Commentators english version

ANNO LITURGICO B

Tired of waiting: we miss you, Lord – Mk 13: 33-37  

Ask it at dawn. She will answer you: “It ‘s at night that I get up and start spreading light.” Ask it to the Resurrection. She will answer you: “On the night of that Cross I have rehearsing for my dance.” Ask it to the victory. She will answer you: “On the night of the defeat I felt the taste of revenge.” Ask it to love. He will answer you: “On the night of abandonment I loved back the face of the beloved.” Just ask Mary. She’ll say, “In the dark night of the Holy Saturday I felt the first steps of my son fully dressed of light.” Just ask Him. He’ll say, “Watch out therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep” (Mk 13: 33-37).
At night – in that fleeting space in between darkness and light – rootes the genius and the sanctity of Jesus of Nazareth, who was taken up at night to pray and get charge of Eternal, because at night is subtle and better the impact of the bucket into the well, the song of the fire, the thud of an apple, the gloomy words on the threshold, the cry of the baby. The things that never go out: the ones of God and His adventurers.
God’s people waiting to enter the Promised Land, Moses waits for a sign in the middle of the desert, Mary waits for a sign waiting for Golgotha – “Tell me, my son, how long do have I to wait for you” – the disciples living          in expectation the Kingdom.
Who expects fro Him, it makes it just for a simple warning, human before than Christian: “Why (He) would not come suddenly and find you sleeping.”   It is the sleep of those who no longer hopes,  of those ones who cross the threshold of the house and no longer feels the beat of a wait. It falls asleep who doesn’t know how to dream and imagine, read and build his own motivation again, scan the horizon and let be looked on his face. Who does not think, do not walk, who doesn’t insist to understand the “why” of either the world and the history. Should He not find you sleeping, or outside the house, as the virgins that stayed without oil right close to the Bridegroom approaching. We never forget to ourselves to have lost right that moment of heaven for which we were born and in which we grew up, because God’s footsteps come unexpected like love is surprising, right the same of Love that keeps us , demanding equal to the love that knows his insatiable fascination. He will come in the guise of a thief to snatch from our womb all the  desperation  and fill it with carefully chosen words, of flowers that seems like thoughts, of roses  taking the alignment of the presence,  of songs that make the underworld of the night to dance, of stars still able to whisper hopeful space of heaven.
Over there, in the deep, crossed between a cave and the shell of the universe, kindled the light of a star: the suspicion is that this year God has decided to Re-Bet on the man so full of mystery and awaiting, He created.   The expectation that he asks is the other side of love. Happy Advent: That Love shouldn’t find us sleepy!           

IV Domenica Avvento b

Overflowing of Grace – Luke 1: 26-38 That voice was like a sweet sound of harp: “Hail Mary, overflowing with grace, the Lord is with you.” There was the scent of bread and laundered in that house were the everyday tools, the light cose to the small jug, peach and pear branches. There was the smell and the suspicion of an ordinary day in the morning in Nazareth.

To Mary, anonymous suburban woman, was the one touched by the preview of what the disciples will experience some years later: You can even find out where to meet with Christ but you never know where He will lead you after meeting Him. The only certain thing is that house, modest as those ones who live there, soon it become too small to contain the joy of a great promise – “you will be the mother of the Most High” -; of a surprise that a small woman’s heart, even that of the Madonna, can not contain.
The Lord chose His own woman in tenements, in the slums, where the hovels of the poor, if they are still standing, it is because they rely on each other. He discovered there, among the people, and He made her his own.   “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you”: no right man had never enjoyed a similar greeting. And ‘the more admirable that has never been addressed from heaven to earth; it is complete astonishment for the humble girlfriend of the carpenter Joseph. So that must intervene directly Heaven to grip Her: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”
But how can a girl carry the huge weight of such a bet without suffering from dizziness? There is something strange for her: “I do not know man.   How is that possible?”. There are days when even the Heaven test dizzy: She does not like to be fool around, She tells the Angel passing on, her effort to be remained a virgin, the humble belonging to the rank of simple hearted ones. This moment could have been blocking the flow of the Eternal over the time. They must be not  moments of serenity for the Lord.
The first time Mary opens her mouth, Heaven trembles: She will deliver five sentences and a song (Magnificat). That is enough to have made of her the most sensual and sensible woman in the history. I like to think that, in that moment,  Mary has heard climbing the anguished please of a world that was waiting for this hour for millennia.
And She is there, focused to screen this strange proposed route, to deeply wonder about all obligations appurtenances. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.

May it be done to me according to your word.” this beautiful creature did not let her expropriate of his freedom even from the Creator. But saying “here I am” she let her to be abandoned to Him with a freedom so great that nothing was more obvious that that yes.

Christmas night – Luke 2: 1-14       Ok, here we are: He is born! Ready or not, willing or indifferent, calm or busy, Jesus is born! God entered history.

We can no longer get angry with him, treating Him guilt for something He didn’t do  and point our finger at the sky accusing Him of being away. No, He is here. He is present. He is in our midst.

It amazes me and fascinates me this God so in love with man to become one of us to turn out and be known. God did not find a place more charming and lovable of our flesh and He decided to live there and transfigure it. So Christmas is not just a revelation of God, but also it is on humans and humanity!

