, but they are certainly a liability. God is not poor: He is the Lord of everything, but, as Saint Paul writes, “Though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9).

This is what the miser does not understand. He could have been a source of blessing to many, but instead he has slipped into the blind alley of wretchedness. And the life of the miser is ugly. I remember a case of a man who I met in the other diocese, a very rich man, and his mother was sick. He was married. The brothers took turns to care for the mother, and the mother had a yoghurt in the morning. This man gave her half in the morning so as to give her the other half in the afternoon, and to save half the yoghurt. This is avarice, this is attachment to things. Then this man died, and the comments of the people who went to the vigil were: “But, you can see that this man has nothing on him, he left everything”. And then, making a bit of a mockery, they would say: “No, no, they couldn’t close the coffin because he wanted to take everything with him”. This avarice, makes others laugh: that in the end we must give our body and soul to the Lord and we must leave everything. Let us be careful! And let us be generous, generous with everyone and generous with those who need us most. Thank you.

24.01.24

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The Gospel today recounts the vocation of the first disciples (cf. Mk 1:14-20). Calling others to join His mission is one of the first things Jesus does at the beginning of His public life: He approaches some young fishermen and invites them to follow Him to “become fishers of men” (v. 17). And this tells us something important: the Lord loves to involve us in His work of salvation, He wants us to be active with Him, He wants us to be responsible and protagonists. A Christian who is not active, who is not responsible in the work of proclaiming the Lord and who is not a protagonist of his faith is not Christian or, as my grandmother used to say, is a “rosewater” Christian.

In principle, God would not need us, but He does, despite the fact that it involves taking on many of our limitations: we are all limited, or rather sinners, and He takes this on. Look, for example, at how much patience He had with the disciples: often they did not understand His words (cf. Lk 9:51-56), at times they do not agree among themselves (cf. Mk 10:41), for a long time they are unable to accept some essential aspects of His preaching, such as service (cf. Lk 22:27). And yet Jesus chose them and continued to believe in them. This is important: the Lord chose us to be Christians. And we are sinners, we commit one after the other, but the Lord continues to believe in us. This is wonderful.

In effect, bringing God’s salvation to everyone was for Jesus the greatest joy, His mission, the meaning of His existence (cf. Jn 6:38), or, as He says, his food (cf. Jn 4:34). And in every word and deed with which we join with Him, in the beautiful adventure of giving love, light and joy multiply (cf. Is 9:2): not only around us, but also in us. To proclaim the Gospel, then, is not wasted time: it is being happier by helping others to be happy; it is to free ourselves by helping others to be free; it is becoming better by helping others to be better!

Let us ask ourselves then: do I pause every now and then to remember the joy that grew in me and around me when I welcomed the calling to know and bear witness to Jesus? And when I pray, do I thank the Lord for having called me to make others happy? Finally, do I wish to make someone savour, through my testimony and my joy, to make them savour how beautiful it is to love Jesus?

May the Virgin Mary help us to taste the joy of the Gospel.

21.01.24 a

We have just heard that Jesus said to them: “Come, follow me… Immediately they left their nets and followed him” (Mk 1:17-18). The word of God has immense power, as we heard in the first reading: “The word of God came to Jonah, saying: ‘Get up, go to Nineveh… and preach to them… So Jonah set out and went… according to the word of the Lord (Jon 3:1-3). The word of God unleashes the power of the Holy Spirit, a power that draws people to God, like those young fisherman who were struck by Jesus’ words, and sends others, like Jonah, towards those distant from the Lord. The word draws us to God and sends us to others. It draws us to God and sends us to others: that is how it works. It does not leave us self-absorbed, but expands hearts, changes courses, overturns habits, opens up new scenarios and discloses unthought-of horizons.

Brothers and sisters, that is what the word of God wants to do in each of us. As with the first disciples who, upon hearing the words of Jesus, left their nets and set out on a stupendous adventure, so too, on the shores of our life, beside the boats of our families and the nets of our daily occupations, that word makes us hear the call of Jesus. It calls us to set out with him for the sake of others. The word makes us missionaries, God’s messengers and witnesses to a world drowning in words, yet thirsting for the very word it so often ignores. The Church lives from this dynamic: called by Christ and drawn to him, she is sent into the world to bear witness to him. This is the dynamic within the Church.

We cannot do without God’s word and its quiet and unassuming power that, as if in a personal dialogue, touches the heart, impresses itself on the soul and renews it with the peace of Jesus, which makes us, in turn, concerned for others. If we look at the friends of God, the witnesses to the Gospel throughout history and the saints, we see that the word was decisive for each of them. We think of the first monk, Saint Anthony, who, struck by a passage of the Gospel while at Mass, left everything for the Lord. We think of Saint Augustine, whose life took a decisive turn when God’s word brought healing to his heart. We think of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, who discovered her vocation by reading the letters of Saint Paul. And we think too of the saint whose name I bear, Francis of Assisi, who, after praying, read in the Gospel that Jesus sent his disciples to preach and exclaimed: “That is what I want; that is what I ask, that is what I desire to do with all my heart!” (THOMAS OF CELANO, Vita Prima, IX, 22). Their lives were changed by the word of life, by the word of the Lord.

