G od, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has a lofty, elevated, sublime thought on man, unimaginable to the very creature made in the image and likeness of his Creator. He wants to live with every man a spousal relationship, not in the profane sense of the term, but in its original, deep meaning, which is expressed by Adam himself the moment he sees Eve before his eyes: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man” (Gen 2, 23).
Through his creation from nothing, man is particular, unique, personal, communional, interpersonal life from God,. “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them“ (Gen 1,27). Like Adam, God wants to say to every man: “This is now life of my life”. Not only: “You are life of my life“. With Christ Jesus, through the gift of his grace and truth, we must also add: “You are life of my life, in my life, through my life“.

For this reason, every man is called to abandon the father and mother of sin and idolatry, error and falseness, lie and deceit, solitude and death, and let himself be made by God a single thing in and through him, in a way that of every man can also be said to be in connection with our God: “And both – God and man - will become one flesh” (cfr. Gen 2,24).

While in the Old Testament this matrimony of life, love and truth was simply a spiritual union, and it, too, very imperfect, because merely founded on the observance of God’s Will, manifested in the Law and the Prophets; with the New Testament this union is not just mystical, or merely spiritual, it is real. However, always in the mystery, through the sacrament of Baptism we really become a single body, a single life with Christ Jesus. Through the body of Christ and in it we are made to participate of the divine nature. Really, truly, God and we are a single life, we are life of God, in Christ Jesus, through the work of the Holy Spirit.
Through creation we are from God’s will, but out of God; we are nature made by God, but not nature that comes through generation from the nature of God. Only Christ Jesus is generated from God: “God from God, light from light, true God from true God, generated, not created, of the Father’s same substance“. This is our profession of faith. Jesus is generated by God in the today of eternity, forever, and ever: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (Cfr. Jn 1,1-3).

Through redemption, in Christ Jesus, God elevated us to the very high dignity of being generated by him, through faith.
Through the work of his Holy Spirit, in

the Baptismal waters, he gave us a new birth. He made us his adoptive sons, he elevated us up to him, he constituted us his life forever. In Him, with him, through him, we are life of God’s life, life in His life. We are a single life, not ours, but the one of God.

God wants to live all his life in us and, through us, on the earth and in the entire creation. Through us he wants to bring to all the world everything of Himself: his grace, his truth, his love, his mercy, his compassion, all of Himself. This unity of only life is fulfilled in Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit. However, it is fulfilled if man remains in the Word of the Gospel, which is the field in which the life of God grows and fructifies. Out of the Gospel the life of God dies and so does every other gift with which the Lord made us rich.

Jesus wants all our faith in Him to be lived in this spousal relationship, of only life between God and us. He also wants it to be realised and fulfilled according to the modality lived by Him on the cross. Through us He gave all of Himself, he poured out all his blood for us. He kept nothing for himself. He gave us everything. He made himself Eucharist for us, remaining our real food, our real drink of eternal life till the end of times.

If God is he who gives himself, who gives His Only Son and the Holy Spirit, if Jesus is he who consigns himself instead of man, so that he may become like God and a single life with every other man, may there ever be anything that the disciple of Jesus can do out of this truth which characterises him in his very being, which by now is the same being as Christ Jesus’? Then abstinence, in this prospective, is not renouncing to a little food for ascetic reasons. On the contrary abstinence is renouncing to the own life, by consigning it to God, as Christ did, so that he can make of it a sacrifice, an oblation of salvation in favour of the whole world. Abstinence in the new spousal reality is giving all of the self to God – and whoever gives himself cannot keep for himself whatever is out of the self and which he possesses – for his brothers’ life to be perfect in body, soul, and spirit.

Virgin Mary, Redemption Mother, you who made of your life a perennial gift to God for him to spend it all for his Divine Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, obtain for us the grace of convincing ourselves that it is not renouncing twice a year to some grams of food that we live like perfect Christians, but that we live as real Christians by fasting every day, denying ourselves every day so that all God’s life may be poured out to every man and this life may really be perfect in body, soul, and spirit. You teach this fasting and we will witness that we truly, really are a single life with Christ Jesus.

Sac. Costantino di Bruno

«Mary belonged to that part of the people of Israel which at the time of Jesus was waiting whole-heartedly for the Saviour's coming. And from the words and gestures narrated in the Gospel, we can see how she really lived immersed in the Prophets' words; she was entirely waiting for the Lord's coming» (Homily).

