---

A good Feast to all. In the past, the saints enjoyed great popularity. Churches were full of their altars and statues. And we were more appealed to them than to God. Why? We know that God is our Father and takes care his sons and daughters. However, perhaps we feel him rather distant, far from the concrete problems of our lives. Instead, we feel the saints very close to us because, in this world, they had to pass through the same problems ass us, and so we feel them as friends to whom we can entrust our complaints and receive from them comfort and help.

So, it is not surprising that in the face of every difficulty, for every illness, for every problem, there is a patron saint. They are those brothers and sisters who have had to face every problem, the same problem as us, and therefore, we consider that they can understand our pain and anguish. If you have sores that do not heal, whom do you trust spontaneously? In Saint Roque, he also had sores, and that's why he can understand my pain; if one has eye problems, he turns to Saint Lucy; the one who has gout disease to Saint Blaise. Then, some saints have gone through all our vicissitudes, there is even a patron saint against baldness; there is a patron saint against obesity, against the vice of gambling, kleptomania, and headache.

This rapport, this confidential relationship with the saints is beautiful and should be cultivated. Of course, we do not go to them asking to present a recommendation to God, to work miracles, no, let's leave the miracles to the doctors. But these brothers and sisters who are in the full light of God show us with their lives how to live the difficult moments, the difficulties that they, like us, have had to go through. To involve us in the evangelical choices, that these holy brothers and sisters have made, today's liturgy invites us to reflect on the beatitudes proposed by Jesus on the Mount. Beatitudes that place before us the life choices the saints made and that we too are invited to make if we want to be like them, if we want to secure our lives.

What does it mean to call a person blessed? When do we in our world say of a person that he is blessed? We say it when we think that he is a happy person: she is young, beautiful, healthy, successful and above all, she has a lot of money... people say she's blessed and lucky. But is it true? Will those things be enough to make a person happy? In the Bible, to call a person blessed means to compliment him; it means to say to him 'Well done, you're a successful person.' What's the problem? It's about making it clear from whom you want to receive this compliment.

If you want them to say that you're blessed, that you've succeeded in life, and the one who's telling you according to the criteria of this world, according to the pagan ideals of our society, shared also unfortunately, by many Christians, it will be enough for you to do the opposite of what you will soon hear Jesus propose. You can be sure that if you do the opposite of what Jesus tells you, people will admire you and say, 'This is a successful man' and envy you; if you accumulate money, vacation houses, people will say, 'What a happy person – he has houses on the beach, luxury cars.'

Let's be careful; it is not right for Christians to hear proclaiming 'blessed,' 'happy' the one Jesus says is a loser, the one who has made a mistake in life, the one who has accumulated goods. Jesus says, 'Woe to you, you are a loser.' Let Christians be careful not to use the language of the pagans. If we want God to shake hands with us at the end of life and say, 'Congratulations, you're a saint, you look like the saint that is Jesus of Nazareth,' then we must embody those Beatitudes which we shall soon hear pronounced by Jesus. Let us listen, first of all, to where the evangelist Matthew describes the proposal of a blessed person made by Jesus:

 

“When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying.”

 

In life, people seek only one thing: joy. Everything they do is to be happy. The problem is that they can miss the target. In Hebrew, sin is called 'hatat,' which means to miss the mark. For example, the person who seeks joy but only finds pleasure is disappointed. This is the sin that is not born of wickedness but of ignorance. God will never punish the sinner because he is a poor wretch who has the wrong goal, and the Lord will only want one thing, that this son of his may find joy as soon as possible. Today, Jesus reveals to us the secret of joy. In the end, it will come down to whether, ultimately, we will trust his proposal, or we prefer to continue with our cunning to reach joy and sin, to miss the target.

The evangelist Matthew says that Jesus made his proposal on the mountain. Christian devotion has identified this mountain with the hill that dominates Capernaum (you see it behind me); among those trees in the background, there is also the church of the Beatitudes, which I will show you soon. The place is very impressive, but the mountain that Matthew mentions is not a material mountain; it is not the one behind in the picture. How is it that this image of the mountain is often repeated in the Bible? In the cultures of all peoples of antiquity the seat of the gods was imagined on the top of the mountains. We remember Olympus, for example, for the Greeks. The mountain protrudes from the plain, and it is as if it penetrates the sky so that to climb the mountain is to approach God, to find divinity. In the Bible, we find Moses, who climbs the mountain when he wants to meet God. Elijah goes up the mountain, and Jesus also takes Peter, James, and John to the mountain because it's on it where a certain experience of God is made, and God's thoughts, feelings, and judgments are assimilated.

Let us try to develop this precious symbolism of the mountain coming out of the plain. In the plain life is regulated according to the criteria developed by people, what they have been invented, and that for God is nonsense. These criteria are easy to enumerate; we all know them very well what are the opinions circulating in the plain to get joy: ‘What matters is health ... is really the only thing that matters; what counts is success. Happy is the one who has a big bank account; Happy is the one who can travel, I'm only interested in sex; I don't consider sacrificing myself for others.’ These are the suggestions one hears on the plain; it is the standard way of reasoning and the wisdom of the people.

Will he who pursues these ideals attain joy? Not to run the risk of betting one's life on erroneous values. and thus lose the opportunity to be happy it is wise to detach oneself, at least for a moment, from the plain and to climb the mountain to know how God thinks and what his beatitudes are. Then, we will be free to return to the plain to trust again in people's way of thinking or to believe a little in the way that Jesus proposes, but then, to avoid regrets, we can always go back to the plain... we can always do it, but since we are smart, let's at least climb this mountain... to hear from the mouth of Jesus how God thinks. Let's listen to the first beatitude that he proposes to us:

 

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

 

Let's be careful and try to correctly interpret this beatitude that has been interpreted in many ways. We have, for example, a tradition of the Church which justifies the following interpretation: 'One can be even very rich, accumulating goods, but if he has detached his heart from these goods... and has given much alms, cares for the poor, is a good rich man....' No. Jesus proclaims the poor blessed.

Who is the poor? It's very simple: The one who has nothing. There are two kinds of poor: one who has become poor because some misfortune has befallen him: an earthquake, a disease, a war, a flood, who has destroyed his house and his fields and is left with nothing... Is this the poor man proclaimed blessed by Jesus? No. This interpretation would be absurd, misleading, and contrary to the Gospel. In the Old Testament God promises his people that 'no one among you shall be poor,' and in the Acts of the Apostles, it is stated that in the early church, the brethren shared all goods, and no one among them was poor, because the world that God wants is not a world of the wretched but a world in which all his sons and daughters are happy.

This is not the poverty that is proclaimed blessed. Jesus does not address to the disinherited, to the beggars of Capernaum, he addresses his disciples. Blessed are the poor, not the ragged and miserable, but the poor in spirit. What does it mean in spirit? The impulse that we feel instinctively within us is the one that drives us not to deprive ourselves of our goods and become poor but to keep them for ourselves and accumulate them more and more, and we never have enough, not for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, or our great-grandchildren.

