T eaching is the prophetical aim of Christ Jesus’ mission. He came among us in order to free us from every mistake, falsity, deceit, lie, ambiguity about the right knowledge of God and to lead us into the fullness of the truth which is the perfect, complete, total knowledge of his Father’s will.

His teaching is simple, clear, unequivocal. Though the forms are various, its essential characteristic, however, is only one: He never introduced a single man’s word in the Word of God; He never put the creature’s will in his Father’s Will; He never mixed one of man’s desires with God’s desires. In Christ Jesus there is a sharp separation between what is of God and what of man, what descends from heaven and what comes from the earth, what is the Creator’s and what instead the creature’s.

It would already be enough for every one of us, once and for all, to stop teaching others what the desire of his own heart is, an awkward interpretation, by his own mind, of God’s Word; and every other improper intromission into the heavenly truth, every absolutism of the historical forms of understanding and living the Word, for God’s Will to manifest itself among us in all its splendour of eternal light and divine life.

People hear Jesus speaking and their teachers, too. They make a difference. They notice that Christ Jesus does not teach like the others. It is not just one person that notices that. If it were only one, they could also think of some kind of exaltation, madness. It is the whole crowd that observes this difference, which is not just formal; it is substantial, of content, truth, revelation, authority.

Not the new forms with which Christ Jesus teaches make him different from the Scribes, Pharisees, teachers of the Law. Neither do the parables, nor the allegories, nor the similes; not even the common language of the people and the images taken from the life of their natural environment, that arrange for Christ Jesus to be recognized as one different from the others, from all those heard till now. Truth and authority make the difference.

Jesus speaks through a direct knowledge of the Father. He is in the bosom of the Father, speaks from the bosom of the Father. The others are in their thoughts. They speak from their thoughts. Jesus comes from Heaven, from Heaven he speaks and announces. The others are from the earth, from it they speak and say. Jesus brings the truth of Heaven to the earth. The others do nothing but transform into earth falsity all the truth of Heaven.

Jesus does not just say the Word. The Word becomes act, work, action, event in Him. He does not say words which remain words without causing a substantial change in man and things and that is it. When He speaks he commands, orders, imposes, wants.

His Word becomes will. His will becomes Word. There is a command in Him that all creation executes, fulfils, carries out, performs, operates. The Word is never to any purpose in Him, because it is never said in vain.

He commands the evil spirits and these obey Him, disappear, leave their prey, go away. He tells leprosy to abandon a man’s flesh and leprosy goes away, the flesh becomes clean, pure, spotless again like that of a child. He speaks to a deaf and he hears; he tells a word to a dumb and he is able to repeat, report, utter it. He shows himself to a blind and this sees him. He forgives a sinner and, feeling free from the weight of his sins, raises a hymn of praise and blessing to the Lord and glorifies Him because he sees himself wrapped with his mercy.

Christ Jesus does not teach truths learned from others and does not even make a mix of many learned truths so as to reduce, or to transform them into a truth of his own. He does not even make use of sentences from the Scriptures placed one next to the other, making believe that by citing the Scriptures in a sequence of assertions, the truth we want others to welcome as their own, comes out in the end.

Jesus has no such methods, good only to reveal the inner emptiness of whoever uses them, and, however, unable to give the truth. Truth is not in the sentence you cite; it is in the heart; if the heart is not in the truth, it can never be in the sentence you quote. The heart of Christ Jesus is in the will, truth, perfect knowledge, fullness of the Father’s charity. He speaks out of charity from God’s charity, through salvation from God’s salvation, through forgiveness from God’s forgiveness, through mercy from the Father’s mercy.

Christ Jesus never speaks to strangers, the absent, far away people. Christ Jesus speaks to people present, to those who are around Him. He speaks, because He wants them to clothe themselves with the Father’s salvation, by listening and practising the Will of the Father which is all in his Word.

Virgin Mary, Redemption Mother, you asked us to remind your Son Jesus’ Word. The world has forgotten it and we must put it back in man’s heart. A grace we beg of you. Fill our word to the brim with truth and authority. Give our mission credibility and welcome. Help us grow in wisdom and grace for all the days of our lives. The ignorant will never be able to give knowledge, nor the sinner to spread grace around him. The foolish man will not spread wisdom, nor who is far from God will ever be able to bring someone near his Lord. Transform us in truth, conform us to Christ Jesus in his high holiness and we will successfully carry out the mission you entrusted us. Since we know you will help us, we bless and proclaim You blessed for ever and ever.