But I wonder: how is it that, for many of us, the same thing does not happen? We hear the word of God many times, yet it enters into one ear and goes out the other: why? Perhaps because, as those witnesses make clear, we need to stop being “deaf” to God’s word. This is a risk for all of us: overwhelmed by a barrage of words, we let the word of God glide by us: we hear it, yet we fail to listen to it; we listen to it, yet we don’t keep it; we keep it, yet we don’t let it provoke us to change. More than anything, we read it but we don’t pray with it, whereas “prayer ought to accompany the reading of sacred Scripture, so that it can become a dialogue between God and the reader” (Dei Verbum, 25). Let us not forget the two fundamental aspects of Christian prayer: listening to the word and worshiping the Lord. Let us make room for the prayerful reading of Jesus’ words. Then we will have the same experience as those first disciples. To go back to today’s Gospel, we see that two things happened after Jesus spoke: “they left their nets and followed him” (Mk 1:18). They left and they followed. Let us reflect briefly on these two things.

They left. What did they leave? Their boat and their nets, that is to say the life that they had been living until then. How often we struggle to leave behind our security, our routine, because these entangle us like fish in a net. Yet those who respond to the word experience healing from the snares of the past, because the living word gives new meaning to their lives and heals their wounded memory by grafting upon it the remembrance of God and his works for us. Scripture establishes us in goodness and reminds us who we truly are: children of God, saved and beloved. “The fragrant words of the Lord” (SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI, Letter to the Faithful) are like honey, bringing flavour to our lives and making us taste the sweetness of God. They nourish the soul, banish fear and overcome loneliness.  Just as they led the disciples to leave behind the monotony of a life centred on boats and nets, so they renew our faith, purifying it, freeing it of dross and bringing it back to its origins, the pure wellspring of the Gospel. In recounting the wonderful things God has done for us, sacred Scripture releases a paralyzed faith and makes us savour anew the Christian life for what it truly is: a love story with the Lord.

The disciples thus left and then followed. In the footsteps of the Master, they moved forward. For Christ’s word not only liberates us from the burdens we bear, past and present; it also makes us mature in truth and in charity. It enlivens the heart, challenges it, purifies it from hypocrisy and fills it with hope. The Bible itself attests that the word is concrete and effective: “like the rain and the snow” for the soil (cf. Is 55:10-11), like a sharp sword that “lays bare the sentiments and thoughts of the heart” (Heb 4:12), and an imperishable seed (1 Pet 1:23) that, tiny and hidden, yet sprouts and bears fruit (cf. Mt 13). “Such is the force and power of the word of God: it imparts robustness to the faith of [the Church’s] sons and daughters, providing food for the soul and a pure and unfailing fount of spiritual life” (Dei Verbum, 21).

Brothers and sisters, may the Sunday of the Word of God help us to return with joy to the sources of our faith, which is born of listening to Jesus, the living Word of God. May it help us, barraged by words about the Church, to rediscover the word of life that resounds in the Church!  If not, we end up talking more about ourselves than about him, and so often we concentrate on our own thoughts and problems rather than on Christ and his word.  Let us return to the sources, in order to offer to the world the living water for which it yearns and does not find, and while society and social media reflect the violence of words, let us draw closer to, and cultivate, the quiet word of God that brings salvation, that is gentle, that does not make a loud noise and that enters into our hearts.

Finally, let us ask ourselves a few questions. What room do I make for the word of God in the place where I live? Amid so many books, magazines, televisions and telephones, where is the Bible? In my room, do I have the Gospel within easy reach? Do I read it daily in order to be faithful to my path in life? Do I carry a little copy of the Gospels so that I can read it? I have often spoken about always having the Gospel with us, in our pockets and purses, on our telephones. If Christ is dearer to me than anything else, how can I leave him at home and not bring his word with me? And one last question: Have I read through at least one of the four Gospels? The Gospel is the book of life. It is simple and brief, yet many believers have never even read one of the Gospels from beginning to end.

Brothers and sisters, God, the Scripture tells us, is “the author of beauty” (Wis 13:3). Let us allow ourselves to be conquered by the beauty that the word of God brings into our lives.

21.01.24 m

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This year’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum takes place in a very troubling climate of international instability. Your Forum, which aims to guide and strengthen political will and mutual cooperation, provides an important opportunity for multi-stakeholder engagement to explore innovative and effective ways to build a better world. It is my hope that your discussions will take into account the urgent need to advance social cohesion, fraternity, and reconciliation among groups, communities, and states, in order to address the challenges before us.

17.01.24 e

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And today, let us listen well to the catechesis, because afterwards there will be a circus that will perform for us. Let us continue our journey concerning vices and virtues; and the ancient Fathers teach us that, after gluttony, the second ‘demon’ – that is, vice – that is always crouching at the door of the heart is that of lust, called porneia in Greek. While gluttony is voracity with regard to food, this second vice is a kind of ‘voracity’ with regard to another person, that is, the poisoned bond that human beings have with each other, especially in the sphere of sexuality.

Be careful: in Christianity, there is no condemnation of the sexual instinct. There is no condemnation. A book of the Bible, the Song of Songs, is a wonderful poem of love between two lovers. However, this beautiful dimension, the sexual dimension, the dimension of love, of our humanity is not without its dangers, so much so that St Paul already had to address the issue in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. St Paul writes: “It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans” (5:1). The Apostle's reproach concerns precisely an unhealthy handling of sexuality by some Christians.

But let us look at the human experience, the experience of falling in love. There are so many newlyweds here: you can talk about this. Why this mystery happens, and why it is such a shattering experience in people's lives, none of us know. One person falls in love with another, falling in love just happens. It is one of the most astonishing realities of existence. Most of the songs you hear on the radio are about this: loves that shine, loves that are always sought and never attained, loves that are full of joy, or that torment us to the point of tears.