This is the impulse that we feel instinctively. The spirit takes us in the opposite direction. That is to say, to divest ourselves of these goods, not to keep them for ourselves but to give them to the needy, to the poor. Blessed is the poor man who allows himself to be guided by the Spirit and does not retain for himself the gifts that God has placed in his hands. Blessed is he who, at the end of his life, is left with nothing because he gave all that he had to the poor; he who has not given all, when he arrives at the customs post, what he has not given is taken from him and is lost forever because it has not been transformed into love. It is love that remains.

Who is the blessed one? It is Jesus of Nazareth who was left with nothing because he gave his whole life, he kept to himself not a moment of his life; everything was a gift. This is the blessed one to whom the Father in heaven says, 'You are truly my son; you have built the kingdom of God.' The promise made to these poor in spirit. I repeat, not to those who have been stricken by misfortune, no; he is poor in spirit who has been touched by the life of the son of God, which has been given to him by the heavenly Father, and therefore, it is a life that leads him to love and to give his all.

What is the promise? "The kingdom of heaven is theirs." The kingdom of heaven is of these poor, not paradise. When you become poor out of love, moved by the Spirit, you belong to the kingdom of God. This is the first proposal of joy that Jesus makes to us. Let us listen to the second:

 

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

 

For many Christians, even today, it is easier to associate God with suffering and pain than with joy and happiness. There is a whole spirituality of the past that invited to offer sacrifices to God, to endure with much patience one's sufferings, the crosses that the Lord sent. So, the beatitude would be this, 'Blessed are you the afflicted, that is, those who have sufferings to offer to God'. This spirituality has led many people to turn away from the Church and consider Christianity the enemy of joy when the Gospel is exactly the opposite. It is the announcement of joy and happiness.

What mourning is Jesus talking about? It is not the affliction due to some misfortune. God does not want pain; he does not want misfortunes. The affliction of which Jesus speaks is that which he experienced, it is that sorrow so strong that it manifested itself in weeping when he realized that his people, whom he loved with madness, rejected his proposal of the new world and that, therefore, they were inevitably going to ruin and he burst into tears. This is the affliction that the Blessed One feels.

Where does this affliction come from? From love. Blessed, says Jesus, is he who loves so much as to burst into tears when the joy of the kingdom of God is rejected. If we turn our eyes to the world, what do we see today? Wars, violence of all kinds, injustices, falsehood, hypocrisies; we see a world that boasts of having excluded God from human coexistence. In the face of this reality, one could disengage oneself and focus on his affairs and try to feel comfortable, and then he would not suffer, he would not cry, he would not be afflicted... but he would not be blessed because he would not show love.

Blessed is he who suffers because he lives with passion the commitment to build the kingdom of God and a humanity where all are sons and daughters of the one Father and live as brothers and sisters. The sadness of the blessed one does not come from the fact that he feels bad, but from the fact that in the world, things are going wrong. And at that moment, what is the temptation? To resign oneself in order not to suffer, to become disinterested in others, to withdraw into one's little world, and to drop one's arms. If the evil one convinces you that the new world is a dream, he has won.

The promise of those who continue to love even if there is weeping is, "they will be comforted." God is on their side; he is on the side of those who love even though they feel pain. God will console them; the new world will also be born with their cooperation. Let us listen to the third beatitude:

 

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land."

 

The adjective 'meek' evokes the image of a calm person who does not react to provocations. Is this the meek person Jesus is talking about? He indeed avoids all forms of conflict, but he also reveals a relatively weak personality.

What does this beatitude of the meek mean, then? To understand it, we must refer to Psalm 37 because Jesus did not invent this beatitude; he took it from this Psalm which he undoubtedly knew by heart because it shows that he had assimilated all this spirituality of meekness present in this Psalm. It speaks of a man who never yields to temptation to react with violence. He says, 'Turn away from anger, lay down your indignation, do not become irritated because you will end up doing evil, you will increase the evil instead of remedying it.’ This is 'wrath'. The Bible often speaks of God's wrath, which is his love. It also speaks of man's wrath, which is dangerous because it is an impulse that God puts in us, and if one does not feel anger in the face of injustice towards the poor, it is a pathology. The problem is that we can lose the control of anger, that instead of pointing us only to the duty to intervene, it leads us to attack, thus increasing the evil instead of solving it.

Let us be careful, then. Meekness is not an invitation to resignation, it is the right way to react when we see an injustice. Let's observe that this beatitude comes after that of those who mourn, of those who suffer because they see that things are not going according to God. The first temptation was to disregard things going wrong because one does not want to suffer; this is the first temptation. The second temptation is to get angry and think of resolving the conflict with aggression and violence and thus, add more evil to what already exists. Jesus is the meek one, and, indeed, he has applied this adjective to himself, "Learn from me that I am meek and humble of heart." He lived dramatic conflicts with the political power, with the religious power, but he lived them with the attitudes and the feelings that characterize the meek, that is, as those who fight for justice without ever adding to evil.

The promise to the meek: "They shall possess the land." Let us read well, not 'paradise' but 'the land.' The land is the promise that they will become the builders of a new earth with God. Today, we see that the land often belongs to the violent, arrogant, selfish, and those who spread a hedonistic culture. God says, 'With your meekness, God will build the new earth with you.' Let us now listen to the fourth beatitude:

 

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied."

 

What righteousness is Jesus talking about? Let us be careful because the term righteousness is very dangerous because it is equivocal. Remember that the guillotine was called 'the wood of justice' because it executed. That's how they did justice, and when a criminal was imprisoned or even sent to the gallows, it was said 'now justice has been done.' I remember a governor who signed the death sentence of a criminal who had killed two police officers and did it with the fountain pen that belonged to one of them. After signing the death sentence, he put down the fountain pen and said, 'Now justice has been done.'

Is this the justice that Jesus wants, that we yearn for as water the thirsty or bread the hungry? The answer is certainly No. Let us be careful because as this is the righteousness for many, they apply it even to God; they cause him to do this justice, which is vindictive, to make those who have done evil pay. What justice is Jesus talking about? It is about the plan of love God wants to carry out in this world; this is the justice he wants to establish. The justice of God is that all become aware that they are his sons and daughters and that all are brothers and sisters and to live sharing goods, to feel as their own the pain of those who are next to them, to be capable of forgiveness to turn enemies into brothers. This is the justice we should long for. Blessed is the one who wants to realize this righteousness and longs for it like water for the thirsty one who walks in the desert. These are the basic needs that Jesus takes as an example of those who want to establish in the world his righteousness.

The promise: "They will be satisfied." Also, here, the danger is to think that this justice is a dream of Jesus of Nazareth. No, says Jesus, they will be satisfied. Let us now listen to the fifth beatitude:

 

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy."

