News July 2024

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Today the Gospel of the Liturgy tells us about the miracle of the loaves and fishes (cf. Jn 6:1-15). A miracle, that is a “sign”, a “sign”, whose protagonists perform three gestures that Jesus will come to repeat at the Last Supper. What are these gestures? Offering, giving thanks, and sharing.

The first: to offer. The Gospel tells us about a boy who has five loaves and two fish (Jn 6:9). It is the gesture with which we acknowledge we have something good to give, and we say our “yes”, even if what we have is too little compared to what is needed. This is emphasized, during the Mass, when the priest offers the bread and wine on the altar, and each person offers himself, his own life. It is a gesture that may seem small, when we think of the immense needs of humanity, just like the five loaves and two fish in front of a crowd of thousands; but God makes it the material for the miracle, the greatest miracle there is – that in which He Himself makes Himself present among us, for the salvation of the world.

And so, we understand the second gesture: giving thanks (cf. Jn 6:11). The first gesture is offering, the second is giving thanks. It is saying to the Lord humbly, with also with joy: “All that I have is your gift, Lord, and to thank you I can only give back to you what You gave me first, together with your Son Jesus Christ, adding what I can; every one of us can add a little something. What can I give to the Lord? What little thing can I give? My feeble love”. To give… to say to the Lord, “I love you”; but we, poor things, our love is so small, but if we give it to the Lord, the Lord receives it. Offering, giving thanks, and the third gesture is sharing.

In the Mass, it is the Communion, when together we approach the altar to receive the Body and Blood of Christ: the fruit of everyone’s gift transformed by the Lord into food for all. It is a beautiful moment, that of communion, which teaches us to live every gesture of love as a gift of grace, both for those who give it and those who receive it.

Brothers, sisters, let us ask ourselves: do I truly believe that, by the grace of God, I have something unique to give to my brothers and sisters, or do I feel anonymously “one among many”? Am I active in giving good? Am I grateful to the Lord for the gifts with which He continuously manifests His love? Do I live sharing with others as a moment of encounter and mutual enrichment?

May the Virgin Mary help us to live every Eucharistic celebration with faith, and to recognize and savour every day the “miracles” of God’s grace.

28.07.24

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God never abandons his children, never. Even when our age advances and our powers decline, when our hair grows white and our role in society lessens, when our lives become less productive and can risk appearing useless. God does not regard appearances (cf. 1 Sam 16:7); he does not disdain to choose those who, to many people, may seem irrelevant. God discards no stone; indeed, the “oldest” are the firm foundation on which “new” stones can rest, in order to join in erecting a spiritual edifice (cf. 1 Peter 2:5).

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The Gospel of today's liturgy (Mk 6:30-34) tells us that the apostles gather around Jesus after returning from their mission. They tell Him what they have accomplished. He then says to them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” (v. 31). However, the people understand where they are headed and, when they get off the boat, Jesus finds the crowd waiting for Him. He feels compassion for them, and He begins to teach (cf. v. 34).

So, on the one hand, there is an invitation to rest, and on the other, Jesus’ compassion for the crowd. It is very beautiful to stop in order to meditate on Jesus’ compassion. These may seem like two incompatible things, while they actually go together: resting and being compassionate. Let us look more closely.

Jesus is concerned about the disciples’ tiredness. Perhaps He is aware of a danger that can also concern our lives and our apostolate. This danger can threaten us when, for instance, our enthusiasm in carrying out our mission or our work, as well as the roles and tasks entrusted to us, make us fall victims to a kind of activism which is overly concerned with things to do and with results, and this is a bad thing. We become overly preoccupied with the things to be done, overly preoccupied with results. It then happens that we become agitated and lose sight of what is essential. We risk exhausting our energies and falling into bodily and spiritual fatigue. This is an important warning for our life and for our society which is often held prisoner by haste, but also for the Church and pastoral service: brothers and sisters, let us beware of the dictatorship of doing! And this can also happen out of necessity, within our families, for example when the father has to be away for work to earn a living, thus having to sacrifice the time he could have spent with the family. Often, parents leave early in the morning when the children are still sleeping and return late in the evening when they are already in bed. And this is a social injustice. In families, fathers and mothers should have time to share with their children, to let love grow within their family and in order not to fall into the dictatorship of doing. Let us think about what we can do to help people who are forced to live in this way.