The vicissitude of the people of Israel opens a new hope in human history. The elect people are chosen from the origin in order to show the Lord’s great works. The waiting starts in the hearts. First, waiting of a people, then, waiting of all humanity. The waiting becomes history of salvation, alimented by the promise of a ransom which in the progressing of events it is more and more understood being spiritual. Of this history Abram represents a fundamental witness: «Through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me » (Gn 22, 18).

The dynamic of this time is characterised for the consignment of a word on the part of the Lord and is fed on its obedient listening. Through the word the Lord manifests himself, governs the events of his people, corrects, infuses hope, demands listening, promises life. «Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. […] No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess» (Dt 30, 11-18).

The history of Israel intertwines with human events, but the rescuing presence of his God always stands out clear in its flowing; and when the waiting in the chosen people’s heart fades away, it seems the promise cannot be fulfilled, He intervenes again through his prophets rousing it with words, signs and prodigies. «The Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel: God-with-us» (Is 7,14). In these words, still not perfectly clear, the faith is strengthened, the hope grows, the waiting springs up again, the promise is renewed: «In that day, a shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse» (Is 11, 1).

The New Testament is also witness of this still alive waiting in the hearts of the Israelites. «Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel» (Lk 2, 25).

For sure in this trail the Mother of Jesus, the Virgin, betrothed to Joseph of Nazareth, represents the biggest example, the most perfect model of keeping of the Lord’s words and of waiting. For this reason the Holy Pontiff Benedict XVI proposes her to the Christian people so that at her school they may learn how to live the waiting for the Lord, and subsequently how to walk with him after he manifested himself.

All her existence is stretched out towards a more and more profound understanding of the work that her Son has come to realize and for which generations of men have waited and hoped. This work is manifested to her more and more clearly starting from the announcement of the angel till the day of the passion, death and resurrection of her Son. She is the privileged witness of the fulfilment of the waiting of Israel, but she is that in a distinctive way. She waits, contributing to realize the promise through a full faith in the Lord’s word: «I am the Lord’ servant, may it happen to me as you have said», (Lk 1,38).
For this waiting to be fulfilled, she offered her Son for the world salvation, but she also offered herself with her

Son. She lives the waiting, by listening to the Lord’s word, and in the donation of her own life for its fulfilment. That is why she is Redemption Mother, because not only did she generate man’s Redeemer, but she became, with Him, a part of this mystery like nobody else. At the base of the cross she teaches us what it is and how to live the Christian waiting. Because at the base of the cross she learned entirely how to understand and live in the light of this divine immense love.

At her school, Peter and his successors looking at history, let themselves be illumined by the Mystery of Redemption, they, too, eager of being and letting every man be a part of it. History is understood and lived as “place” of the announcement of the Redemption, of its fulfilment, already realized but to be always actualised till the end of times: its celebration. Therefore, instructed and transformed by this mystery, waiting for the second coming of the Saviour, they guide the Church towards the fulfilment of the promise. But they do this with an entirely evangelic intent. Starting from the event of Jesus Christ, every human event acquires its real sense manifesting itself as a halting place of the pilgrimage towards the real life. The waiting thus becomes journey, listening, real spiritual cult.

The liturgy becomes the privileged “dwelling” for the celebration of this mystery, but also the starting point towards a fulfilment that finds out of it, in the life of Jesus’ disciples, its real point of arrival. Through its most meaningful periods, the Church depositary of this mystery, wisely explains it to its believers, but also gives it to them, so that it may become principle of new life, participation to the life that Christ came to bring to the earth.

In this “dwelling” one can contemplate the work of love with which the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit call every man to realize himself in Christ in the fullness of the divine life. The Church reminds the Lord’s disciple how he is an active part in the mystery he celebrates. This “law” is inscribed in the vocation of every believer and in the new being he received in virtue of Baptism. By becoming body of Christ he becomes beneficiary but also author of redemption, user but also giver of this new life that surrounds him. In that baptised he becomes a single mystery of salvation, a single life, a single death, a single resurrection.

In this horizon of new life is placed and has to be placed the waiting for the Lord’s coming. Between the first and last coming of Lord Christ, the mandate of the Church, body of Christ, is realized: making of every man a perfect son of the Father. However, the fulfilment of this mandate necessitates the welcome of those conditions inherent to the new received nature. The Apostle Peter reminds the believers of all times: «Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. […] So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him»(Pt 3, 11-14). We wait for the Lord by taking sin away from our own lives and contributing for sin to be also extirpated from our brothers’ lives.