 

In our language, we tend to identify mercy with compassion. When we say that a person is merciful because he knows how to forgive, he is magnanimous; he does not second the impulse that leads him to make pay those who have done her wrong; she knows how to be always indulgent. And we also apply this mercy to God so that God is the one who, in the face of the evil that we commit, always knows how to forgive, but this mercy in God has problems because it is not by justice. If God is a just judge, he cannot be merciful, and so understood the rabbis, who could not reconcile these two aspects of God: his justice and mercy. Putting them in agreement is impossible; one or the other must disappear.

This justice that reflects our justice must disappear from God, our way to judge. God is only mercy. ‘Hesed', in Hebrew, means unconditional and faithful love because if God is a just judge, he cannot be merciful. God is merciful in the sense that no sin, no rejection of man, can turn him away from this passion of love. The gold of which God is made is love, and it is pure gold; there is nothing else in God. How is this mercy manifested in God, that is, this unconditional love we see in Jesus of Nazareth?

We capture it in a parable which is that of the Samaritan. The Samaritan is Jesus; he is the one who met the humanity that had fallen in the hands of of the bandits and that remained half dead, and in this Samaritan is reflected also the merciful behavior of the man who resembles the Father in Heaven. What are the moments in which mercy is manifested in this Samaritan, who is Jesus and who wants to be as merciful as God? There are three moments in which one sees whether one is merciful.

First moment: he sees, he realizes that the other is in need, he is not insensitive, he does not look away, doesn't try to distract himself, thinking that as long as something is good for me, he can look to the other side. The first moment when the merciful one manifests is the one whose eyes are open, there is no need for the other person to cry for help; he sees the need for his brother. Second moment: He feels compassion, and he pities, i.e., he suffers with, 'esplankenísei' in Greek means that he feels as his own what is happening to his brother in need, and it is this inner impulse of love that compels him to intervene. The third moment of mercy: When he has seen the brother who is in need and can do something, he intervenes immediately. This is the mercy of which Jesus speaks to us in the beatitude. Those who are in tune with the mercy of God and Jesus of Nazareth; therefore, these sons and daughters of God are in tune with his love, they will find mercy. It does not mean that God will turn a blind eye to their sins; no; it means that these people are in tune with the heart of God, which is love and only love. Let's listen now to the sixth beatitude:

 

"Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God."

 

For us, the heart is the seat of the emotions and feelings, but for the Semites more than the emotions and feelings, the heart was the center of all the choices, of all the decisions. The Semites decide with the heart. And the heart can be pure or impure. We understand by 'pure gold’ that which is not mixed with other metals; 'pure coffee,' there are no substitutes; 'this is the pure truth,' there is no lie; 'this is pure fantasy' means it has no connection with reality. When is the heart pure? When there is only God who dictates the choices that direct all decisions that are made. Impure is the heart where there is a jumble of gods and idols giving orders. When not only God is in the heart, then many choices will continue to be based on money giving its orders, of pride, of greed, of moral licentiousness.

The promise to those who have a pure heart: "They will see God," that is, they will experience God. Sometimes, non-believers ask us, ‘How can I believe in God?’ We think that we have to convince them with reasoning; the problem is that they cannot see God as long as they have this disorder in their heart. First, they must purify the heart, and only then can they experience God. Let us now listen to the seventh beatitude:

 

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God."

 

This beatitude translated as ‘peacemakers’ does not give the real meaning. In our way of talking means those who always try to get along with everyone and who also try to make peace between people. In the time of Jesus, the rabbis said, 'Hasot Shalom,’ that is, to build peace between families and people was a very worthy work before God, but this interpretation is reductive.

The Beatitude of Jesus has a much broader meaning. First of all, the term that is used to proclaim these blessed persons are εἰρηνοποιός - eirenopoiós', which is composed of two Greek words: 'eirene' meaning peace, and 'poiéin' meaning to make. Blessed, therefore, are those who labor to build peace. The Greek word εἰρηνοποιός only appears here in the entire New Testament, but it was in common usage in classical Greek. Especially the emperors called themselves εἰρηνοποιός, i.e., artificers and peacemakers like Caesar and Commodus; they presented themselves as 'the peacemaker’ of the world, especially Augustus, who, with his legions and many crimes, had brought peace to the whole empire and presented himself as the peacemaker. Virgil in the Aeneid, addressing him, pronounces that famous phrase, 'Remember, O Roman, that to rule the world with your dominion, your task is to enforce peace.'

Are these the peacemakers that Jesus proclaims blessed? The answer is No. What does Jesus mean by εἰρηνοποιός, peacemakers? The Hebrew term we know well is שָׁלוֹם - Shalom, which presupposes that there be no disagreements or wars; the peace Jesus speaks of is much broader; it indicates the fullness of life; indicates the presence of all those goods that enable people to be happy. This is the order of the world willed by God. This is the peace of which Jesus speaks. Those who creates the economic conditions, social, cultural, and political conditions that foster this peace are the blessed of whom Jesus speaks.

The promise: God calls them his children. "They will be called children of God" means that addressing them, God says to them, 'you are truly my children' because what God wants is this peace, that is, well-being, joy, happiness and life for all his sons and daughters. When these conditions are built that allows all to be happy God turns to these builders and says to them, 'You are truly my sons and daughters.’ Let us now listen to the last beatitude:

 

"Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.”

 

We have climbed the mountain to listen to the proposal of a happy, blessed life made by Jesus. We are glad to have heard it and also to have understood this proposal. However, we cannot remain always in the mountain, we must go down to the plain, we must go back among the people who reason differently, follow other criteria and values, and choose other beatitudes. And that's why we want to ask Jesus how we will be received there in the plain and find ourselves among the people if we will be coherent with what he has taught us.

And Jesus answers us with an eighth beatitude: 'Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,' that is, persecuted because they want the new righteousness, the righteousness of the kingdom of God, to be established in the world. It tells us clearly, keep in mind: 'You will not have it easy; they will insult you, they will persecute you, they will say all kinds of evil against you because of me.' Therefore, there is a price to pay if one chooses the beatitudes of Jesus. It is as if he says to us, 'Keep in mind that when you see your lives so different from theirs, when they hear you speak of gratuitousness, of sharing of goods, of attention to the least, to the poor, of a relationship of faithful, unconditional conjugal love, they will oppose you or at least mock you, but I assure you that you will be blessed.’

He gives two reasons for this blessedness; the first for those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake is the kingdom of heaven; and then ‘great is your reward in heaven.’ When we hear of heaven, our thoughts spontaneously run to the reward the faithful servants will receive in paradise, in the afterlife. No, let us note well, the two promises made by Jesus are in the present: of the persecuted 'is' the kingdom of heaven, 'now' belongs to them the kingdom of heaven, and then, great 'is' their reward in heaven. Heaven, not paradise, it is the kingdom of God, the new world which has already begun here and is present in all who live the beatitudes of Jesus.

The persecuted are not happy despite persecution but because of the persecutions they suffer, and they are invited to rejoice not because one day the persecutions and sufferings will end, but because 'today,' being persecuted you have the proof that you live differently from others, not according to the criteria of the old world but according to the new righteousness, and it is from this deep and intimate conviction from which derive in the believer the joy and peace promised by Jesus.