If it is not polluted by vice, falling in love is one of the purest feelings. A person in love becomes generous, enjoys giving gifts, writes letters and poems. He stops thinking of himself to be completely focused on the other. This is beautiful And if you ask a person in love, “Why you love?” they won’t have  an answer: In so many ways their love is unconditional, without any reason. You must have patience if that love, which is so powerful, is also a little naive: lovers do not really know the face of the other, they tend to idealise them, they are ready to make promises whose weight they don’t immediately grasp. This ‘garden’ where wonders are multiplied is not, however, safe from evil. It is defiled by the demon of lust, and this vice is particularly odious, for at least two reasons. At least two.

First, because it destroys relationships between peoples. To prove such a reality, unfortunately, the daily news is sufficient. How many relationships that began in the best of ways have then turned into toxic relationships, of possession of the other, lacking respect and a sense of limits? These are loves in which chastity has been missing: a virtue not to be confused with sexual abstinence – chastity is something different from sexual abstinence – but rather must be connected with the will never to possess the other. To love is to respect the other, to seek his or her happiness, to cultivate empathy for his or her feelings, to dispose oneself in the knowledge of a body, a psychology, and a soul that are not our own, and that must be contemplated for the beauty they bear. That is love, and love is beautiful. Lust, on the other hand, makes a mockery of all this: lust plunders, it robs, it consumes in haste, it does not want to listen to the other but only to its own need and pleasure; lust judges every courtship a bore, it does not seek that synthesis between reason, drive and feeling that would help us to conduct existence wisely. The lustful seeks only shortcuts: he does not understand that the road to love must be travelled slowly, and this patience, far from being synonymous with boredom, allows us to make our loving relationships happy.

But there is a second reason why lust is a dangerous vice. Among all human pleasures, sexuality has a powerful voice. It involves all the senses; it dwells both in the body and in the psyche, and this is very beautiful; but if it is not disciplined with patience, if it is not inscribed in a relationship and in a story where two individuals transform it into a loving dance, it turns into a chain that deprives human beings of freedom. Sexual pleasure that is a gift from God is undermined by pornography: satisfaction without relationship  can generate forms of addiction. We have to defend love, the love of the heart, of the mind, of the body, pure love in the giving of oneself to the other. And this is the beauty of sexual intercourse.

Winning the battle against lust, against the “objectification” of the other, can be a lifelong endeavour. But the prize of this battle is the most important of all, because it is preserving that beauty that God wrote into His creation when He imagined love between man and woman, which is not for the purpose of using one another, but of loving one another. That beauty that makes us believe that building a story together is better than going in search of adventures – there are so many Don Juans out there; building a story together is better than going in search of adventures; cultivating tenderness is better than bowing to the demon of possession – true love does not possess, it gives itself; serving is better than conquering. Because if there is no love, life is sad, it is sad loneliness.

17.01.24

Excerpt below, for the full transcript click on the picture link above

Today the Gospel presents Jesus’ encounter with the first disciples (cf. Jn 1:35-42). This scene invites us to remember our first encounter with Jesus. Each one of us has had the first encounter with Jesus, as a child, as an adolescent, as a young person, as an adult… When did I encounter Jesus for the first time? Try to remember this a bit. And after this thought, this memory, to renew the joy of following Him and to ask ourselves – following Jesus means being a disciple of Jesus – what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? According to today’s Gospel we can take three words: to seek Jesus, to stay with Jesus, and to proclaim Jesus. To seek, to stay, to proclaim.

First of all, to seek. Two disciples, thanks to the Baptist’s witness, start to follow Jesus; He “saw them following, and said to them, ‘What do you seek?’” (v. 38). They are the first words Jesus addresses to them: first of all, He invites them to look within, to ask themselves about the desires they carry in their heart. “What are you seeking?”. The Lord does not want to make proselytes, He does not want to gain superficial followers; the Lord wants people who question themselves and let themselves be challenged by His Word. Therefore, to be disciples of Jesus, it is necessary first of all to seek Him, it is necessary to seek Him, then to have an open, searching heart, not a satiated or complacent heart.

What were the first disciples seeking through the second verb: to stay? They were not seeking news or information about God, or signs or miracles, but they wished to meet Jesus, to meet the Messiah, to talk with Him, to stay with Him, to listen to Him. What is the first question they ask? “Where are you staying?” (v. 38). And Christ invites them to stay with Him: “Come and see” (v. 39). To stay with Him, to remain with Him: this is the most important thing for the disciple of the Lord. In short, faith is not a theory, no; it is an encounter – it is an encounter. It is going to see where the Lord stays, and dwelling with Him. Encountering the Lord and staying with Him.

To seek, to stay, and finally, to proclaim. The disciples sought Jesus, then they went with Him and stayed the entire evening with Him. And now, to proclaim. Then, they return and they proclaim. To seek, to stay, to proclaim. Do I seek Jesus? Do I stay with Jesus? Do I have the courage to proclaim Jesus? The disciples’ first encounter with Jesus was such a powerful experience that the two disciples always remembered the time: “it was about the tenth hour” (v. 39). This lets us see the power of that encounter. And their hearts were so full of joy that straight away they felt the need to communicate the gift they had received. Indeed, one of the two, Andrew, hastens to share it with his brother.

Brothers and sisters, let us too recall today our first encounter with the Lord. Each one of us has had the first encounter, either within the family or outside… When did I encounter the Lord? When did the Lord touch my heart? And let us ask ourselves: are we still disciples, enamoured of the Lord, do we seek the Lord, or do we settle into a faith made up of habits? Do we stay with Him in prayer, do we know how to stay in silence with Him? Do I know how to stay in prayer with the Lord, to stay in silence with Him? And then, do we feel the desire to share, to proclaim this beauty of the encounter with the Lord?

May Mary Most Holy, first disciple of Jesus, give us the desire to seek Him, the desire to stay with Him, and the desire to proclaim Him.