I have to take care of me and my brothers, because this flesh and this humanity have been chosen by God from all eternity to be the place of His revelation. How Great is God!But this is still not enough. The thing that always leaves me breathless and makes my view to get obscure  when I think about it, is the “how.” God decided to become man and He got in front of him an incalculable multitude of possibilities: a country at peace and with a flourishing economy? A modern and equipped city? A doctor father and a mother’s lawyer? A modern clinic and a specialized team? Huge highlight on all the newspapers of the globe? No, dear friends, none of that. God chooses the little Mary and Joseph the carpenter, both exiles for the madness of an emperor who decides to write down in its catalogs the people of God. God chooses the city of Bethlehem, the birthplace of King David. God chooses a cave. That’s how the Lord enters our History. This is how God comes to dwell among men.The immensity that even heavens cannot contain, is now caught between the trembling arms of Mary.
The creator of all that we can see, it needs a creature to survive. What do you say about it? Crazy, right? Yes, God is He so. If we want to fully understand the Christmas we must scrape out all the sugary honeyed debris that have been stuck at this party. Of course, there must be room for joy and sweetness, but Christmas is not only this. That puppy Messiah abandoned in the embrace of his mother in the cave of Bethlehem, should make us to jump on our chairs and make us breathles. This whole party, all this waiting is for Him! For that cold and helpless child  to be fed to the mother’s breast, changed, cuddled and cared for. He is Celebrated! This is the scandal of Christmas. So Merry Christmas to you all! To you who have waited and relied upon. To you who just do not want to know God and all his alleged lies. To you that you feel close because you live at the periphery of the story as Him. To you who have stopped eating to have someone who cares about you. To you who are looking to take a step towards him and you can not see that he has already made a hundred towards you. To you that after years will do Christmas without your beloved husband. To you that after so much solitude’ve found love. To you who still can not find the strength to heal. To you who are sunk in silence.

To you who finally tighten the arms a long-awaited and beloved son.

Doves or God? The priest chooses the doves – Lk 2: 22-40 Two turtle doves for purification, enough for that Child – forty days after the birth – “though he was in God, do not feel a thing to be like God” (Phil 2,5-6). A hidden God, working, everyday one. Nazarene before Christ. Straight to the temple, perhaps on the donkey that had been the means of transport and salvation over the desert, then in Egypt of the refugees. Yesterday in Bethlehem, before in Nazareth; then in Egypt and today in the Temple: because no one can say he had seen the Lord take some shortcuts.
One day He will perform the Law: meanwhile He respects it. Like the others, thus: the Temple, at the table, in the back room. Nothing more: so deeply man that they will struggle to glimpse the Future in those eyes of infant that cross the pathways of the common people. Approaching the Temple in the arms of a family down here. Like a Child: Nazarene, precisely.   Not yet the Christ of Glory. So anonymous Nazarene that the priest not even recognize him.Of priestly profession, he awaited the Advent of the Messiah: no people was never prematurely notified and much like his. Yet it takes doves and sends them back home. So, absently obedient to the law of Moses, law-abiding, even observing the bureaucracy of the Temple. Yet so distracted he did not notice that in his hands passed the Messiah: the Expected One, the Invoked One, the Desired One, what more suave lived his heart, this morning he had arrived in front of him.  When the spirit is drowsy, it is not enough just belonging to the caste of priests: Salvation passes and goes beyond. It is not compliance, not rituals, not even moralism… It is a Presence. Mild, hidden, almost imperceptible to the distracted minds. Nazarene, precisely: not yet Christ.
A day that unknown child will aggregate to himself the whole world: He will do new men on old and worn flashes peels from vices. He will open tombs and empty graves. He will give appointment to so many, too many, to all of them. To the blindness of the priest took over the spirituality of the pious Simeon; over eighty, sacristan with the sole desire to die. A attentive life, not a distracted one. In expectation of His passing, of His coming: he searched everywhere, often and often ordinariness of small things, small meetings. And he found Him: the Other – even child – has kept faith to the appointment, made himself tighten as promised. Simeon realizes that it is Him.It’s party time today at the Temple: “Now you can let, O Lord, thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for my eyes have seen your salvation.” Salvation had revealed even to the priests: though he was otherwise occupied. He did not know that before being Christ, that child was Nazarene. Before God, you have two looks at the Temple: the one from Simeon, the old sacristan with a smile (Salvation has a Face), the other from the priest, distracted though correct, man of God, that did not notice the face of God. Which God was waiting?

2 Domenica di Natale Gv 1, 1-18 (Commento di don Marco Pozza)            

In a wad of flab … She looks at Him, he looks at Him, they look at Him: “Oh, Lord. My God!”. Wearing poor expression of the poor and the unstoppable amazement for an unsustainable beauty. They look at him, He looks at them, He is little more than a wad of flesh that screams in the cold but in His eye He retains something fascinating: a mystery enclosed therein, an unspeakable daring to say. “Take Him up Joseph” – whispers Mary. The carpenter was shocked, annihilated to the idea of being able to touch God: “My God” – let he slip from his lips as, with respect, he presses Him to his heart. A little farther Maria tries to make cloth diapers: we got to dress God  before to deposit Him in the hay of the humble. Between coats, linen cloths and bands: She warm the up at the the fire  and she envelops the Mystery that lies in the safe arms of that carpenter from noble blood. The touch Him, shake Him, wrap Him: God is a just incredible to say.
Figuring this out, everything already seemed madness. To touch Him the border between the speakable and the unspeakable is slightly touched. He’s an  embarrassing God: “where do we place Him now?” – It is the first concern of Mary. There is wood, Joseph get aware of this and cover it with his cloak to make the first bed of the Savior. Imagine the Christ is artists and geniuses work, to see God is to dream the unthinkable, imagine and see, but touch God’s heart-pounding. Because a God who got touched and kissed, cuddled and changed clothes, tighten and wave their arms with emotion is an outsized God, by redness on the cheeks of bleached by waiting. An amazing God who became awaited for long to flare up the desire of man.
It is a time full of trepidation, riot, anxiety, hope and improvisations. The house of God is the womb of a virgin woman, that inexplicable confidence of Joseph, that bold and daring dream of God: “God became flesh and dwelt among us.” Became man and was given a nickname, just like the families of the men of this world: Emmanuel (which means “God is with us”). Bread and moons, cloths and seasons, whimpers and silences, meetings and clashes, Sky and despair: there is some unexplained in the blank stares and divine surrounded by those two, curved on the crib to contemplate that little face as big as a fist of man. To contemplate God, risen from an anonymous suburban love story. Of Nazareth.
It smells like sheep following the stable: in the meantime the story stirs. There is music of bagpipes on the square in front. There is a frenzy of celebration around: a star – foreshadowed in his comet – betrayed the presence of the Presence. Soon Joseph will open the door for those ones outside. Who knows what they will say, perhaps they expected different, more robust, maybe with a beard on him already. Patience, perhaps it is rightly so. That saving the world is not predictable boredom of power but the fragility of a naive child. They open the door: only light and silence. The words stumble.