I wish you all a happy holiday and a good week.

---

A good Feast to all. In the past, the saints enjoyed great popularity. Churches were full of their altars and statues. And we were more appealed to them than to God. Why? We know that God is our Father and takes care his sons and daughters. However, perhaps we feel him rather distant, far from the concrete problems of our lives. Instead, we feel the saints very close to us because, in this world, they had to pass through the same problems ass us, and so we feel them as friends to whom we can entrust our complaints and receive from them comfort and help.

So, it is not surprising that in the face of every difficulty, for every illness, for every problem, there is a patron saint. They are those brothers and sisters who have had to face every problem, the same problem as us, and therefore, we consider that they can understand our pain and anguish. If you have sores that do not heal, whom do you trust spontaneously? In Saint Roque, he also had sores, and that's why he can understand my pain; if one has eye problems, he turns to Saint Lucy; the one who has gout disease to Saint Blaise. Then, some saints have gone through all our vicissitudes, there is even a patron saint against baldness; there is a patron saint against obesity, against the vice of gambling, kleptomania, and headache.

This rapport, this confidential relationship with the saints is beautiful and should be cultivated. Of course, we do not go to them asking to present a recommendation to God, to work miracles, no, let's leave the miracles to the doctors. But these brothers and sisters who are in the full light of God show us with their lives how to live the difficult moments, the difficulties that they, like us, have had to go through. To involve us in the evangelical choices, that these holy brothers and sisters have made, today's liturgy invites us to reflect on the beatitudes proposed by Jesus on the Mount. Beatitudes that place before us the life choices the saints made and that we too are invited to make if we want to be like them, if we want to secure our lives.

What does it mean to call a person blessed? When do we in our world say of a person that he is blessed? We say it when we think that he is a happy person: she is young, beautiful, healthy, successful and above all, she has a lot of money... people say she's blessed and lucky. But is it true? Will those things be enough to make a person happy? In the Bible, to call a person blessed means to compliment him; it means to say to him 'Well done, you're a successful person.' What's the problem? It's about making it clear from whom you want to receive this compliment.

If you want them to say that you're blessed, that you've succeeded in life, and the one who's telling you according to the criteria of this world, according to the pagan ideals of our society, shared also unfortunately, by many Christians, it will be enough for you to do the opposite of what you will soon hear Jesus propose. You can be sure that if you do the opposite of what Jesus tells you, people will admire you and say, 'This is a successful man' and envy you; if you accumulate money, vacation houses, people will say, 'What a happy person – he has houses on the beach, luxury cars.'

Let's be careful; it is not right for Christians to hear proclaiming 'blessed,' 'happy' the one Jesus says is a loser, the one who has made a mistake in life, the one who has accumulated goods. Jesus says, 'Woe to you, you are a loser.' Let Christians be careful not to use the language of the pagans. If we want God to shake hands with us at the end of life and say, 'Congratulations, you're a saint, you look like the saint that is Jesus of Nazareth,' then we must embody those Beatitudes which we shall soon hear pronounced by Jesus. Let us listen, first of all, to where the evangelist Matthew describes the proposal of a blessed person made by Jesus:

 

“When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying.”

 

In life, people seek only one thing: joy. Everything they do is to be happy. The problem is that they can miss the target. In Hebrew, sin is called 'hatat,' which means to miss the mark. For example, the person who seeks joy but only finds pleasure is disappointed. This is the sin that is not born of wickedness but of ignorance. God will never punish the sinner because he is a poor wretch who has the wrong goal, and the Lord will only want one thing, that this son of his may find joy as soon as possible. Today, Jesus reveals to us the secret of joy. In the end, it will come down to whether, ultimately, we will trust his proposal, or we prefer to continue with our cunning to reach joy and sin, to miss the target.

The evangelist Matthew says that Jesus made his proposal on the mountain. Christian devotion has identified this mountain with the hill that dominates Capernaum (you see it behind me); among those trees in the background, there is also the church of the Beatitudes, which I will show you soon. The place is very impressive, but the mountain that Matthew mentions is not a material mountain; it is not the one behind in the picture. How is it that this image of the mountain is often repeated in the Bible? In the cultures of all peoples of antiquity the seat of the gods was imagined on the top of the mountains. We remember Olympus, for example, for the Greeks. The mountain protrudes from the plain, and it is as if it penetrates the sky so that to climb the mountain is to approach God, to find divinity. In the Bible, we find Moses, who climbs the mountain when he wants to meet God. Elijah goes up the mountain, and Jesus also takes Peter, James, and John to the mountain because it's on it where a certain experience of God is made, and God's thoughts, feelings, and judgments are assimilated.

Let us try to develop this precious symbolism of the mountain coming out of the plain. In the plain life is regulated according to the criteria developed by people, what they have been invented, and that for God is nonsense. These criteria are easy to enumerate; we all know them very well what are the opinions circulating in the plain to get joy: ‘What matters is health ... is really the only thing that matters; what counts is success. Happy is the one who has a big bank account; Happy is the one who can travel, I'm only interested in sex; I don't consider sacrificing myself for others.’ These are the suggestions one hears on the plain; it is the standard way of reasoning and the wisdom of the people.

Will he who pursues these ideals attain joy? Not to run the risk of betting one's life on erroneous values. and thus lose the opportunity to be happy it is wise to detach oneself, at least for a moment, from the plain and to climb the mountain to know how God thinks and what his beatitudes are. Then, we will be free to return to the plain to trust again in people's way of thinking or to believe a little in the way that Jesus proposes, but then, to avoid regrets, we can always go back to the plain... we can always do it, but since we are smart, let's at least climb this mountain... to hear from the mouth of Jesus how God thinks. Let's listen to the first beatitude that he proposes to us:

 

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

 

Let's be careful and try to correctly interpret this beatitude that has been interpreted in many ways. We have, for example, a tradition of the Church which justifies the following interpretation: 'One can be even very rich, accumulating goods, but if he has detached his heart from these goods... and has given much alms, cares for the poor, is a good rich man....' No. Jesus proclaims the poor blessed.

Who is the poor? It's very simple: The one who has nothing. There are two kinds of poor: one who has become poor because some misfortune has befallen him: an earthquake, a disease, a war, a flood, who has destroyed his house and his fields and is left with nothing... Is this the poor man proclaimed blessed by Jesus? No. This interpretation would be absurd, misleading, and contrary to the Gospel. In the Old Testament God promises his people that 'no one among you shall be poor,' and in the Acts of the Apostles, it is stated that in the early church, the brethren shared all goods, and no one among them was poor, because the world that God wants is not a world of the wretched but a world in which all his sons and daughters are happy.