14.01.24

Excerpt below, for the full transcript click on the picture link above

In our journey of catechesis, in this path of catechesis we are doing, on vices and virtues, today we will take a look at the vice of gluttony. Gluttony.

What does the Gospel tell us about it? Let us look at Jesus. His first miracle, at the wedding at Cana, reveals His sympathy towards human joys: He is concerned that the feast should end well and gives the bride and groom a large quantity of very good wine. In all His ministry, Jesus appears as a prophet who is very distinct from the Baptist: while John is remembered for his asceticism – he ate what he found in the desert – Jesus is instead the Messiah whom we often see at the table. His behaviour causes scandal in some quarters, because not only is He benevolent towards sinners, but He even eats with them; and this gesture demonstrated His readiness for communion and closeness with everyone.

But there is even more. Although Jesus’ attitude towards the Jewish precepts reveals His full submission to the Law, He nonetheless shows Himself to be sympathetic towards His disciples: when they are found wanting, because they pluck grain out of hunger, He justifies them, recalling that even King David and his companions took the sacred bread (cf. Mk 2:23-26). And Jesus affirms a new principle: the wedding guests cannot fast when the bridegroom is with them. Jesus wants us to be joyful in His company – He is like the bridegroom of the Church; but He also wants us to participate in His sufferings, which are also the sufferings of the small and the poor. Jesus is universal.

Another important aspect. Jesus eliminates the distinction between pure and impure foods, which was a distinction made by the Jewish law. This is why Christianity does not consider unclean foods. And on this, Jesus says clearly that what makes something good or bad, let us say, the bad thing about food, is not the food in itself but the relationship we have with it. And we see this, when a person has a disordered relationship with food; we see how they eat, they eat hastily, as though with the urge to be full but without ever being sated. They do not have a good relationship with food, they are slaves to food. And Jesus values food and eating, also within society, where many imbalances and many pathologies manifest themselves. One eats too much, or too little. Often one eats in solitude. Eating disorders – anorexia, bulimia, obesity - are spreading. And medicine and psychology are trying to tackle our poor relationship with food. A poor relationship with food produces all these illnesses, all of them.

They are illnesses, often extremely painful, that are mostly linked to sufferings of the psyche and the soul. There is a connection between psychological imbalance and the way food is consumed. The way we eat is the manifestation of something inner: a predisposition to balance or immoderation; the capacity to give thanks or the arrogant presumption of autonomy; the empathy of those who share food with the needy, or the selfishness of those who hoard everything for themselves. This question is so important. Tell me how you eat, and I will tell you what kind of soul you possess. In the way we eat, we reveal our inner selves, our habits, our psychological attitudes.

The ancient Fathers gave the vice of gluttony the name “gastrimargia” – gastrimargy, a term that can be translated as “folly of the belly”. Gluttony is a “folly of the belly”. There is also this proverb, that we should eat to live, not live to eat – “a folly of the belly”. It is a vice that latches onto one of our vital needs, such as eating. Let us beware of this.

If we interpret it from a social point of view, gluttony is perhaps the most dangerous vice, which is killing the planet. Because the sin of those who succumb before a piece of cake, all things considered, does not cause great damage, but the voracity with which we have been plundering the goods of the planet for some centuries now is compromising the future of all. We have grabbed everything, in order to become the masters of all things, whereas everything had been consigned to our custody, not for us to exploit. Here, then, is the great sin, the fury of the belly is a great sin: we have abjured the name of men, to assume another, “consumers”. Today we speak like this in social life, consumers. We did not even notice when someone had started to give us this name. We were made in order to be “Eucharistic” men and women, capable of giving thanks, discreet in the use of the land, and instead the danger is that we turn into predators; and now we are realizing that this form of “gluttony” has done a great deal of harm to the world. Let us ask the Lord to help us on the road to sobriety, so that the many forms of gluttony do not take over our life. Thank you.

10.01.24

Excerpt below, for the full transcript click on the picture link above

Today we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord (cf. Mk 1.7-11). It occurs at the river Jordan, where John – for this reason known as the “Baptist” – performs a rite of purification, which expresses the commitment to renounce sin and to convert. The people go to be baptized humbly, sincerely, and as the Liturgy says, “barefoot and bare of soul”, and Jesus goes there too, inaugurating His ministry: He thus shows that He wants to be close to the sinners, to come for them, for us, for all of sinners!

And some extraordinary things happen on that very day. John the Baptist says something unusual, publicly acknowledging Jesus, seemingly equal to everyone else, as one who is “mightier” (v. 7) than him, who “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (v. 8). Then the heavens open, the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus like a dove (f. v. 10) and the voice of the Father proclaims from on high, “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased” (v. 11).

All this, while on the one hand it reveals to us that Jesus is the Son of God, on the other it speaks to us of our Baptism, which has made us in turn children of God, because Baptism makes us children of God.

Baptism: it is God who comes into us, purifies, heals our heart, makes us forever His children, His people, His family, heirs to Paradise (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1279). And God becomes intimate to us and He does not leave us anymore. This is why it is important to remember the day of our Baptism, and also to know the date. I ask all of you: you, each one of you, think: “Do I remember the date of my Baptism?”. If you do not remember, when you go back home, ask what it is, so as not to forget it any more, because it is a new birthday, because with your Baptism you were born into the life of grace. Let us thank the Lord for Baptism. Let us also thank Him for the parents who brought us to the font, for those who administered the Sacrament, for the godfather, for the godmother, for the community in which we received Him. Celebrate your own Baptism. It is a new birthday.