At the same time, the rest proposed by Jesus is not an escape from the world, a retreat into a merely personal well-being. On the contrary, when He is confronted with the bewildered people, He feels compassion. And so, from the Gospel, we learn that these two realities—resting and being compassionate—are linked: only if we learn how to rest can we have compassion. Indeed, it is only possible to have a compassionate gaze, which knows how to respond to the needs of others, if our heart is not consumed by the anxiety of doing, if we know how to stop and how to receive the Grace of God, in the silence of adoration.

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, we can ask ourselves: am I able to stop during my days? Am I capable of taking a moment to be with myself and with the Lord, or am I always in a hurry, in a constant hurry for the things to do? Can we find some kind of an "inner desert" amidst the noise and activities of each day?

May the Holy Virgin help us to "rest in the Spirit" even in the midst of all daily activities, and to be available to and compassionate towards others.

21.07.24

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Today the Gospel tells us about Jesus who sends His disciples on the mission (cf. Mk 6:7-13). He sends them “two by two”, and recommends something important: to take with them only what is necessary.

Let us pause a moment on this image: the disciples are sent together, and must take with them only what is necessary.

We do not proclaim the Gospel alone, no: it is proclaimed together, as a community, and to do this it is important to know how to preserve sobriety: to know how to be sober in the use of things, sharing resources, capacities and gifts, and doing without the superfluous. Why? In order to be free: the superfluous enslaves you, and also so that we all have what we need to live in a dignified way and to contribute actively to the mission; and then to be sober in thoughts, to be sober in feelings, abandoning our preconceived ideas and abandoning the inflexibility that, like pointless baggage, weigh us down and hinder the journey, fostering discussion and listening instead, and thus making witness more effective.

Let us think, for example, of what happens in our families and our communities: when we are content with what is necessary, even with little, with God’s help we are able to go forward and get along, sharing what there is, everyone renouncing something and supporting each other (cf. Acts 4:32-35). And this is already a missionary proclamation, before and even more than words, because it embodies the beauty of Jesus’ message in the tangibility of life. Indeed, a family or a community that lives in this way creates around it an environment rich in love, in which it is easier to open oneself to faith and the newness of the Gospel, and from which one starts out better, one starts out more serene.

If, on the other hand, everyone goes his or her way, if only material things count – which are never enough – if one does not listen, if individualism and envy prevail – envy is something lethal, a poison! – individualism and envy prevail, the air becomes heavy, life becomes difficult, and encounters become an occasion of restlessness, sadness and discouragement, rather than an occasion of joy (cf. Mt. 19:22).

Dear brothers and sisters, communion and sobriety are important values for our Christian life: communion, harmony among us, and sobriety are important values, indispensable values for a Church to be missionary at all levels.

We can ask ourselves, then: do I taste the pleasure of proclaiming the Gospel, of bringing, where I live, the joy and light that come from an encounter with the Lord? And in order to do this, do I commit myself to walking together with others, sharing ideas and skills with them, with an open mind and with a generous heart? And finally: do I know how to cultivate a lifestyle that is sober, a lifestyle that is attentive to the needs of my brothers and sisters? They are questions that it is good to ask ourselves.

May Mary, Queen of Apostles, help us to be true missionary disciples, in communion and sobriety of life. In communion, in harmony among us and in the sobriety of life.

14.07.24

I wanted to thank the Archbishop, for many things, but especially for one: that he did not “talk” about the sick... He named them! He knows them by name! And this is an example, because charity is tangible, love is tangible. I thank the Archbishop very much because he has this habit. Every person, healthy or sick, big or small, every person has dignity. Dignity is seen with a name, and he knows their names. Very beautiful. Now I hope he will keep going with this knowledge, because once I came across a parish priest from the mountains — he was the parish priest of three villages — and I said to him, “But tell me, do you know the people by name?”. And he answered, “I even know the names of the families’ dogs!”. Now I hope he will continue on and learn the dogs’ names.