This is not the poverty that is proclaimed blessed. Jesus does not address to the disinherited, to the beggars of Capernaum, he addresses his disciples. Blessed are the poor, not the ragged and miserable, but the poor in spirit. What does it mean in spirit? The impulse that we feel instinctively within us is the one that drives us not to deprive ourselves of our goods and become poor but to keep them for ourselves and accumulate them more and more, and we never have enough, not for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, or our great-grandchildren.

This is the impulse that we feel instinctively. The spirit takes us in the opposite direction. That is to say, to divest ourselves of these goods, not to keep them for ourselves but to give them to the needy, to the poor. Blessed is the poor man who allows himself to be guided by the Spirit and does not retain for himself the gifts that God has placed in his hands. Blessed is he who, at the end of his life, is left with nothing because he gave all that he had to the poor; he who has not given all, when he arrives at the customs post, what he has not given is taken from him and is lost forever because it has not been transformed into love. It is love that remains.

Who is the blessed one? It is Jesus of Nazareth who was left with nothing because he gave his whole life, he kept to himself not a moment of his life; everything was a gift. This is the blessed one to whom the Father in heaven says, 'You are truly my son; you have built the kingdom of God.' The promise made to these poor in spirit. I repeat, not to those who have been stricken by misfortune, no; he is poor in spirit who has been touched by the life of the son of God, which has been given to him by the heavenly Father, and therefore, it is a life that leads him to love and to give his all.

What is the promise? "The kingdom of heaven is theirs." The kingdom of heaven is of these poor, not paradise. When you become poor out of love, moved by the Spirit, you belong to the kingdom of God. This is the first proposal of joy that Jesus makes to us. Let us listen to the second:

 

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

 

For many Christians, even today, it is easier to associate God with suffering and pain than with joy and happiness. There is a whole spirituality of the past that invited to offer sacrifices to God, to endure with much patience one's sufferings, the crosses that the Lord sent. So, the beatitude would be this, 'Blessed are you the afflicted, that is, those who have sufferings to offer to God'. This spirituality has led many people to turn away from the Church and consider Christianity the enemy of joy when the Gospel is exactly the opposite. It is the announcement of joy and happiness.

What mourning is Jesus talking about? It is not the affliction due to some misfortune. God does not want pain; he does not want misfortunes. The affliction of which Jesus speaks is that which he experienced, it is that sorrow so strong that it manifested itself in weeping when he realized that his people, whom he loved with madness, rejected his proposal of the new world and that, therefore, they were inevitably going to ruin and he burst into tears. This is the affliction that the Blessed One feels.

Where does this affliction come from? From love. Blessed, says Jesus, is he who loves so much as to burst into tears when the joy of the kingdom of God is rejected. If we turn our eyes to the world, what do we see today? Wars, violence of all kinds, injustices, falsehood, hypocrisies; we see a world that boasts of having excluded God from human coexistence. In the face of this reality, one could disengage oneself and focus on his affairs and try to feel comfortable, and then he would not suffer, he would not cry, he would not be afflicted... but he would not be blessed because he would not show love.

Blessed is he who suffers because he lives with passion the commitment to build the kingdom of God and a humanity where all are sons and daughters of the one Father and live as brothers and sisters. The sadness of the blessed one does not come from the fact that he feels bad, but from the fact that in the world, things are going wrong. And at that moment, what is the temptation? To resign oneself in order not to suffer, to become disinterested in others, to withdraw into one's little world, and to drop one's arms. If the evil one convinces you that the new world is a dream, he has won.

The promise of those who continue to love even if there is weeping is, "they will be comforted." God is on their side; he is on the side of those who love even though they feel pain. God will console them; the new world will also be born with their cooperation. Let us listen to the third beatitude:

 

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land."

 

The adjective 'meek' evokes the image of a calm person who does not react to provocations. Is this the meek person Jesus is talking about? He indeed avoids all forms of conflict, but he also reveals a relatively weak personality.

What does this beatitude of the meek mean, then? To understand it, we must refer to Psalm 37 because Jesus did not invent this beatitude; he took it from this Psalm which he undoubtedly knew by heart because it shows that he had assimilated all this spirituality of meekness present in this Psalm. It speaks of a man who never yields to temptation to react with violence. He says, 'Turn away from anger, lay down your indignation, do not become irritated because you will end up doing evil, you will increase the evil instead of remedying it.’ This is 'wrath'. The Bible often speaks of God's wrath, which is his love. It also speaks of man's wrath, which is dangerous because it is an impulse that God puts in us, and if one does not feel anger in the face of injustice towards the poor, it is a pathology. The problem is that we can lose the control of anger, that instead of pointing us only to the duty to intervene, it leads us to attack, thus increasing the evil instead of solving it.

Let us be careful, then. Meekness is not an invitation to resignation, it is the right way to react when we see an injustice. Let's observe that this beatitude comes after that of those who mourn, of those who suffer because they see that things are not going according to God. The first temptation was to disregard things going wrong because one does not want to suffer; this is the first temptation. The second temptation is to get angry and think of resolving the conflict with aggression and violence and thus, add more evil to what already exists. Jesus is the meek one, and, indeed, he has applied this adjective to himself, "Learn from me that I am meek and humble of heart." He lived dramatic conflicts with the political power, with the religious power, but he lived them with the attitudes and the feelings that characterize the meek, that is, as those who fight for justice without ever adding to evil.

The promise to the meek: "They shall possess the land." Let us read well, not 'paradise' but 'the land.' The land is the promise that they will become the builders of a new earth with God. Today, we see that the land often belongs to the violent, arrogant, selfish, and those who spread a hedonistic culture. God says, 'With your meekness, God will build the new earth with you.' Let us now listen to the fourth beatitude:

 

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied."

 

What righteousness is Jesus talking about? Let us be careful because the term righteousness is very dangerous because it is equivocal. Remember that the guillotine was called 'the wood of justice' because it executed. That's how they did justice, and when a criminal was imprisoned or even sent to the gallows, it was said 'now justice has been done.' I remember a governor who signed the death sentence of a criminal who had killed two police officers and did it with the fountain pen that belonged to one of them. After signing the death sentence, he put down the fountain pen and said, 'Now justice has been done.'

Is this the justice that Jesus wants, that we yearn for as water the thirsty or bread the hungry? The answer is certainly No. Let us be careful because as this is the righteousness for many, they apply it even to God; they cause him to do this justice, which is vindictive, to make those who have done evil pay. What justice is Jesus talking about? It is about the plan of love God wants to carry out in this world; this is the justice he wants to establish. The justice of God is that all become aware that they are his sons and daughters and that all are brothers and sisters and to live sharing goods, to feel as their own the pain of those who are next to them, to be capable of forgiveness to turn enemies into brothers. This is the justice we should long for. Blessed is the one who wants to realize this righteousness and longs for it like water for the thirsty one who walks in the desert. These are the basic needs that Jesus takes as an example of those who want to establish in the world his righteousness.

The promise: "They will be satisfied." Also, here, the danger is to think that this justice is a dream of Jesus of Nazareth. No, says Jesus, they will be satisfied. Let us now listen to the fifth beatitude:

 

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy."