2^ Tempo Ordinario – Don Marco Pozza – Gv 1, 35-42         

We’re seeking for you, The Love –   “Behold the Lamb of God (Jn 1,36), the two disciples heard him speak, they followed Jesus” (Jn 1,37). “”Hearing him speak so” who knows what joy those syllables generated.          Just think ‘Who of us, if an extraordinary man able to read inside of us did make us to be ashamed of ourselves, would run to call the people to take them  to him? He put so much joy passion and sophistication to their hearts,  that the engagement party is punctual. Seeing them following Him, that man turned and said: “What do you seek?”. Dry and timely question of a long-awaited Messiah.
They are the first syllables that Jesus of Nazareth says in the Gospel of John. With His question, kind and respectful one, Jesus does not ask “who” but “what”. Not therefore “seek me?”, That it would be obvious. But “what you hope to achieve with following me.” Jesus asks not just to inquire, because He knows everything from the beginning, and He penetrates the hearts. He asks that to provoke the response, to arouse a thirst, a desire to blow up! And to the question of Jesus that urges clarification, the two disciples answered with another question: “Rabbi, where are you staying?” “Come and see” (Jn 1,38:39) is the open, uncertain and fascinating answer  from that Man come out from thirty years of daily life in Nazareth.
“There will come a day – would prophesy a French writer – in which men will be so tired of their fellows, that just simply speaking  of God will make them cry” (L. Bloy).

Jesus of Nazareth does not say what will they see or when.
It will be staying with Him that the future will unfold in their eyes:
”They came and saw where He was staying, and they stayed with him, it was about four in the afternoon” (Jn 1:39).
”They went”. That is, they walked, they abandoned the certain for the uncertain, they proved to be brave men. By the way they remember well the time: four in the afternoon. At four in the afternoon, each of them got there with his own story. Everything was stored because their own lives were transformed. Too much joy inside those little hearts, too heavy to hold up that look, too great enthusiasm of that meeting. Andrea runs from his brother, Simon, and screams: “We have found the Messiah.” Nets resume, hooks to finish, fishings to be done …
Even the world of Simon goes haywire, “He looked at him and said, You are Simon, son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (Jn 1:42). As if to say: I knew you, I was waiting for you, follow me!
Who knows what eyes  that Man had. Yet they will say it with a cross on the head: Jesus of Nazareth is not for everyone. It ‘s true: He is not asking us for a little. All in all not asking us too much too. The problem is another: that Man asks you for everything. And we do not want to understand Him: greedy as we are of his own miracles, we clap our hands every time the paralytic jumps up at His command, that the woman straightens hump in the curve of his hands, the dumb speaks and daughter of Jairus wakes up on his deathbed. We do not understand that the real miracle of the Gospel is another: two healthy men who stand up and, without looking back, walking towards Him. The miracle that still today it scandalizes the world.

3^ Tempo Ordinario

4^ Tempo Ordinario Mc 1, 21-28 don Marco Pozza

The unclean and the Sublime Cursed Demon. In the desert, God’s voice is so loud as to               confuse the senses. The prophet dwells extreme risk between nothing and salvation. The judgment that God reserves for those who reject the prophetic words is identical to that of those who reject God himself: “If anyone does not listen to his words, I will require it of him.”
Today the most spoken language in the world is “nonsense” one: every day billions of words gets over us, pierce us, suffocate us. Thirty years ago a young man was used to use normally 1500 words: today he does not use more than 600 maybe, all the rest is based on clichés. The Word of God, on the contrary, emerges from silence, a silence that is perceived and weighing, a silence that enhances and strengthens. The word, which means primordial it hard to understand its power. In Jesus of Nazareth was able to tell the ultimate truth with a minimum of words. All of the Gospel of Mark, in broken greek original, consists of 64327 words that tell the unheard of God, the mystery hidden for centuries and centuries. He spoke dense, the Man of Nazareth, because His words sprouted from a deep silence, trained in thirty years of hidden apprenticeship. If I have two ears and one mouth, there’s a reason: I have to listen twice as much as I speak. That’s where he’s hidden the surprise and originality of the Word of God does not die when it’s pronounced, but just then begins to live. To the sources of creation God said, “Let there be light! And there was light” (Gen 1.3). In the synagogue at Capernaum, Jesus of Nazareth extreme reaffirms the validity of the concept: “Shut up!” – Is an order that allows no hesitation. An order followed by immediate compliance: “Get out of him.” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying loudly, came out of him “(Mk 1: 21-28). When many of the disciples after Jesus reproached that his language was hard, too hard, drew back and left him, Master asked Peter, “will you also go away?”. The fisherman replied, on behalf of all: “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. “That is why they remain: because He has the words. If He had only done miracles, they would not remain. And the words of eternal life does not mean that they are words that promise eternity, but words that give meaning to life. They Remain because He talks to them, because the word is the most precious lace of communion between castaways that only words they can cling to survive and float. The words of that Man are already the bank that saves them all.
Are you there? Can you do it ? You are logged in? “I was born under an unlucky star!” – You say. you’re not an astral  product – advises the Bible. “Unfortunately that’s just me! It ‘was stronger than me!” – that Is your excuse. you’re not a hormonal product – that man screams to you. “In this school, with these teachers we can not learn” – is your justification for the rejection. You are not an environmental product, put it in your head. you are a Personal product, His one.Believing it is not enough, even the devil believes and fears the God who shatters the darkness. It must be His disciples, prophets of either the un-heard and the unexpected, broken voices and unstoppable, because prophets of hope that never dies.