Before the final blessing, I would like to greet you all, gathered in this evocative square. I thank the bishop for his words and above all for the preparation of the visit, and along with him those who have collaborated, especially for the liturgy — they are good, these liturgy ones; a round of applause for the maestro and everyone — and for the many services; as well as the many people who have participated with prayer. I assure my closeness to the sick — I greeted many of them — the inmates, who wanted to be present, migrants — Trieste is an open door for migrants — and to all those who are struggling the most.

Trieste is one of those cities that have the vocation of making diverse people meet: first and foremost because it is a port. It is an important port, and then because it is situated at the crossroads between Italy, central Europe and the Balkans. In these situations, the challenge for the ecclesial and civil communities is to know how to combine openness and stability, acceptance and identity. And then it makes me want to say: you have your “papers in order”. Thank you! You have your “papers in order” to face this challenge! As Christians we have the Gospel, which gives meaning and hope to our life; and as citizens you have the Constitution, a reliable “compass” for the path of democracy.

And so, keep going! Keep going. Without fear, open and steadfast in human and Christian values, welcoming but without compromises on human dignity. This is nothing to joke about.

From this city, let us renew our commitment to pray and work for peace: for martyred Ukraine, for Palestine and Israel, for Sudan, Myanmar and every people that suffers because of war. Let us invoke the intercession of the Virgin Mary, venerated on Monte Grisa as Mother and Queen.

07.07.24 a

To rekindle hope in broken hearts and support the burdens of the journey, God has always raised up prophets among his people. Yet, as today’s First Reading recounts in the story of Ezekiel, they often encountered a rebellious people, obstinate children with hardened hearts (cf. Ez 2:4), and were rejected.

Jesus, too, experienced the same thing as the prophets. He returned to Nazareth, his homeland, among the people he grew up with, but he was not recognized and was even rejected: “He came to his own home, and his own people received him not” (Jn 1:11). The Gospel tells us that Jesus was a cause of scandal to them (cf. Mk 6:3), but the word “scandal” does not refer to something obscene or indecent as we use it today; scandal means “a stumbling block,” that is, an obstacle, a hindrance, something that impedes you and prevents you from going further. Let us ask ourselves: What is the obstacle that prevents believing in Jesus?

Listening to the discussions of his fellow townspeople, we see that they stop only at his earthly history, at his family origin, and so they cannot understand how such wisdom, and even the ability to perform miracles, could come from the son of Joseph the carpenter; that is, from an ordinary person. The scandal, then, is Jesus’ humanity. The obstacle preventing these people from recognizing God’s presence in Jesus is the fact that he is human, simply Joseph the carpenter’s son: how can God, the Almighty, reveal himself in the fragility of human flesh? How can an omnipotent and strong God, who created the earth and freed his people from slavery, become weak enough to come in the flesh and lower himself to wash the disciples’ feet? This is the scandal.

Brothers and sisters: a faith founded on a human God, who lowers himself towards humanity, who cares for it, who is moved by our wounds, who takes on our weariness, who for us is broken like bread. A strong and powerful God, who is on my side and satisfies me in everything, is attractive; a weak God, a God who dies on the cross out of love and who asks me to overcome all selfishness and offer my life for the salvation of the world; and this, brothers and sisters, is a scandal.