 

In our language, we tend to identify mercy with compassion. When we say that a person is merciful because he knows how to forgive, he is magnanimous; he does not second the impulse that leads him to make pay those who have done her wrong; she knows how to be always indulgent. And we also apply this mercy to God so that God is the one who, in the face of the evil that we commit, always knows how to forgive, but this mercy in God has problems because it is not by justice. If God is a just judge, he cannot be merciful, and so understood the rabbis, who could not reconcile these two aspects of God: his justice and mercy. Putting them in agreement is impossible; one or the other must disappear.

This justice that reflects our justice must disappear from God, our way to judge. God is only mercy. ‘Hesed', in Hebrew, means unconditional and faithful love because if God is a just judge, he cannot be merciful. God is merciful in the sense that no sin, no rejection of man, can turn him away from this passion of love. The gold of which God is made is love, and it is pure gold; there is nothing else in God. How is this mercy manifested in God, that is, this unconditional love we see in Jesus of Nazareth?

We capture it in a parable which is that of the Samaritan. The Samaritan is Jesus; he is the one who met the humanity that had fallen in the hands of of the bandits and that remained half dead, and in this Samaritan is reflected also the merciful behavior of the man who resembles the Father in Heaven. What are the moments in which mercy is manifested in this Samaritan, who is Jesus and who wants to be as merciful as God? There are three moments in which one sees whether one is merciful.

First moment: he sees, he realizes that the other is in need, he is not insensitive, he does not look away, doesn't try to distract himself, thinking that as long as something is good for me, he can look to the other side. The first moment when the merciful one manifests is the one whose eyes are open, there is no need for the other person to cry for help; he sees the need for his brother. Second moment: He feels compassion, and he pities, i.e., he suffers with, 'esplankenísei' in Greek means that he feels as his own what is happening to his brother in need, and it is this inner impulse of love that compels him to intervene. The third moment of mercy: When he has seen the brother who is in need and can do something, he intervenes immediately. This is the mercy of which Jesus speaks to us in the beatitude. Those who are in tune with the mercy of God and Jesus of Nazareth; therefore, these sons and daughters of God are in tune with his love, they will find mercy. It does not mean that God will turn a blind eye to their sins; no; it means that these people are in tune with the heart of God, which is love and only love. Let's listen now to the sixth beatitude:

 

"Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God."

 

For us, the heart is the seat of the emotions and feelings, but for the Semites more than the emotions and feelings, the heart was the center of all the choices, of all the decisions. The Semites decide with the heart. And the heart can be pure or impure. We understand by 'pure gold’ that which is not mixed with other metals; 'pure coffee,' there are no substitutes; 'this is the pure truth,' there is no lie; 'this is pure fantasy' means it has no connection with reality. When is the heart pure? When there is only God who dictates the choices that direct all decisions that are made. Impure is the heart where there is a jumble of gods and idols giving orders. When not only God is in the heart, then many choices will continue to be based on money giving its orders, of pride, of greed, of moral licentiousness.

The promise to those who have a pure heart: "They will see God," that is, they will experience God. Sometimes, non-believers ask us, ‘How can I believe in God?’ We think that we have to convince them with reasoning; the problem is that they cannot see God as long as they have this disorder in their heart. First, they must purify the heart, and only then can they experience God. Let us now listen to the seventh beatitude:

 

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God."

 

This beatitude translated as ‘peacemakers’ does not give the real meaning. In our way of talking means those who always try to get along with everyone and who also try to make peace between people. In the time of Jesus, the rabbis said, 'Hasot Shalom,’ that is, to build peace between families and people was a very worthy work before God, but this interpretation is reductive.

The Beatitude of Jesus has a much broader meaning. First of all, the term that is used to proclaim these blessed persons are εἰρηνοποιός - eirenopoiós', which is composed of two Greek words: 'eirene' meaning peace, and 'poiéin' meaning to make. Blessed, therefore, are those who labor to build peace. The Greek word εἰρηνοποιός only appears here in the entire New Testament, but it was in common usage in classical Greek. Especially the emperors called themselves εἰρηνοποιός, i.e., artificers and peacemakers like Caesar and Commodus; they presented themselves as 'the peacemaker’ of the world, especially Augustus, who, with his legions and many crimes, had brought peace to the whole empire and presented himself as the peacemaker. Virgil in the Aeneid, addressing him, pronounces that famous phrase, 'Remember, O Roman, that to rule the world with your dominion, your task is to enforce peace.'

Are these the peacemakers that Jesus proclaims blessed? The answer is No. What does Jesus mean by εἰρηνοποιός, peacemakers? The Hebrew term we know well is שָׁלוֹם - Shalom, which presupposes that there be no disagreements or wars; the peace Jesus speaks of is much broader; it indicates the fullness of life; indicates the presence of all those goods that enable people to be happy. This is the order of the world willed by God. This is the peace of which Jesus speaks. Those who creates the economic conditions, social, cultural, and political conditions that foster this peace are the blessed of whom Jesus speaks.

The promise: God calls them his children. "They will be called children of God" means that addressing them, God says to them, 'you are truly my children' because what God wants is this peace, that is, well-being, joy, happiness and life for all his sons and daughters. When these conditions are built that allows all to be happy God turns to these builders and says to them, 'You are truly my sons and daughters.’ Let us now listen to the last beatitude:

 

"Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.”

 

We have climbed the mountain to listen to the proposal of a happy, blessed life made by Jesus. We are glad to have heard it and also to have understood this proposal. However, we cannot remain always in the mountain, we must go down to the plain, we must go back among the people who reason differently, follow other criteria and values, and choose other beatitudes. And that's why we want to ask Jesus how we will be received there in the plain and find ourselves among the people if we will be coherent with what he has taught us.

And Jesus answers us with an eighth beatitude: 'Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,' that is, persecuted because they want the new righteousness, the righteousness of the kingdom of God, to be established in the world. It tells us clearly, keep in mind: 'You will not have it easy; they will insult you, they will persecute you, they will say all kinds of evil against you because of me.' Therefore, there is a price to pay if one chooses the beatitudes of Jesus. It is as if he says to us, 'Keep in mind that when you see your lives so different from theirs, when they hear you speak of gratuitousness, of sharing of goods, of attention to the least, to the poor, of a relationship of faithful, unconditional conjugal love, they will oppose you or at least mock you, but I assure you that you will be blessed.’

He gives two reasons for this blessedness; the first for those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake is the kingdom of heaven; and then ‘great is your reward in heaven.’ When we hear of heaven, our thoughts spontaneously run to the reward the faithful servants will receive in paradise, in the afterlife. No, let us note well, the two promises made by Jesus are in the present: of the persecuted 'is' the kingdom of heaven, 'now' belongs to them the kingdom of heaven, and then, great 'is' their reward in heaven. Heaven, not paradise, it is the kingdom of God, the new world which has already begun here and is present in all who live the beatitudes of Jesus.