5^ Tempo Ordinario

All are looking for you, Master! – Mark 1, 29:39 Commentary by Don Marco Pozza

“Everyone is looking for you” (Mk 1, 29:39). He prays with open arms, seems to bless the day I was born, the anxiety of Simone does not hold. Him screaming in his face: “Master, everyone is looking for you.”
Some moments before, just at twilight, the mother-in-law of Peter was healed. He enters and, while the women prepare a soup seasoned with fish, He put her back on her feet. One of the many miracles recorded in those little more than a thousand days:straighten the lame, the blind will see, the prostitutes will convert and sterile return fertile. That man, released from the concealment of Nazareth, he will heal many but not heal them all. Maybe he wanted someone to become a symbol for all the others, the excluded left in their illnesses. Because they know, at least, not to lose their faith, because they too to  know that Christ would like tthem also to be healed and happy, if He were on earth certainly would touch them. And this desire is for them a medicine to share: daring more is ignorance. I know that illness and health are not our thing; every morning we can wake up, stretch our voluptuous limbs and we do not know if, getting up, our legs will fall below of us, if the mirror is not going would discover a terrible evil blossomed in the night.       The man is master only of his own soul, if you want you can save it, if you can not want to lose it.

“Hoping it is the difficult thing – wrote Charles Peguy – with quietly and shamefully voice. And it is easy to despair and the great temptation too.”
Some bring with them an image of God that, in fact, is superstitious. It is the image of the puppeteer who must be accommodated and vindictive move appeased if a wrong wire. Others depict him as an authority if distant and inaccessible, completely discordant with the friendship that we had been offered through Christ. It’s amazing the number of those who look to God as a kind of watchmaker – a God who can explain everything about the universe, but perfectly negligible in daily life. And there are people who know him only as God-stop-gap: in Himself, He does not necessarily exist, until you need to ask a favor or when a trouble occurs.                                                                                (by Letter of the Irish Bishops – Year of Youth 1985)
“Everyone is looking for you, Master.” Imagine the gaiety of Simon the Fisherman once re-credited: the pride of being a close friend of Searched one. “Everyone is looking for you, Lord. Take advantage of the popularity”: the carefree innocence of those who misunderstood Christianity with a handful of glory. He brings us back down to earth: “Let us go!” – And maybe shakes his head mo ‘paternal reproach. “How? Right now, Lord?” We could always say that you are tired, Master. “ “ Let us go somewhere else, fishermen! “Servants of all and slaves of anyone. Because being sought does not always mean being loved.

6^ Tempo Ordinario

The tenderness of Jesus – Mk 1: 40-45 Commentary by Don Marco Pozza

The Gospel is full of lepers, among the villages of Palestine, sometimes, could camp their cry: “Get away, we are          infected.” No one approached them, Christian piety dies within a few feet from their wounds. He alone remains, the Potter, in whose hands the mud can regain form, regain beauty and definition, light and heat.
He does not run away, He doesn’t flee away from His own responsibilities, He gets into the cry of pain to seek its origin and beat. And if He remains – while all theo others flee away- this time the leper approaches Him (Mk 1: 40-45), Nobody else accompanying him. The only case in the Gospel of Mark in which a seek one approaches Him alone: with humility, with extreme confidence, with caution. There is no cunning of those who want to steal Jesus yet another miracle, the eloquence full of moans of pain. He is either removed from society and ripped into the physical, so he still has two possibilities: the miracle, the jump into life, or to remain as he is, with all the evil stuck with him until the last day of his life. “If you want, you can heal.” He heads Him straight in His eye, hear the heart beating, leprosy ready to crumble down, the humble heart recognizing Him as the author of life. Jesus touched him and said, “I want it, heal;”.
Between these two sentences no leaf moves, beasts and men are silent. Only the hand of Christ lengthens, makes the short trip within the span of air, melts fear and pity into an embrace.

In every story there is the symptom of leprosy: Satan is always working to degrade the beauty of Creation. And ‘the boulder of solitude, of misery, of indifference, anonymity, of despair, of sin, of false murmuring, of the frightening malice.

Huge boulders placed at the entrance of the soul, which does not allow oxigen to get in, which block every blade of light, preventing words to be fruitful. Now everyone must be silent, men and beasts, as well the leper must return to the city in silent words and gestures.

Christ imposes silence: from the gentle tenderness of healing He passes vehemently to the annoyance, he admonishes, intimates to remain silent because people are misinterpreting everything, as nowadays.
Man in His sight is always a diamond to work.

1^ domenica di Quaresima

The Tempter tried – Mk 1:12-15  A man arrived to his thirties, without spending any word,            one evening he gave the last work of the carpenter (who knows if Joseph has given a small commission to that laborious and meek, son), he put down his cloak apprentice in the dad’ workshop and went out. Thirty years of silent apprenticeship: a life as an apprentice. In Nazareth, after six decades of waiting all had expected a miracle, or maybe a Breaking News of an unexpected parable: instead, all disappointed today, including myself. Because the first step is to let the Man Ambitious groped by Satan (Mk 1,12-15) to be a man to the end, to share with us the first law of those born man – named temptation. Attempted to expose the rotten pettiness of the Demon, amateur theology, psychologist ridiculous, naive man cavalry. Perhaps it can be said to know the best techniques to undermine me, preposterous creature thick with mud, but in front of the Man / God goes crazy for loss and fatigue of a job that is worn over the centuries.

Forty days in the desert, of failed attempts, the reckless thoughts in trying to misleading the Truth. Then the yield: full, miserable, gloomy. Satan runs in the dunes of the desert, the angels come close to this man who declared the Son of God to serve him and us and we realize that the game was invented in reverse. Why the devil should be made fun of in front of the stage of history. And so we find out which He was Jesus Christ was to groped Satan caused it to let him know who he really was and he – Satan – poor cleverness amateur – he fell into that, he could not hold up to the game, has run proven loser.