Yet, as we stand before the Lord Jesus and gaze upon the challenges that confront us, upon the many social and political issues discussed even in this Social Week, upon the concrete lives of our people and their struggles, we can say that what we need today is precisely this: scandal. We need the scandal of faith. We do not need a religiosity closed in on itself, that looks up to heaven without caring about what happens on earth and celebrates liturgies in the temple but forgets the dust blowing in our streets. Instead, we need the scandal of faith. We need the scandal of faith, a faith rooted in the God who became man and, therefore, a human faith, a faith of flesh, that enters history, that touches people’s lives, that heals broken hearts, that becomes a leaven of hope and a seed of a new world. It is a faith that awakens consciences from lethargy, that puts its finger in wounds, in the wounds of society — there are many of them — a faith that raises questions about the future of humanity and history; it is a restless faith, and we need to live a restless life, a faith that moves from heart to heart, a faith that receives from outside society’s problems, a restless faith that helps us overcome mediocrity and lethargy of the heart, that becomes a thorn in the flesh of a society often anaesthetized and dazed by consumerism. And I will focus on this for a moment... It is said that our society is somewhat anaesthetized and dazed by consumerism. Have you wondered if consumerism has entered your hearts? That anxiety to have, to have things, to have more, that anxiety about wasting money. Consumerism is a wound, it is a cancer: it makes your heart sick, it makes you selfish, it makes you look only at yourself. Brothers and sisters, we need, above all, a faith that disrupts the calculations of human selfishness, that denounces evil, that points a finger at injustices, that disturbs the schemes of those who, in the shadow of power, puts those who are weak at risk. And how many, how many — we know it — use faith to take advantage of people. That is not faith.

A poet from this city, describing in a poem his usual return home in the evening, says he crosses a somewhat dark street, a place of decay where the people and the goods of the port are “debris”, that is, scraps of humanity; yet precisely here, he writes — I quote: “I discover, passing by, the infinite in humility”, because the prostitute and the sailor, the quarrelsome woman and the soldier, “are all creatures of life and of sufferance; He stirs up within them, same as in me, our Lord” (U. Saba, “Città vecchia”, in Il canzoniere (1900-1954) Edizione definitiva, Torino, Einaudi, 1961). Let us not forget this: God is hidden in the dark corners of the life of our city — have you thought about this? — in the dark corners of the life of our city. His presence reveals itself precisely in the faces hollowed out by suffering and where degradation seems to triumph. God’s infinity is concealed in human misery, the Lord stirs and makes himself present, and he becomes a friendly presence precisely in the wounded flesh of the least, the forgotten and the discarded. The Lord manifests himself there. And we, who are sometimes scandalized unnecessarily by so many little things, would do well instead to ask ourselves: Why are we not scandalized in the face of rampant evil, life being humiliated, labour issues, the sufferings of migrants? Why do we remain apathetic and indifferent to the injustices of the world? Why do we not take to heart the situation of prisoners, which even from this city of Trieste rises as a cry of anguish? Why do we not contemplate misery, pain, the rejection of so many people in the city? We are afraid, we are afraid of finding Christ there.

Dear friends, Jesus lived in his flesh the prophecy of everyday life, entering into the daily lives and stories of the people, manifesting compassion within events, and he manifested his being God, who is compassionate. And because of this, some people were scandalized by him. He became an obstacle, he was rejected even to the point of being tried and condemned; yet, he remained faithful to his mission. He did not hide behind ambiguity, did not compromise with the logic of political and religious power. He made his life an offering of love to the Father. So, too, we Christians are called to be prophets and witnesses of the Kingdom of God, in all the situations we live in, in every place we inhabit.

Brothers and sisters, from this city of Trieste, overlooking Europe, a crossroads of peoples and cultures, a borderland, let us nurture the dream of a new civilization founded on peace and fraternity; let us not be scandalized by Jesus but, on the contrary, let us be indignant at all those situations where life is degraded, wounded and killed; let us bear the prophecy of the Gospel in our flesh, with our choices even before our words. That coherence between choices and words. And to this Church of Trieste, I would like to say: Go forward! Onward! Continue to be on the front line to spread the Gospel of hope, especially towards those arriving from the Balkan route and towards all those who, in body or spirit, need to be encouraged and comforted. Let us commit ourselves together: because by discovering that we are loved by the Father, we can all live as brothers and sisters. All brothers and sisters, with that smile of welcoming and of peace in the soul. Thank you.

07.07.24