The persecuted are not happy despite persecution but because of the persecutions they suffer, and they are invited to rejoice not because one day the persecutions and sufferings will end, but because 'today,' being persecuted you have the proof that you live differently from others, not according to the criteria of the old world but according to the new righteousness, and it is from this deep and intimate conviction from which derive in the believer the joy and peace promised by Jesus.

I wish you all a happy holiday and a good week.

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A good Sunday for everyone.

Let us remember that in last week's Gospel, we heard the story of the healing of Bartimaeus, the blind man of Jericho, who, after regaining his sight, began to follow Jesus along the road. The goal of Jesus' journey was Jerusalem, where he would give the ultimate sign of love: the gift of life. How was he received on his arrival? It is the week before Passover, and the holy city's esplanade is crowded with pilgrims; some know him, and many have only heard of him, but they esteem him because they know he has healed the sick. The people love Jesus. But here is the religious institution that has raised the conflict: the scribes, the rabbis, the Pharisees who consider him a seducer of the people, a heretic who is connected with Beelzebul because he teaches doctrines contrary to tradition. For this reason, they have long since decided to remove him from their midst.

Jesus is in Jerusalem, the center of the religious establishment, and the evangelist Mark relates how he spent the last week in the holy city. As soon as he arrived (says the evangelist), he entered the temple, looked around, and observed everything; then, as it was late, he left the temple with the 12 and spent the night in Bethany.

The following day, he returned to the temple and made a dramatic gesture. He threw himself against sellers and buyers, overturned the money changers' tables, threw down the sellers of doves, and drove them all out, saying, “Do not make this house of prayer a den of robbers.” Why did he behave like that? It is a gesture that still leaves us puzzled today. Was it to show his anger at the mixing of religious interests and money, something that God does not tolerate? Yes, but not only because of this, but because Jesus' gesture had a much stronger meaning; it was the condemnation of the commercial relationship with God.

What does it mean? What was going on in the temple? The spiritual guides had taught that to obtain graces and favors from God, the fertility of the fields, animals, good health, and protection against misfortunes, it was necessary to offer him something, such as holocausts, sacrifices, incense, and the priests acted as mediators. That is to say, it was not that the people could offer it to God but that it had to go through the temple priests. Jesus taught that there is nothing to offer God because the heavenly Father grants his benefits freely to all, even the wicked. The high priests of the temple realized that if God is gratuitous and unconditional love, as Jesus preaches, their profession no longer had any reason to exist; the temple cult was destined to disappear.

Let us be careful because the idea of a commercial relationship with God is still present in us; we no longer offer Him lambs and goats, but we think that to obtain God's favors, his graces, his reward even in heaven, it is necessary to provide him with our good works, and our prayers. No, Jesus gives everything freely. The God of Jesus of Nazareth is like that; he is unconditionally loving. If we do good works, we become more like Jesus because we are children of God; we must thank him. because following the light he gives us, we become more beautiful; when we do good works, we become more and more like Jesus; we are true children of God, and we have to thank him for that; it is not that we receive favors. The commercial relationship with God should stop. From God, we only receive, and we only have to thank him.

It is now, after Jesus' gesture, that the conflict with religious authority becomes irremediable. In fact, after narrating this first scene, the evangelist Mark continues his narrative by presenting seven disputes in which Jesus is involved; they all take place in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the elders ask Jesus tricky questions, weighing each word carefully because they want to accuse him. Let us remember the trap when they ask him if it is lawful to pay tribute to Caesar. They are motivated by resentment against Jesus. Today's Gospel must be placed in this polemical context; it presents us with the fifth of these seven disputes; it is a dispute different from the others. Let us listen:

 

“At that time, a learned man who heard the dispute and, seeing how rightly he had answered, came up to him and asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?”

 

We have said this is the fifth of the seven disputes the evangelist Mark recounts. A rabbi witnessed the four previous disputes and admired how Jesus answered those who asked him questions and raised objections. Unlike his colleagues, he does not cultivate animosity towards Jesus; he is sincere and only seeks the truth. So, he shows up because he wants to know Jesus' opinion on a question that the rabbis debated. What is the first and most important commandment? Why did they ask this question? Because 613 commandments were derived from the Torah. It was a question of knowing from which commandment all the others were derived. It was not an idle question but is also vital for us today.

Do we also have a first commandment on which all the others depend, all the decisions we make in our lives? If your first commandment is to earn money, all the other commandments derive from it; therefore, from this commandment, it will derive that you must work, you must get up early in the morning, and if necessary, you must also cheat, exploit, steal, and be clever. The first commandment is that everyone must like you; then change the commandments that derive from this one, and they will be: Be good, kind, helpful, and loyal. Choose the profession in which you can make those around you the happiest.

Each of us could ask ourselves this simple question and ask ourselves and answer this simple question: What is the first commandment you have in your life on which all the decisions you make depend? Today, we will hear Jesus suggest what he believes should be the first commandment. It will be vital that we, too, choose that commandment and then derive all our commandments in life from it, which he indicates to us as the first. In Jesus' time, the rabbis had different opinions on this question. Some held that the first commandment was to have no other gods, only Adonai, the Lord. Then there was the opinion of Rabbi Hillel, who said that the first commandment is: 'What you do not want done to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the law, and the rest is commentary.' There was also a beautiful but fragile opinion because it lacked all the positive aspects: 'Do all the beautiful things you would wish to be done to you.' Then there is the opinion of Rabbi Akiva, who taught that the first commandment is: 'Love your neighbor as yourself; this is the great principle of the Torah.' Let us now listen to what Jesus thinks about this because it will also be vital for us to put that commandment as the first one and derive all the precepts, we give ourselves in life from it. Let us listen to Jesus' answer:

 

“Jesus replied, "The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone!”

 

The rabbi expected Jesus to point to one of Moses' commandments; instead, Jesus said that the precept on which all the others depend is to be found in the profession of faith that all people have in their faith. In the profession of faith that all Jews, even today, recite twice daily, which is taken from chapter 6 of the Book of Moses. It is taken from chapter 6 of the book of Deuteronomy. It begins: “Hear O Israel” - “Shema Israel.” Israel” - ‘Shema Israel’. Five times in the book of Deuteronomy, God repeats this call: 'Listen, Israel, listen to your God; he is the only Lord. Do not listen to other gods; ignore what the idols tell you.'

We think it is easy to listen. It is not so easy to listen; what is easy is to hear. Our hearing apparatus is automatically activated when someone speaks, but listening is something else; it means getting emotionally involved with the one who is speaking to us. You have probably seen a Jew in prayer, covering his eyes with his hands or veil when he recites the Shema Israel, the profession of faith. Why does he close his eyes? An Israelite does not see his God but one who listens to his God and covers his eyes so as not to be distracted, to concentrate on what the Lord is saying to him. The same for you: if you do not close your eyes, you will be distracted by the models of life around you; if you do not create inner silence, if you do not momentarily silence your ideas, your convictions, if you do not put yourself aside, you will not make the conditions to be able to welcome the voice of the Lord who speaks to you; you will hear him but you will not listen to his word.