And we can ask ourselves: am I aware of the immense gift I carry within me through Baptism? Do I acknowledge, in my life, the light of the presence of God, who sees me as His beloved son, His beloved daughter? And now, in memory of our Baptism, let us welcome God’s presence within us. We can do so with the sign of the cross, which traces in us the memory of the grace of God, who loves us and wishes to stay with us. That sign of the cross reminds us of this. Let us do it together: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

And do not forget the date of your Baptism, which is a birthday.

May Mary, temple of the Spirit, help us to celebrate and welcome the wonders that the Lord works in us.

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Excerpt below, for the full transcript click on the picture link above

Today we celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord, that is, His manifestation to all peoples in the person of the Magi (cf. Mt 2:1-12). They are wise seekers who, after wondering about the apparition of a star, set out on a journey and arrive in Bethlehem. And there, they find Jesus, “with Mary His mother”, they bow down and they offer “gold, frankincense and myrrh” (c. 11).

Wise men who recognize the presence of God in a simple Child: not in a prince or a nobleman, but in the child of poor people, and they prostrate themselves before Him, adoring Him. The star led them there, before a Child; and they, in His small innocent eyes, perceive the light of the Creator of the universe, to whose pursuit they have dedicated their existence.

It is the decisive experience for them, and important for us too: indeed, in the Child Jesus, we see God made man. And so let us look at Him, let us wonder at His humility. Contemplating Jesus, staying before Him, adoring Him in the Eucharist: it is not wasting time, but giving meaning to time. To worship is not to waste time, but to give meaning to time. This is important, I repeat: to worship is not to waste time, but to give meaning to time; it is rediscovering the course of life in the simplicity of a silence that nourishes the heart.

And let us also find the time to watch children, like the Magi watch Jesus: the little ones who also speak to us of Jesus, with their trust, their immediacy, their wonder, their healthy curiosity, their ability to cry and laugh spontaneously, to dream. God is made like this: a Child, trusting, simple, a lover of life (cf. Wis 11:26), with our children; patiently, as grandparents know how to do! If we stay before the child Jesus and in the company of children, we will learn to be amazed and we will start out simpler and better, like the Magi. And we will know how to have new outlooks, creative outlooks on the problems of the world.

Let us ask ourselves, then: in these days, have we stopped to adore, have we made a little space for Jesus in silence, praying before the crib? Have we dedicated time to the children, to speaking and playing with them? And finally, are we able to see the problems of the world through the eyes of children?

May Mary, Mother of God and ours, increase our love for the Child Jesus and for all children, especially those burdened by wars and injustice.

06.01.24 a

The Magi set out to seek the newborn King. They are an image of the world’s peoples journeying in search of God, of the foreigners who now are led to the mountain of the Lord (cf. Is 56:6-7), of those who now, from afar, can hear the message of salvation (cf. Is 33:13), of all those who were lost and now hear the beckoning of a friendly voice. For now, in the flesh of the Babe of Bethlehem, the glory of the Lord has been revealed to all the nations (cf. Is 40:5) and “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Lk 3:6). This is the pilgrimage of humanity, of each of us, moving from distance to closeness.

The Magi have their eyes raised to the heavens, yet their feet are journeying on the earth, and their hearts are bowed in adoration.  Let me repeat this: their eyes are raised to the heavens, their feet are journeying on the earth and their hearts are bowed in adoration.

First, their eyes are raised to the heavens. The Magi are filled with longing for the infinite, and so they gaze at the stars of the evening sky. They do not pass their lives staring at their feet, self-absorbed, confined by earthly horizons, plodding ahead in resignation or lamentation.  They lift their heads high and await the light that can illumine the meaning of their lives, the salvation that dawns from on high. They then see a star, brighter than all others, which fascinates them and makes them set out on a journey. Here we see the key to discovering the real meaning of our lives: if we remain closed in the narrow confines of earthly things, if we waste away, heads bowed, hostages of our failures and our regrets; if we thirst for wealth and worldly comforts – which are here today and are gone tomorrow – rather than becoming seekers of life and love, our life slowly loses its light. The Magi, who are still foreigners and have not yet encountered Jesus, teach us to fix our sight on high, to lift our eyes to the heavens, to the hills, from which our help will come, for our help is from the Lord (cf. Ps 121:1-2).

Brothers and sisters, let us raise our eyes to the heavens! We need to lift our gaze on high, in order to be able view reality from on high. We need this on our journey through life, we need to let ourselves walk in friendship with the Lord, we need his love to sustain us, and the light of his word to guide us, like a star in the night. We need to set out on this journey, so that our faith will not be reduced to an assemblage of religious devotions or mere outward appearance, but will instead become a fire burning within us, making us passionate seekers of the Lord’s face and witnesses to his Gospel. We need this in the Church, where, instead of splitting into groups based on our own ideas, we are called to put God back at the centre. We need to let go of ecclesiastical ideologies so that we can discover the meaning of Holy Mother Church, the ecclesial habitus. Ecclesiastical ideologies, no; ecclesial vocation, yes. The Lord, not our own ideas or our own projects, must be at the centre. Let us set out anew from God; let us seek from him the courage not to lose heart in the face of difficulties, the strength to surmount all obstacles, the joy to live in harmonious communion.

The Magi not only gazed at the stars, the things on high; they also had feet journeying on the earth. They set out for Jerusalem and ask, “Where is the Child who has been born King of the Jews? For we have observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage” (Mt 2:2). One single thing: their feet linked with contemplation. The star shining in the heavens sends them forth to travel the roads of the world. Lifting their eyes on high, they are directed to lower them to this world. Seeking God, they are directed to find him in man, in a little Child lying in a manger. For that is where the God who is infinitely great has revealed himself: in the little, the infinitely little.  We need wisdom, we need the assistance of the Holy Spirit, to understand the greatness and the littleness of the manifestation of God.