Sac. Costantino di Bruno

«The story of hope has a double aim: narrating the meeting of the witness with the Risen and making the desire of Jesus start in whoever sees and listens and in turn decides to become his disciple. This is the form of the Christian announcement…» (Theme of reflection, 10).

The proper vocation of every Christian is that of being an authentic witness of the hope in the world, true narrator of the wonderful and excellent works that the Lord has fulfilled and continuously fulfils in his history and in the history of all humanity.

Hope starts from the live meeting with the Lord, a meeting that touches the heart, changes the mind, strengthens the will of good, transforms life. It originates, anyway, starting from a not isolated experience enclosable either in the sphere of sentimentalism or of spiritualism, but from a concrete event, lived in the community of believers, constantly generated by the word of God, authenticated by the ecclesial discernment, confirmed by a renewed life.

The story of this meeting with the Risen, which moulds the witness and fills his existence giving it enthusiasm, joy, meaning and importance, is doubtless the privileged instrument through which the Christian hope is communicated, so that this same story contributes to give rise, in who listens, to the desire of letting himself get also involved in the splendid love adventure with Jesus.

Therefore, the witness doesn’t only narrate the content of the hope, but it also indicates the path that leads him to conquer it: the live listening of the Lord’s word, in the vitality of the sacramental grace, strengthened by the personal and communitarian prayer, following the example of the saints and with the support of all Heaven.

An authentic witness of hope is who announces and reminds the word of God to the world, that same word that first touched his heart, making him fall in love with Heaven; illumined his mind, opening it to the welcome of the inscrutable thought of God; caressed his affects, inflaming them with the desire of the divine will.

The Christian, in that witness, thus contributes to generate and re-generate hope among the brothers, becoming co-operator of the work of the Spirit that gives life, participating of the same Church maternity.

Therefore we can talk of an actuating circularity that involves hope and witness, so that while the former generates the latter; this, in turn, transmits the former, in a vital and inseparable connexion (cfr. Theme of reflection, n. 10).

Above all, the Christian witness of parents and adults, then, proposes itself as dynamism of memory, presence and prophecy: Memory, in that it narrates the wonders of the meeting with the Lord; presence, because the words and works of the same renewed life show and make possible the actuality of the always live meeting with the Risen; prophecy, because being “in the world but not of the world” of the Christian arranges for his life and word to be in contrast with the false messianisms, indicating the only Hope, Christ Jesus, and opening the future to new horizons, which guide the concrete engagement of the believer to anticipate under this heaven and on this earth the new heavens and the new earth towards which he feels continuously projected.

> In the life of the Church concrete experiences which realise this prophecy of future are not wanting. Among them are surely to be mentioned «the consecrated life, particularly the monastic; the missionary vocation, in particular ad gentes (to the people), the donation in the wedding and the family; the service to the poorest and the care of hardship; the educational accompaniment of the young people and adolescents; the formation of the civil sense and the participation in the social life; the attention to the world of work; the presence in the places of suffering and sickness» (Theme of reflection, n.10).

«But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have» (1 Pt 3,15).

Still today, after two thousands years Peter’s invitation resounds in our communities: in times of weak reason and disenchantment, it is necessary to keep on witnessing to the world that Christ is the reason of the hope that is in us (cfr. Theme of reflection, n. 11).

Of course, to avoid the risk of condemning this witness to practical inefficacy, we cannot but adequately take account of the concreteness of the society in which we live, that must be understood in its dynamisms and mechanisms, just as the very culture must be understood in its models of thought and behaviour. This implies a necessary assumption of responsibility in front of the worlds of communication, education and sciences, in order to make the presence of the Church be felt in society and to animate with intelligence, respecting their legitimate autonomy, the different languages of the public arena: the expressive, scientific, communicative and reasoning.

Nevertheless, we need not forget that the Christian hope starts from the live meeting with the Lord, and its witness is efficacious if it is a carrier of this meeting to this meeting. Therefore, it expresses itself mainly in a style made of contemplation and care (cfr. Theme of reflection, n. 12).

In a believing experience both the live word of God and the sacramental gestures of the faith, and the constant zeal for transforming the actual world, must be preserved as anticipation of the future hope. Numerous are the witnesses which in the course of the centuries knew how to live in an exemplary way this synthesis between contemplation and zeal, making the transmission of the incarnated faith possible in the life of the people.