Listening means allowing someone to enter our life with his words and suggestions. You have to be careful who you listen to because we become what we listen to and what we have decided to let into our hearts and minds. Jesus tells us who to listen to: 'Listen Israel to the Lord our God, he is the only the Lord; Adonai must be the only God you listen to, not other gods. If you listen to the wrong god and let the idol into you, it will ruin you; don't listen. If you listen to money and let it into your mind and heart, its proposals will destroy you. Now, Jesus indicates how to let oneself be involved in this listening. Let us listen:

 

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.”

 

'You shall love him with all your heart.” Nothing intimate; we know that the heart for the Semites is the seat of feelings, but it is, above all, the center from which all decisions are made. The love we are discussing here indicates the total involvement of life with God, as between husband and wife. The wife gives her whole life to her husband because she knows she is loved and only he can make her happy. To love God with all one's heart is to keep oneself always in complete harmony with his thoughts and designs, and this love must be total, wholehearted because the Lord God of Israel, Adonai, is not like the pagan gods who are not zealous. One can worship Jupiter but also Saturn and Mercury, the patrons of thieves; they are not jealous of each other, but the God of Israel does not bear lovers. How many times does he repeat 'Ani Elkanah' in the Bible? I am a jealous God. I love you too much, and I know that if, besides me, you have in your heart other lovers (money, for example), you cannot be happy.

“With all your soul.” In Hebrew, the term 'nefesh' does not mean the soul but the person. Every moment of your life must be oriented by the light that comes from the husband, not from idols. The concrete life must be spent in its entirety in the realization of God's plan for you. There are no moments when you can make decisions suggested by idols.

“With all your strength.” What are these forces? The Hebrew text says 'bejon meodeja,' which means 'with all'. You have many gifts in your hands that come to you from the Lord; you must put them all at the disposal of his plan of love.

Now, Jesus adds to the profession of faith of his people; he says that you shall love him 'with all your mind.' If you want your adherence to God to be authentically solid and unshakable, it cannot be based on passing emotions nor depend on a pious devotion, no; it must involve the mind, the reason, the intellect; it must be the fruit of a conscious choice, well meditated, it must satisfy my reason. My reason must be satisfied because God has given it to me. When everything is reasonable, not rational but reasonable, then the choice which is like love: I trust in the Lord, and then the choice of genuine faith has nothing to do with credulity, with superstitions, with certain devotional practices... let us think of particular devotions to relics which are not far removed from attachment to amulets or talismans.

Let us be careful; our faith must be reasonable, not rational, but reasonable. And whoever does not dedicate time to the study of the word of God, whoever cannot answer those who ask him the reasons for his choice of faith, cannot claim to love God with all his mind. Now, without being asked, Jesus adds something to this first commandment. Let us listen:

 

“The second is this, You shalt love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”

 

To love is to adopt a pro-life position; when you decide to do something, you should always ask yourself if what I am going to do is for life or if it is causing death. Try to subject every moment of your personal and social life to this question. For example, your words, what you are going to say, think about it, will it give joy, life or will it cause pain, take life? You must love “as yourself”. Jesus is not talking to a disciple; he is talking to a Jew; he is a rabbi and knows very well the maximum measure of love in the Old Testament. Leviticus chapter 19 says, 'You shall not take vengeance, you shall not bear a grudge against your brother, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But it was not yet the ultimate horizon of love; Jesus will go beyond this measure of love when he says, 'Love one another as I have loved you,' that is, as I have done, you must also be willing to love, even the enemy, even the one who do you any wrong. Beyond this horizon of love, it is impossible to go to love, even the one willing to take your life. You are on the side of his life and want only his life; beyond that, it is impossible to go.

At this point, the relationship between the two commandments, the first and the second, remains to be clarified. Love for man requires commitment so that no one lacks what is necessary for life, but this commitment must not overshadow the duties towards God; it must not overshadow prayer, Sunday Mass, or religious practices. So, part of the time must be dedicated to work, family, and friends, but we woe betide us if we rob God of what is due to him! I do not like this interpretation, which is very widespread; it is dangerous because, understood in this way, the two commandments are opposed to each other; they put God and man in competition because what is given to one is taken away from the other and in the end, neither is fully satisfied. This is not the interpretation of the one commandment of love that involves God and man in one love.

Remember that only the evangelist Mark tells us that there is a first and a second commandment. Matthew responds to Jesus' answer more nuancedly; he says that 'the second is similar to the first,' so it is not inferior. Luke does not mention a first and a second commandment. He says only one commandment: ' You shall love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself.’ The rest of the New Testament does not speak of two commandments but one commandment. And what is this one commandment? The love of man. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “This is my one commandment: love one another as I have loved you.”

Paul says in the Epistle to the Romans, 'All the precepts: do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not covet, and every other commandment are summed up in these words, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself,' the full fulfillment of the law is love. Then, writing to the Galatians, he is even clearer; he says that the whole law finds its fullness in a single precept, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'; therefore, the two commandments cannot be separated because they are the manifestation of a single love that involves God and all his children; it is the same love of God that through us reaches our brother. God remains the only foundation of love for our neighbor; if we eliminate God, it is tough to find a solid foundation for unconditional love for our brother, a love that reaches even those who hurt you. If we eliminate God, laying a foundation of love will be difficult. Let us now listen to the rabbi's response:

 

“The scribe said to him, ‘Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, 'He is One and there is no other than he.' And 'to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself' is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.’ And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ And no one dared to ask him any more questions.”

 

Let us try to follow the spiritual path of this rabbi; it could be our story. The first step he takes to approach the Kingdom of God is that, unlike his fellow rabbis, he is not prejudiced against Jesus; he approaches him because he seeks the truth and is a man of pure heart. Let us pay attention: if one cultivates preconceived ideas about the Gospel, he will not even take this first step; he will always remain far from the Kingdom of God.

The second step belongs to the one who is unsatisfied when he has begun to understand the truth; he seeks to know more. He turns to Jesus to ask him what the first commandment is, which all my life choices may depend on. He asks Jesus because he understands that his words are valid, and he says beautiful things.

Third step: after Jesus has indicated to him the commandment of love as the one on which to make his whole life depend, he acknowledges again, 'You have spoken beautifully Master, you have spoken true words, you are right. All my life choices must derive from this commandment of love.' This rabbi has internalized Jesus' answer by accepting it in his heart.

The last step he takes breaks with the widespread conception in Israel, where it was believed that the relationship with God occurred through worship, rituals, and sacrifices. He understood that one enters into harmony with the Lord when one loves. And at this point, Jesus says to him, 'You are not far from the Kingdom of God.' What is he lacking? We are not told. I repeat that this could be our story. It is already a lot if we have approached the Kingdom of God; what is lacking is the decision to accept in fullness the proposal of the New World that Jesus makes to us, to enter by giving it our adhesion. We do not know if the rabbi has made this choice.

I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.