Brothers and sisters, let us keep our feet journeying on this earth! The gift of faith was given to us not to keep gazing at the heavens (cf. Acts 1:11), but to journey along the roads of the world as witnesses to the Gospel. The light that illumines our life, the Lord Jesus, was given to us not to warm our nights, but to let rays of light break through the dark shadows that envelop so many situations in our societies. We find the God who comes down to visit us, not by basking in some elegant religious theory, but by setting out on a journey, seeking the signs of his presence in everyday life, and above all in encountering and touching the flesh of our brothers and sisters. Contemplating God is beautiful, but it is only fruitful if we take a risk, the risk of the service of bringing God to others. The Magi set out to seek God, the great God, and they found a child. This is important: to find God in flesh and bone, in the faces of those we meet each day, and especially in the poor. The Magi teach us that an encounter with God always opens us up to a greater reality, which makes us change our way of life and transform our world. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI: “When true hope is lacking, happiness is sought in drunkenness, in the superfluous, in excesses, and we ruin ourselves and the world… For this reason, we need people who nourish great hope and thus have great courage: the courage of the Magi, who made a long journey following a star, and were able to kneel before a Child and offer him their precious gifts” (Homily, 6 January 2008).

Finally, let us also consider that the Magi have hearts bowed in adoration. They observe the star in the heavens, but they do not take refuge in otherworldly devotion; they set out, but they do not wander about, like tourists without a destination. They came to Bethlehem, and when they saw the child, “they knelt down and paid him homage” (Mt 2:11). Then they opened their treasure chests and offered him gold, frankincense and myrrh. “With these mystical gifts they make known the identity of the one whom they adore: with gold, they declare that he is a King; with frankincense, that he is God; with myrrh, that he is destined to die” (SAINT GREGORY THE GREAT, Hom. X in Evangelia, 6). A King who came to serve us, a God who became man.  Before this mystery, we are called to bow our heart and bend our knee in worship: to worship the God who comes in littleness, who dwells in our homes, who dies for love. The God who, “though manifested by the immensity of the heavens and the signs of the stars, chose to be found… beneath a lowly roof. In the frail flesh of a newborn child, wrapped in swaddling clothes, he was worshiped by the Magi and caused fear in the wicked” (SAINT AUGUSTINE, Serm. 200). ). Brothers and sisters, we have lost the habit of adoration, we have lost the ability that gives us adoration. Let us rediscover our taste for the prayer of adoration. Let us acknowledge Jesus as our God and Lord, and worship him. Today the Magi invite us to adore. Nowadays there is a lack of adoration among us.

Brothers and sisters, like the Magi, let us raise our eyes to the heavens, let us set out to seek the Lord, let us bow our hearts in adoration. Looking to the heavens, setting out on a journey and adoring. And let us ask for the grace never to lose courage: the courage to be seekers of God, men and women of hope, intrepid dreamers gazing at the heavens, the courage of perseverance in journeying along the roads of this world with the fatigue of a real journey, and the courage to adore, the courage to gaze upon the Lord who enlightens every man and woman. May the Lord grant us this grace, above all the grace to know how to adore.

06.01.24 m

Excerpt below, for the full transcript click on the picture link above

Last week we introduced the theme of vices and virtues. It refers to the spiritual struggle of the Christian. Indeed, the spiritual life of the Christian is not peaceful, linear and without challenges; on the contrary, Christian life demands constant striving: the Christian striving to preserve the faith, to enrich the gifts of faith in us. It is no coincidence that the first anointing that every Christian receives in the sacrament of Baptism - the catechumenal anointing - is without any aroma and symbolically announces that life is a struggle. In fact, in ancient times, wrestlers were fully anointed before the competition, both to tone their muscles and to make their bodies elusive to their opponent’s grasp. The anointing of catechumens immediately makes it clear that the Christian is not spared the struggle, that the Christian must strive: his existence, like everyone else’s, will have to descend into the arena, because life is a succession of trials and temptations.

A famous saying attributed to Abba Anthony the Great, the first great father of monasticism, goes like this: “Remove temptations and no-one will be saved”. The saints are not men who have been spared temptation, but rather people well aware of the fact that in life the seductions of evil appear repeatedly, to be unmasked and rejected. We all have experience of this, all of us: that a bad thought comes to you, that you feel a desire to do this, or to speak badly of others… All of us, all of us are tempted, and we must strive not to give in to these temptations. If any of you have no temptations, say so, because that would be an extraordinary thing! We all have temptations, and we all have to learn how to behave in these situations.

There are many people who absolve themselves, who declare they are “just fine” – “No, I am good, I don’t have these problems”. But none of us are “alright”; if someone feels they are alright, they are dreaming; every one of us has many things to adjust, and must also be vigilant. And at times it happens that we go to the sacrament of Reconciliation and we say, sincerely, “Father, I don’t remember, I don’t know if I have any sins…”. But this is a lack of awareness of what is happening in the heart. We are all sinners, all of us. And a little examination of the conscience, a little insight, will be good for us. Otherwise, we risk living in the dark, because we have become accustomed to darkness and no longer know how to distinguish good from evil. Isaac of Nineveh said that, in the Church, he who knows his sins and mourns them is greater than he who raises a dead man. We must all ask God for the grace to recognize ourselves as poor sinners, in need of conversion, keeping in our hearts the confidence that no sin is too great for the infinite mercy of God the Father. This is the inaugural lesson Jesus gives us.