May the Virgin Mary, Redemption Mother, today and always, guide us in the realization according to truth of the hopes of the world, that having forgotten the word of her Son Jesus, waits for whoever reminds it with his life. May the Angels and Saints who live and rejoice for this, help us in the fulfilment of this big mystery in us.

Sac. Giuseppe Deodato

AND BOTH THE WINE AND THE WINESKINS WILL BE RUINED
VIII Sunday of O.T. Year B

I WILL BETROTH YOU TO ME FOREVER (Hos 1,16.17.21-22)

That is how God admonishes his people through the prophet Jeremiah: “See how you behaved in the valley; consider what you have done. You are a swift she-camel running here and there, a wild donkey accustomed to the desert, sniffing the wind in her craving — in her heat who can restrain her?” (Cfr. Ger 2, 23-25). The craving of Israel is his idolatry, the always immediate readiness to deny the Lord. What to do for this not to happen again? The desert, a place of absence of any kind of idols of the peoples, had been for the people a particular time of grace, during which they had learned to live on the Lord’s Word. In the desert the Lord had educated his people for forty years to trust in Him, in his Word, in which life is for whoever observes and puts it into practice. The Lord wants to lead his people to the desert again, but this time for something infinitely great: in order to celebrate with him a real wedding, a stable and lasting covenant of love. God wants to make of his people his spouse forever and as a spouse he wants to talk to her heart.

HE HAS MADE US COMPETENT AS MINISTERS OF A NEW COVENANT (2Cor 3,1-6)

Saint Paul knows that everything in him is from God, from his grace. Nothing that is in him comes from him. God gives himself to him so that he may carry out with fruit his ministry. Being he perennially from God’s grace, he is also a fit minister of the New Covenant. That is, he is a minister capable of serving well, with fruit, the New Covenant that the Lord put in his hands, in order to announce it to every man and arrange for every one to come and be a part in it. He is a fit minister, because the grace operates with efficacy, whenever it is given according to the rules of the grace; the first of which is the holiness of he who is called to give it. The grace can be efficacious in the others only in one way, if it was efficacious in us. If it is not efficacious in us, it can never be in the others through us and we ourselves become unfit ministers of the New Covenant. When the grace is inefficacious in us, others can also stipulate the covenant with God, but this covenant does not produce fruits through us. We are unfit ministers. This is the failure of much pastoral: the inefficacy of the grace of he who is its minister.

NEW WINE INTO NEW WINESKINS (Mk 2,18-22)

THE SPIRIT SENT HIM OUT INTO THE DESERT
I Sunday of Lent Year B

NOW ESTABLISH MY COVENANT WITH YOU (Gn 9,8-15)

God has hardly sent the waters to the earth, from which every form of life had disappeared. Immediately after the deluge the Lord sees that sin has deeply weakened man and for this reason decides not to destroy him any more: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease” (Gen 8,21-22). God manifests that it will no longer be from the outside that he will act for man’s salvation, but from the inside, from his heart. God will start just from man’s heart the work of reconstruction of man, of his new creature. In order to save man it is necessary to leave him alive and whatever is needed to his life. In its essence, this is God’s promise. This is the first covenant, but not the last one. This marks the beginning of salvation, but not its fulfilment. This truth must be proclaimed with clearness: it is Christ the perfect fulfilment of real salvation.

AND THIS WATER SYMBOLIZES BAPTISM (1Pt 3,18-22)

Saint Peter sees in the deluge the figure of Baptism. With Noah water purified the earth of every filthiness of evil. It killed the man sinner, but it did not kill man’s sin. The water of Baptism has a quite different action: it kills sin, but not the sinner. The sinner is cured by those waters, on the contrary he is born to new and eternal life in them; he is born as a real son of God, he shares in the divine nature. Those waters have so much power of sanctification as to remove all the filthiness of our spirit and soul. They contain the Holy Spirit that regenerates as new creatures. All this is possible thanks to the death and resurrection of Lord Jesus. In the death of Christ Jesus every sin of the soul and body is destroyed, while in the resurrection man comes back to new life, he is born as a new man. All this happens because man asks God to be renewed; however he asks it with the conscience of one who welcomes all the Word of Christ and makes it become the Word which, from now on, will govern all his life.

BEING TEMPTED BY SATAN (Mk 1,12-15)