However, all the forms of service to the person and culture are authentic if they start and converge towards a renewed discovery of the word. To such announcement without any doubt contribute the splendour of the Christian liturgy, the richness of the spiritual tradition, the multiform expressions of that human genius who knew how to permeate the thought and the arts.

Among the routes of praying and contemplation and those of beauty, art and music and the different forms of communication there is, in fact, a close and positive relation.

Model for all generations of the fecundity of such synthesis between contemplation and commitment is the Virgin Mary, Redemption Mother, the young lady who, by saying yes in the secret of her heart, made the irruption of Hope in history possible.

Sac. Michele Fontana

JESUS BEGAN TO TEACH
IV Sunday of O.T. Year B

HE WILL TELL THEM EVERYTHING I COMMAND HIM (Dt 18,15-20)

God decided to talk to man through man. It is this the prophetic ministry. Only one man listens to the Lord; he lets the people know the words heard, all the people listen to this man; they execute and put into practice what the Lord said. In this work of mediation, to the prophet is required the greatest honesty; which will consist to him in never introducing in God’s Word a word of a man, in never saying his word as a Word said or proffered by God. Unfortunately many are the damages that the non honesty of who carries out this mission creates. At times, often indeed, the instrument thinks he is fused with God’s will. Retaining that his will and God’s will are by now a single thing, that his will is God’s will and the will of God is his will; the mediator deceives himself and the whole world. Whoever fuses himself and merges with God’s Word, let him know that this admonishment by the Lord impends over him: “But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death”.

IN UNDIVIDED DEVOTION TO THE LORD (1Cor 7,32-35)

Every choice requires responsibilities. Whoever chooses to get married, “is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife or her husband— and his interests are divided” On the contrary “an unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs—how he can please the Lord”. The choice either of getting, or not getting married, obliges to a correct behaviour, imposes a holy morality. There is no choice without moral and every moral has its rise in a choice. It often happens instead that we wish a choice without obligations bound by it. In the obligation is our holiness, because the faithfulness to the obligations derived from our choice is our perfect sanctification. If a woman decides not to get married she can. Where does this choice lead her? She “is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit”. But she can also choose to get married. However if she does, she must “be concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband”. Inverting the obligations, freeing yourself of them, is not worthy of a man, because it is not worthy of his faith.

A NEW TEACHING - AND WITH AUTHORITY! (Mc 1,21-28)

SO I CAN PREACH THERE ALSO (Mk 1,29-39)
V Sunday of O.T. Year B

REMEMBER, THAT MY LIFE IS BUT A BREATH (Jb 7,1-4.6-7)

Job is surrounded by a physical sickness. However, he does not know why he is in that suffering, does not know the motivations of his indescribable pains. In this painful situation, he is supported by an intact justice, not polluted by any form of evil. His suffering is neither a punishment for his misdoings, nor a punishment for a sin committed. He has always observed the Law of the Most High and made of charity and love one of the canons of his daily behaviour. If suffering remains a mystery, if it can neither be explained nor turned away from our lives; if it has fallen to a man as a lot without his even being forewarned, if it suddenly falls on a person and this can do nothing to drive it away from him, what is there left to do in order to always remain in the greatest hope? The answer Job offers us is only one: the total, full, undisputed reliance on the Lord. “Remember that my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again”. He will not see it through his power. He might see it only through God’s mercy.

I MAKE MYSELF A SLAVE TO EVERYONE (1Cor 9,16-19.22-23)

The Gospel is freedom from every human scheme of understanding and actuating it; it is also a journey towards the entirety of the truth to which the Lord’s Spirit leads. If the Gospel is all this, can there ever be a man who may think that the only Word, the only truth, the only faith may be incarnated in a single way, a single form, a single mentality, in a single thought, a single religious structure? If the Gospel is freedom, because God’s Word is freedom, then also the man that announces it must respect it in its full freedom. But in order to do this he must also be a free man. Saint Paul understood this freedom that is given off by the Gospel and presented himself with the evangelical freedom before every man, without ever sinking in those little or big slaveries that want the form of one to be good for another and the understanding of one to become understanding for another or for everybody. As a free man, he does not tie the Gospel to any form, to any man and this way he can give it all to every man, in the concrete, personal form in which man lives.

LET US GO SOMEWHERE ELSE—TO THE NEARBY VILLAGES (Mk 1,29-39)