We see it in the first pages of the Gospels, primarily in the account of the baptism of the Messiah in the waters of the river Jordan. The episode contains within it something disconcerting: why does Jesus submit to such a rite of purification? He is God, He is perfect! Of what sin must Jesus ever repent? None! Even the Baptist is shocked, to the point that the text says: “John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’” (Mt 3:15). But Jesus is a very different Messiah from the way John had presented Him and the people imagined Him: He does not embody the wrathful God and does not summon for judgement, but, on the contrary, queues up with sinners. How come? Yes, Jesus accompanies us, all us sinners. He is not a sinner, but He is among us. And this is a beautiful thing. “Father, I have many sins!” – “But Jesus is with you: talk about them, He will help you come out of it”. Jesus never leaves us alone, never! Think about this. “Oh Father, I have committed serious ones!” – “But Jesus understands you and He accompanies you: He understands your sin and He forgives you”. Never forget this! In the worst moments, in the moments when we slip into sin, Jesus is by our side to help lift us up. This brings consolation. We must not lose this certainty: Jesus is by our side to help us, to protect us, even to lift us up again after sin. “But Father, is it true that Jesus forgives everything?” – “Everything. He came to forgive, to save. Simply, Jesus wants your heart to be open. He never forgets to forgive: it is we who, many times, lose the capacity to ask for forgiveness. Let us regain this capacity to ask for forgiveness. Every one of us has many things to ask forgiveness for: let each one of us think about it, inwardly, and speak about it with Jesus today. Speak with Jesus about this: “Lord, I do not know if this is true or not, but I am sure that You will not turn away from me. I am sure that You forgive me. Lord, I am a sinner, but please do not turn away from me”. This would be a beautiful prayer to Jesus today: “Lord, do not turn away from me”.

And straight after the episode of the baptism, the Gospels tell us that Jesus retreated into the desert, where He is tempted by Satan. In this case too, we ask ourselves: what must the Son of God know temptation? Here too, Jesus shows Himself to be in solidarity with our frail human nature, and becomes our great exemplum: the temptations He faces and overcomes among the arid stones of the desert are the first instruction He gives to our life as disciples. He experienced what we too must prepare ourselves to confront: life is made up of challenges, tests, crossroads, opposing views, hidden seductions, contradictory voices. Some voices are even persuasive, so much so that Satan tempts Jesus by resorting to the words of the Scripture. We must preserve our inner clarity in order to choose the path that truly leads to happiness, and strive not to stop along the way.

Let us remember that we are always torn between opposite extremes: arrogance challenges humility; hatred opposes charity; sadness hinders the true joy of the Spirit; the hardening of the heart rejects mercy. Christians continually walk along these dividing lines. Therefore, it is important to reflect on vices and virtues: it helps us to defeat the nihilistic culture in which the boundaries between good and evil become blurred and, at the same time, it reminds us that the human being, unlike any other creature, can always transcend itself, opening up to God and journeying towards holiness.

The spiritual struggle, then, leads us to look closely at those vices that shackle us and to walk, with the grace of God, towards those virtues that can flourish in us, bringing the springtime of the Spirit into our lives.

03.01.24

Excerpt below, for the full transcript click on the picture link above

Artificial Intelligence and Peace

At the beginning of the New Year, a time of grace which the Lord gives to each one of us, I would like to address God’s People, the various nations, heads of state and government, the leaders of the different religions and civil society, and all the men and women of our time, in order to offer my fervent good wishes for peace.

01.01.24 pme

Excerpt below, for the full transcript click on the picture link above

On this day, when we celebrate Mary, Mother of God, we place the new time given to us under her caring gaze. May she watch over us this year.

Today the Gospel reveals to us that the greatness of Mary does not consist in performing some extraordinary deed; rather, while the shepherds, having received the announcement from the angels, hurry towards Bethlehem (cf. Lk 2:15-16), she remains silent. The Mother’s silence is a beautiful feature. It is not a simple absence of words, but a silence filled with wonder and adoration for the wonders that God is working. “Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart”, Saint Luke notes. (2:19). In this way she makes room within herself for the One who was born; in silence and adoration, she places Jesus at the centre and bears witness to Him as Saviour.

Thus, she is Mother not only because she carried Jesus in her womb and gave birth to him, but because she brings him into the light, without occupying his place. She will remain silent even beneath the cross, in the darkest hour, and will continue to make room for Him and generate Him for us. A twentieth-century religious and poet wrote: “Virgin, cathedral of silence .. you bring our flesh into paradise ..  and God into the flesh” (D.M. TUROLDO, Laudario alla Vergine. “Via pulchritudinis”, Bologna 1980, 35). Cathedral of silence: it is a beautiful image. With her silence and humility, Mary is God's first “cathedral”, the place where He and man can meet.

But our mothers too, with their hidden care, with their thoughtfulness, are often magnificent cathedrals of silence. They bring us into the world and then continue to attend to us, often unnoticed, so that we can grow. Let us remember this: love never stifles; love makes room for the other. Love lets us grow.

Brothers and sisters, at the beginning of the new year, let us look to Mary and, with a grateful heart, let us also think of and look at mothers, to learn that love that is cultivated above all in silence, that knows how to make room for the other, respecting their dignity, leaving the freedom to express themselves, rejecting every form of possession, oppression and violence. There is so much need for this today, so much! There is so much need for silence to listen to each other. As the Message for the World Day of Peace today reminds us, “Freedom and peaceful coexistence are threatened whenever human beings yield to the temptation to selfishness, self-interest, the desire for profit and the thirst for power”. Love, on the other hand, consists of respect, it consists of kindness: in this way, it breaks down barriers and helps us to live fraternal relationships, to build up more just, more humane, more peaceful societies.