He leaves the workshop at sunset and dawn is led into the desert between noises of wild beasts and hoarseness of an angel’s face then became Lucifer. Other than that caricature of God that Satan gives to the poor Adam. Instead there is the full tenderness of God in giving to Adam all creation also showing the way to go.
The road of life is bumpy, dangerous, difficult: Christ puts some guardrail, the “protective barriers”, some guideposts.
See where wedged that damn opponent: yesterday, today, tomorrow. Until the last moment! It makes you believe that God is perverse and evil, jealous and envious, malicious and terrible.
Delivered the final work as a carpenter, he wore the dress of man and has accepted the challenge of beating His head, in the most humble demonstration of the “theory of the woodpecker” holding the foundations of the Gospel and of Eternity: “The woodpecker gets his salvation to the fact to use your head. “The challenge has been the same since the days of Noah, that of getting mock / groped by the world to tell about the logic of God who is always one step further, so that it is always understood after a moment. Poor old devil. O poor me.

2^ domenica di Quaresima / b

Perfect shape: What a man! Of an unusual beauty. There is an hour in the Gospel in which our Friend makes us the most amazing gift: it is not either an object, nor a benefit. We could call it confidence, but so complete and deep that it is not only an intimate part of Him, but it is His all, the ultimate essence and transparent Himself. In that hour, in fact, the Friend shows up to us of an unbearable beauty, He turns everything into harmony, He smiles as had never happened and maybe just that its glory, that being transparent waiving words,  because inside the the heart of man would born the urge to tell Him: “Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” Who speaks is the hoarse voice of Peter, the fisherman from Galilee, that speaks in the name of John and James, his comrades, who have enjoyed that privilege. The privilege to appear in that miracle of beauty that Jesus of Nazareth reserves to those three: He has not chosen them on the base of dignity, but without calculation of the heart. They are not apostles, they are friends. Three men, not twelve thay have to get that sort of anticipation of the Kingdom,  they must know how He really is. Because He is not the same as any other day. For a moment He want to lay down His mask of a man, He does tests to see if their friendship endures or translates into fear. In the eyes of those three Bedouins who awaken from the sleep in which the fatigue of the march had thrown them in, that Jesus dazzling as the prince of a fairy tale is not a foreigner, not even a character in a dream that continues.
He is, finally, in all His naturalness credible, the Lord. That Jew dressed in a poor coat, faded by sun and rain, with His face slammed by fatigue and fasts, now He clears the doubts about His divine sonship.
No fear, no repudiation and the desire to stay in the company of those three forces Peter to the “nth” undisciplined and out of place phrase: “Master, it is good that we are here.” Really nice: right Peter. “He did not know, in fact, what to say, because they were so frightened.”

A cloud enveloped them, and in the darkness, a voice rang out: “This is my beloved Son; listen to him”. “Stand up, be not afraid.” On the Mount of Transfiguration  Peter, James and John (but not ordinary people accustomed to the unpredictability of the Master) they are paying this. They show Him up their joy, the beauty of being up there, the light of that presence, and propose three tents to assemble and, punctual, the scourge of God: “Go down to the valley, your place is there in their midst!” .

In fact He is sincere He promises to be there. But you can feel His presence only when you’re on the street. A handsome man: handsome to die. In the Cross, for the love of humanity.

3^ domenica di Quaresima / b

The delicacies of God  It’s the beginnings of sacred history and the little people, chosen by God, is moving the first steps forward: we must, however, arrange them the hope. The book of Exodus is full of miracles, more than any other book in the sacred language: ten disasters of Egypt, the dry ford on the Red Sea, the morning bred and other huge phenomena are just the prelude to the quarantine of the great stuttered Moses between the clouds of Sinai. Over a hill, the divine finger sculpts the code. They will come carved seventeen verses known also by those who have never held the Holy Book.
Ten delicacies of love, perhaps too complicated to remember them all. Jesus Christ has summarized all in one exciting synthesis: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22,37). Have you ever fall in love with a girl or a boy? To say the truth: You wouldn’t take even a hair out of he/she if it was sincere love! If it was fake love, you were eating him/her with your eyes. You could wait to take her/him. But that was love-lie. Have you ever met a beautiful person, sincere, smart, so much to say, “what a strong one.” He ravished your heart because his eyes are watching you but leave you free. His hand it shakes yours but it doesn’t holds it. His love envelops you, but does not close on you. I see it in my life, despite the poverty of my head, a large number of delicacies of God, I see things too good, that’s why I do applause to the Lord that if anyone see me they say I’m crazy. When I discovered that Christ is alive, that He cares about me and He loves me until get over a cross, I said: “This is either mad or We cannot   throw Him away without first giving him a look.When I saw that He doesn’t hide anything , but He is free, that He says the truth clearly, That says: “Come after me, you’ll be fine,” I said, “Enough, I do not care of anything and I’m going to stay just with him. “ Blaspheme Him? Deleted. Or rather, I want to stay in the difficulties, in the impossible things. When you see that some people , just to appear, they sell everything just to do it, that some people to make a career then they go to bed with the first passing one, a big pain get on into your heart just to shout: “Stay with Christ! Put Christ in your heart! And you will make these crap off of you “. Remember: there are no bad wolves, but unhappy wolves. That’s what Christ can do.
The same thing happened to a group of people;   Jesus passes, He looks at them and call them up. He removes them from slumber, throws them on a different future. Look, it will not be an easy life, but I’ll support you. Are you Interested? They went and saw where he lived …                                       The joy of intimacy with Jesus unleashes a “drum beating” that does not stop anymore. Andrea says it to Peter, also Nathanael finds that out, the voice runs throughout Palestine and will run throughout the world without stopping. Since then, many men and women have heard this invitation, they have   testified and followed Him.

4^ domenica di Quaresima / b

Christianity is the greatest “waste” of time –  “The light has come into the world,” – says John – but men                loved darkness rather than light, “yet – assures us John the Evangelist -“ God loved the world so much to give his only Son “(Jn 3,14-21). “So much” Can you feel that heaviness, the “nostalgia”, the thickness behind this adjective. As if to say He loved the world in an exaggerated, crazy way; He has wasted so much time for the man. An adjective that put back the  desire for novelty our hearts. It seems to me a wonderful compliment: the hope of a new heart.

