Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!

Today the Reading from the Acts of the Apostles enables us to see that the first tensions and the first dissension also arose in the early Church. There are conflicts in life, the question is how we confront them. Until that time the unity of the Christian communities had been fostered by belonging to one single ethnicity, and to one single culture, that of the Jews. But when Christianity, which by the will of Jesus is destined for all peoples, opened up to the Greek cultural atmosphere, this homogeneity is lost and the first difficulties arose. At that time, discontent was spreading, there was grumbling, rumours of favouritism and unequal treatment circling. This happens in our parishes too! The community’s help to those in need — widows, orphans and the poor in general — seems to favour Christians of Jewish extraction over others.

And so, faced with this conflict, the Apostles take the situation into their own hands: they call a meeting that is also open to the disciples, and they discuss the matter together. Everyone. Problems, in fact, are not resolved by pretending that they do not exist! And this frank and open exchange between pastors and the other faithful is beautiful. They then come to the subdivision of some of the tasks. The Apostles make a proposal that is welcomed by all: they will dedicate themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word, while seven men, deacons, will provide for the service of the tables for the poor. These seven men are not chosen because they are experts in business, but because they are honest men of good repute, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom; and they are established in the service through the imposition of hands by the Apostles.

So from that malcontent, that grumbling, from those rumours of favouritism and unequal treatment, they arrive at a solution.

Conflicts in the Church are resolved by facing one other, by discussing and praying. By facing each other, by discussing and praying, with the certainty that gossip, envy, jealousy can never bring us to concord, harmony or peace. There, too, it was the Holy Spirit who crowned this understanding, and this enables us to understand that when we let ourselves to be guided by the Holy Spirit, he brings us to harmony, unity and respect for various gifts and talents. Have you understood well? No gossiping, no envy, no jealousy! Understood?

May the Virgin Mary help us to be docile to the Holy Spirit, so that we may be able to esteem one another and converge ever more deeply in faith and love, keeping our hearts open to the needs of our brothers.

18.05.14

The ordained ministry is a gift which should be appreciated and shared.

Jesus offers this gift to deacons, priests, and bishops so they might serve others.

I invite everyone and even myself to reflect upon St Paul's first letter to Timothy, todays first reading (1 Tim 4:12-16), focusing on the word "gift", on the ministry as a gift to be contemplated, following Paul's advice to the young disciple: "Do not neglect the gift you have".

It is not a job contract: ‘I have to do it’. The act of doing is in the second place. I must receive the gift and care for it, and from there flows all the rest: in contemplation of the gift. When we forget this, we appropriate the gift, and turn it into a function, then we lose the heart of ministry and lose Jesus’ gaze who looked upon us and said: ‘Follow me.’ Gratuitousness is lost.

If we do not contemplate the gift we have received, all the deviations we can imagine are unleashed, from the most horrible – which are terrible – to the most mundane, which make us turn our ministry into being about us, rather than about the gratuitousness of the gift and about our love for He who gave us the gift of ministry.

A gift "which was conferred on you through the prophetic word with the imposition of hands of the priests" (1 Tim 4: 14) and that applies to bishops and also to priests and deacons. It is important to contemplate ministry as a gift and not as a function. We do what we can, with good intentions, intelligence, and "even with a little cunning", but always taking care of the gift.

It is human to forget the centrality of a gift, as the Pharisee does in today’s Gospel (Lk 7:36-50) when he forgets several rules of hospitality as he welcomes Jesus to his table.

There was this man, a good man, a good Pharisee but he had forgotten the gift of courtesy, the gift of hospitality – which is also a gift. Gifts are always forgotten when there is some sort of self-interest involved, when I want to do this or that thing – always doing, doing… Yes, we priests must all do things, and our first task is to proclaim the Gospel, but we must take care of our centre, our source from which our mission flows, which is the gift we have freely received from the Lord.

May the Lord help us to care for this gift, to consider our ministry above all as a gift, then as service, so as not to ruin it and not to become entrepreneurs, businessmen and the many things that distance us from the contemplation of the gift and the Lord who gave us the gift of ministry.

19.09.19