Let us pray today to Mary Mother of God, and our Mother, that in the new year we may grow in this meek, silent and discreet love that generates life, and open paths of peace and reconciliation in the world.

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The words of the Apostle Paul illumine the beginning of this new year: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman” (Gal 4:4).  The expression “the fullness of time” is striking.  In ancient times, time was measured using vases of water; the passage of time was marked by how long it took for an empty vase to be filled.  Hence the meaning of the phrase “fullness of time”: once the vase of history is filled, divine grace spills over.  God becomes man and he does so through a woman, Mary.  She is the means chosen by God, the culmination of that long line of individuals and generations that “drop by drop” prepared for the Lord’s coming into the world.  The Mother, then, stands at the very heart of the mystery of time.  It pleased God to turn history around through her, the woman.  With that one word, “woman”, the Scripture brings us back to the beginning, to Genesis, and makes us realize that the Mother and Child mark a new creation, a new beginning.  Thus, at the beginning of the time of salvation, there is the Holy Mother of God, our Holy Mother.

It is fitting, then, that the year should open by invoking her; it is fitting that God’s faithful people should acclaim her with joy, as once those bold Christians did in Ephesus, as the Holy Mother of God.  For those words, Mother of God, express the joyful certainty that the Lord, a tiny Child in his Mamma’s arms, has united himself forever to our humanity, to the point that it is no longer only ours, but his as well.  Mother of God: a simple phrase that confesses the Lord’s eternal covenant with us.  Mother of God: a dogma of faith, but also a “dogma of hope”; God in man, and man in God, forever.  The Holy Mother of God.

In the fullness of time, the Father sent his Son, born of a woman.  But Saint Paul also speaks of a second sending: “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Gal 4:6).  In the sending of the Spirit, the Mother also plays a  central role: the Holy Spirit comes to rest upon her at the Annunciation (cf. Lk 1:35); later, at the birth of the Church, he descends upon the apostles gathered in prayer “with Mary, the Mother” (Acts 1:14).  Mary’s receptiveness to the working of the Spirit brought us the greatest of all gifts: she “enabled the Lord of Majesty to become our brother” (THOMAS OF CELANO, Vita secunda, CL, 198: FF 786), so that the Spirit can cry out in our hearts: “Abba, Father!”  The motherhood of Mary is the path leading us to the paternal tenderness of God, the closest, most direct and easiest of paths.  This is God’s “style”: closeness, compassion and tenderness.  Indeed, the Mother leads us to the beginning and heart of faith, which is not a theory or a task, but a boundless gift that makes us beloved sons and daughters, tabernacles of the Father’s love.  It follows that welcoming the Mother into our lives is not a matter of devotion but a requirement of faith: “If we want to be Christians, we must be ‘Marians’” (SAINT PAUL VI, Homily in Cagliari, 24 April 1970), that is “children of Mary”.

The Church needs Mary in order to recover her own feminine face, to resemble more fully the woman, Virgin and Mother, who is her model and perfect image (cf. Lumen Gentium, 63), to make space for women and to be “generative” through a pastoral ministry marked by concern and care, patience and maternal courage.  The world, too, needs to look to mothers and to women in order to find peace, to emerge from the spiral of violence and hatred, and once more see things with genuinely human eyes and hearts.  Every society needs to accept the gift that is woman, every woman: to respect, defend and esteem women, in the knowledge that whosoever harms a single woman profanes God, who was “born of a woman”.

Just as Mary, the woman, played a decisive role in the fullness of time, she is also decisive in the lives of each of us, for no one knows better than a Mother the stages of growth and the urgent needs of her children.  Mary shows us this in yet another “beginning”: the first sign that Jesus performs, at the wedding feast of Cana.  There, she is the one who realizes that the wine has run out, and who appeals to Jesus (cf. Jn 2:3).  The needs of her children move her, the Mother, to beg Jesus to intervene.  At Cana, Jesus says: “‘Fill the jars with water’.  And they filled them up to the brim” (Jn 2:7).  Mary knows our needs; she intercedes to make grace overflow in our lives and to guide them to authentic fulfilment.  Brothers and sisters, all of us have our shortcomings, our times of loneliness, our inner emptiness that cries out to be filled.  Each of us knows this well.  Who can fill our emptiness if not Mary, the Mother of fullness?  Whenever we are tempted to retreat into ourselves, let us run to her; whenever we are no longer able to untie the knots in our lives, let us seek refuge in her.  Our times, bereft of peace, need a Mother who can reunite the human family.  Let us look to Mary, in order to become artisans of unity.  Let us do so with her maternal creativity and concern for her children.  For she unites them and consoles them; she listens to their troubles and she dries their tears.  And let us look upon that tender icon of the Virgo lactans [of Montevergine Abbey].  That is how our mother is with: how tenderly she looks after us and draws close to us.  She cares for us and remains close to us.

Let us entrust this coming year to the Mother of God.  Let us consecrate our lives to her.  With tender love, she will open our eyes to their fullness.  For she will lead us to Jesus, who is himself “the fullness of time”, of every time, of our own time, of each one of us.  Indeed, as was once written: “It was not the fullness of time that brought about the sending of the Son of God, but the sending of the Son that brought about the fullness of time” (cf. MARTIN LUTHER, Vorlesung über den Galaterbrief 1516-1517, 18).  Brothers and sisters, may this year be filled with the consolation of the Lord!  May this year be filled with the tender maternal love of Mary, the Holy Mother of God.

I now invite all of us together to proclaim three times: Holy Mother of God!  Holy Mother of God!  Holy Mother of God!

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