A heart like the Christ’s one, that never gets old, who always has the  miracle of a last word to tell you, as a fresh spring of water that fullfill your life without clogging your existence.
“Everyone who does evil hates the light, neither come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (Jn 3:20): “Just a little ‘of repentance and God is always ready to forgive,” but beware, this is not  the sin of the weak ones(which always deserves forgiveness), but it is the sin of the crafty, that does not deserve forgiveness. Instead of a stimulus to the good, the trust in God’s faithfulness has morphed into a false security that pushes to evil.   It ‘something that God can not bear. God is so forced to prove that His patience has a limit, that His forgiveness does not pass over to justice.
“Who does by the truth comes to light”: beautiful and uncomfortable wishes  for our young generation. Do not be afraid, do not worry: with a glimmer of hope and passion in your hearts you will turn the adult world upside down. Vulture to life. Bite life. Do not set your days aside, your hours, your dreams, your sorrows with those melancholy entrusting  to diaries. Love the beauty! Cultivate your own! Cure your person, cure the sweetness of your gaze. Choose life! Love clean and beautiful things: poetry, dream, fantasy. Cultivated friendships, meet people.

The world needs you to reverse its own course. Needs of young critics. Become a “subversive”. Do not trust the  “authentic” christians that “do not “ affect the crust of civilization. The true Christian is always a subversive guy , one that goes against the tide not to pose but by conviction. “Break the boxes” – was used to recommend Don Pino Puglisi to the children of Brancaccio-. And you’ll do it head-on if you’re in the Truth.
“It ‘s the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important” – recalls the fox to the Little Prince -.   God has lost so much time for the world to make it unique to him.

But you, do you waste time for God?

5^ domenica di Quaresima / b 

If the grain of wheat does not die – Jn 12: 20-33   Has it ever happened to you to know a person, even before you see his face, just because someone told you about in an extraordinary way ?
“We want to see Jesus” – Some Greeks shout to Philip. I guess with how much passion, enthusiasm and conviction of those disciples have told the world the incredible encounter with Jesus of Nazareth. Andrew and Philip, clinging to hope, they were able to show the world that you can go ahead and walk towards the Lord of history.
Beauty dearly: “If anyone wants to serve me then follow me.” Fall in love with Jesus Christ like who madly love a person and around that person he/she connects the choices of life, cultivating interests, suits the tastes, correcting defects, change the font, drags into its vortex the days, the nights, rest, work, party, the ordinariness, the joy, the pain, the disappointments, hopes. Yes: a total investment.
The love for Christ, unless he has the mark of the totality, is ambiguous. The part-time, the service for hours, perhaps with the compensation for the extraordinary, with Christ is not admissible “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit.” “Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this purpose I have come to this hour” (Jn 12:27). Jesus is afraid, He does not want to die, that’s why His acceptance of Father’s will it is a love poem. Perhaps He will be remembered that “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit.” It’s the absurd proposal of love of Jesus Christ to the people of the third millennium, to live healthy in a  planet of crazy-mad people.
Ours is a God that baffles, which rots the dreams and ideals, that he is not aligned with any human logic. Unpredictable. It came His hour, He adresses an invitation to Peter, James and John: “Rise up, Let Us go”. And we feel this invitation from Him especially when our life, at the end, leads us to have to engage in relationships with pain. But why the Lord gives you a cross, then He takes it away, or you He sets it lighter? “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone.” Getting up is to believe that the Lord came to earth to help us to win the resignation. I printed in my eyes the caress of a bride on her husband’s face: a love put to the test over the years, a terrible evil exceeded, a love that had to die for not being alone. I echoed the wonderful promise of the sacrament of marriage: “I promise to be faithful to you always, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health.”
Courage woman, prophetess of spring! Because if you deny from this primordial task, to announce the joy and hope to the people, the world will not remain nothing but a teeth chatter. Up there on the cross, between the flood and the rainbow, is planted the tent of the Christian, the only space where the Gospel and the dramas of man come together to embrace.
Believing is seeing an ear of corn where all they see a rot seed.

Domenica delle Palme – Don Marco Pozza   Mc 15, 1-39              

Unfortunate and pardoned! The “Good Thief” is the only canonized saint directly from               Christ: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (cf. Lk 23). His brigandage took him to be the companion of Christ in the final moment.

A side by side with Christ because he is the only one convinced to die close by a king. The other thief gets on blasphemy as those ones below. It ‘s a furious blasphemy (“If you are the Christ, save thyself and us”).
A blasphemy that awakens the violence of the “good thief “who, on the cross, dedicated to old accomplice his latest aggression: “Not even you fear God, seeing thou art to suffer the same punishment?”. He recognizes that the crucified Christ is in their midst. But he does not  ask for the miracle, he just wants to make inroads in the memory of Christ: “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
An incredible gesture: in a moment Jesus transforms the calamity into a life, an entire life played in seconds. Too easy? Yet the Good Thief has filled that no time of great things. Probably Christ hath been moved because the cross has received a wonderful worship by a robber hardened.

This thief is a prophet: He affirms the kingship of Christ in the moment of rejection, of defeat, of the mockery from the notables who are under the cross. Before judging him as  unworthy, we should know him! He confessed his sins. He  proclaimed Jesus as innocent. He silenced the arrogant companion . He Recognizes Jesus as a king, not during a miracle, but by the humiliation and abandonment. He Recognizes in the death the main entry to the Eternal. He Deserves to accompany Christ in His entrance into Paradise. That’s him. The outlaw, the excluded one.
“Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” A single motion of pure love, and an entire criminal  lifetime got  canceled. Misery! In a  blow he is not only acquitted, but raised to the glory of the altar!
This first saint of Christianity has committed a grave offense, is convicted and he suffers the punishment reserved for robbers: in this way the name of the evildoer is fitting on him. But in the twilight of his life, this man meets the sun, the light that is Christ: “Today you will be with me in Paradise”, “before sunset, you will be with me in my kingdom.”This is the true Easter: pass under the rubble Friday, wait silent throughout Holy Saturday and leave the tomb, dressed in that beauty that so invades the soul of all the characters that run today in the Gospel they moved, amazed, excited. It ‘a race against time: we must announce to all that Death was won forever. That Man hanging on the Cross won the game’s history.
And after winning He celebrated in the most unexpected: crossing the sky in hand with a robber. Oh, excuse me: with the first saint of Christian history.     One that even today is accused of being the most ambitious history of the whole earth.

Domenica di Pasqua b

Thank you, Mary, for your true believing A full moon night, with the rope of Judah still dangling on that tree branch chosen as the port to nowhere. Mary, that          everybody imagined as suffering and resigned under the Cross; just a few would have bet that the slender shoulders of the unbearable beauty of Nazareth would hold the light of history. It was there on the twilight of the day, when the night gives way to dawn, to choose his tunic to wear on the shoulders, sandals to put the foot to run faster on the grass, the thread with which tie her long hair of young Nazareth woman. And simultaneously, she repassed in secret words to say all in one breath as soon as she would cross her Risen Son. Since that night, the mothers, in the midst of anguish general, train their voice to sing the songs and do the dress rehearsal for the Resurrection. She was the star of a thousand welcome to whom this morning around the world must say its most moved “thank you”: for he rbelieving until the end. The Gospels – whose words falter when the subject is Her – tell that to Mary’s house or in her arms of woman everyone was at ease: from neighbors to old companions of Nazareth. Relatives of Joseph, to the friends of youth of his son. From the poor of the district, at the pilgrims. Protagonist of a thousand welcomes and of a return which earned the hope for all, because women guard the gates of the factory life and nature that demands love, “Mom, why do you seek among the dead for one who is alive?” (Lk 24,5). Yet none of you evangelist had dared to outline any hint: they left her up there a few hours ago ‘, under the weight of that infamous and shameful Cross.
When children have birthdays everybody wish them a happy birthday; but there are also those who in that day sends their greetings to the mother, the tool of God without which the life would remain the scribble conceived in a full moon night. He and She, the mother and her child, the Cross and the Glory. Their story is so simple that it has become so tricky to intelligence. He’s still a trace of the Gospels. His and Her walk without stopping, with the heart of a child who smells of wind. The heart that does not distinguish between the virtuous and the rogue, the beggar and the prince: they turn to all with the same voice solar, as if there were neither virtuous nor rogue nor beggar, nor prince. But only the nostalgia of Life who rises.
Michelangelo attempted the daring challenge to sculpt in marble that love story. What he managed was a masterpiece; even little, however, in the face of reality. “Tell us, Mary – says the liturgy in an old sequence – that you saw on the way?” And she, the woman Friday, gives voice to the days of waiting in labor: “The tomb of the living Christ, the glory of the risen Christ. Christ my hope is risen; and He is before you into Galilee.”
The road is long only for those who do not go to the bottom of their dreams. Happy Easter: Christ is truly risen!

2^ Domenica di Pasqua b  Gv 20, 19-31
My Lord and my God!   “You’re in disbelief as Thomas!” We used to say to those who manifest some suspicions. The doubt of this apostle has become proverbial.
John gets Thomas as a symbol of the difficulties that meets every disciple to come to believe. What John wants to teach to the Christians of his community (and to us) is that the Risen has a life that escapes to our senses, a life that can not be touched with the hands or watched by eyes, it can only be achieved through faith . This also applies to the apostles who also have a unique experience of the Risen.
We can not have faith in what we have  seen. We can not have demonstrations, scientific evidence of the resurrection. If someone claims to see, see, touch, he must renounce the faith.

We say, “Blessed are those who have seen”. For Jesus, however, blessed are those who have not seen, not because they believe it at higher costs more and therefore have more merits, they are blessed because their faith is more genuine, more pure, indeed, is the only pure faith.

Who sees has the certainty of the evidence, he has irrefutable proof of a fact. Thomas appears twice in John’s Gospel and he doesn’t appear  – we would say – in a good light. A first time during the death of Lazarus when Jesus decided to go to Bethany, Thomas thinks that follow the Master means to lose the proper life. Does not understand that Jesus is the Lord of life and, dejected and disappointed, he exclaims: “Let us also go to die with him” (Jn 11:16).
At the Last Supper, Jesus speaks of the way that he is treading;  a path that passes through death to introduce into the  life. Thomas intervenes again: “Lord we do not know where you are going and how can we know the way?” (Jn 14,5). It is full of doubts, hesitations and doubts, unable to accept what we do not understand. It almost seems that John has fun to outline in this way the figure of Thomas; but in the end he reward him: it puts in his mouth the highest, the most sublime professions of faith. In his words he reflected the conclusion of the itinerary of faith of the disciples. Is it  Thomas to have the last word on the identity of Jesus, he calls Him: “My Lord and my God”. An expression that the Bible refers to YHWH (Ps 35,23). Thomas then, is the first to recognize the divinity of Christ, the first that comes to understand what Jesus meant when he said: “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30).
The conclusion of the song (vv. 30-31) presents the reason why John wrote on his book : “ He told of the “signs” – not all, but those sufficient – for two reasons: to arouse or confirm the faith in Christ and because, through this faith, anyone come to life.

3^ Domenica di Pasqua b

The priest and the fragrant bread – Luke 24: 35-48 There is a hotel along the main road from Jerusalem to Emmaus: Who ou us don’t know it? Who of us has not walked along that road, one evening when all was lost? Christ was died  into us. They had taken Him: the world, philosophers, scientists. Jesus did not exist any more for us on earth. We were walking along  a road and He was there at the side. We thought of being alone, but we were not. It was evening. That’s an open door, the darkness of a room where the flame of a fireplace is flickering shadows in. When they were at the village where they were headed to, he pretended to proceed further. But they constrained him, saying, “Stay with us, because it is getting late and the day declines.” Sitting at the table, He broke the bread and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him. But he disappeared from their sight and He left them wrapped in a deep nostalgia: “Weren’t our hearts on flames while He talked and explaine scriptures along the way ?” (Cf. Lk 24:32)
Think what a masterpiece of beauty, of nostalgia, of eternity: they recognized him in the breaking of the bread. Only in that gesture they saw reflected the features of their Jesus. Not even Mary Magdalene, the woman who has chased more than all those gypsies steps, had recognized him. Outside the tomb crying and confuses Him with the gardener. Only when Jesus says: “Mary” Her eyes gets opened and she recognize His Messiah. And us, too, sometimes, did we recognize Him? Why do not we want to admit it? Well, we recognized in His priests, very often in the confessional, it happened more than once to hear the unexpected, dazzling word, to suddenly receive from a  gentle and humble hearted stranger, the gift of a caress scented of heaven, a consolation that bore no sign of man.

All this until the hands of a few elected men will raise the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. These are the men who created the Holy Thursday. God’s workers that in their hands they have the scripture:  Ocean of poetry and of eternity that man is willing to lose in order to continue to sleep. But the Christian who ignores the scriptures remains without a necessary and wonderful food” sweeter than honey and the honeycomb” (Ps 19:11).
Today there is a crisis about spiritual ecstasy, the surprise factor is fading out, we don’t get surprised any more by anything. We should be amazed by God. Christ addresses to us today the same reproach addressed one day to the Sadducees, “Ye do get into error by not  knowing the Scriptures” (Mt 22,29). It is necessary to regain provocative force of the Gospel. If we, believers, do not keep these expectations high, the follies and utopias of Scripture, our presence in history is really vain. Not even the disciples of Emmaus were able to recognize that this stranger was hiding the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth because they did not understand what it was written in the Scriptures: “Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Lk 24,45).

4^ Domenica di Pasqua b

It’s Your voice: My heart is going to go crazy – Jn 10: 11-18 Born among the shepherds of Bethlehem, Jesus, once adult, runs down to the water and the fishermen. In the land of Israel you can be a fisherman, but you can not shake off the inseparable and unmistakable smell of the flock over you. “All those who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheeps did not hear them” (Jn 10: 8).

Absolute and demanding this Jesus. Besides, he was a free man, a man of total freedom. Down in the streets, in the squares, in the synagogues, in the Temple, in private homes, he crossed sights of prostitutes and robbers, weahty people and crazy guys. He did not know what “complexes” were about!

For this reason He was going straight to the point, fleding out formalism and social conventions. Not looking at anybody, but He spoke with authority, becuse He was moved with extreme freedom.
”The sheeps follow him because they know His voice.” The voice of the shepherd guarantees every sheep of the flock the way to pass the test. Caste intimacy relationship (“enters by the door”), looks twisted in the singular (“one by one”) personalized messages (“calls them by name”).

That voice would accompany the people as a column of smoke that outlines the way, like a sea that opens to salvation, as a temple which houses prayers. From shepherds to fishermen. Born fisherman, Peter probably was not so much different from me, maybe even from yourself. Impulsive, stubborn, seemingly self-confident, full of love for Jesus in words, but inwardly insecure, afraid of being overwhelmed by the waves and ready to betray the testimony cost him too much. Look at him now, standing shouting his creed. Making it Wrong, he learned: “At your word I throw my life.” Make it Wrong, you understand yourself! If one were to ask me: “Describe yourself!”, With the smile you would say they are incompetent, but ready for anything, because they know that the more you give yourself in God, the more it will improve the people around us.
“Why live?” or “To who live for?.” If you live for something you always have an eye to your navel, and you always look only to you. If you live for somebody you come out of you, walk along paths of novelty, that smell of greatness. And if that someone has a capital letter, then: “Good luck!” Because that someone makes you get out of the pack, He gives you the courage to walk alone, to walk against all, to meet, meet, meet. Sure, it takes madness, fantasy and … so much trust. Just think about Peter and his friends have been working all night, even without taking a fish. Jesus said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat.” Peter was tired, but said firmly: “At your word I will let down the net.” In other words, Peter said, I trust you. At your word I throw my life. “
A dream high, waist high; to dream down, miserable life.
Yet no one can choose life in our place.

5^ Domenica di Pasqua b

Abide in me and I in you – Jn 15: 1-8 “Abide in me and I in you” – Jesus whispers over the hearts              of his disciples. How much tenderness, sweetness, and motherhood in this expression shows up. “To stay”: ie to rest our head on His shoulders, tighten a strong hand on a precipice, hook eyes in the darkness. But why stay in Him when all they give you doubts about its existence? Because “Without me you can do nothing.” But one might ask: “Are you sure, Lord?” Here it seems to breathe only darkness. Secret funds, rods rigged, bribes under the table. Corruptions of power, games palace. Fraudulent tax returns. Earthquakes of scandals, ambiguity banking, predatory relationship with public money. Processes put under the sand, distorting evidences, Public competitions that are already decied. Amphetamines slashing athletes that break records! “Abide in me and I in you”: “But who are You to ask us that?”
I remind about the  joke of that missionary who, as he spoke to the little black kids under a tree in the forest,  having ever used in his speech the word “computer”, I was asked by a child what he felt the computer was. And he, pretty embarrassed, replied, showing him the pencil in his hand. “I’ll explain in a bit : do you see this pencil? well, the computer is a complete different thing.”
In fact, God is something else. Luckily. We have to repeat it with her dancing lips that verse of the psalm: “Above the heavens  your majesty is exalted.” Only like this we will be gripped by the unpredictability of God. Only then we will understand His unpublished found. Only then we deceive its surprises and we realize that they are truly inexhaustible His resources on the news.
“Abide in me and I in you” – to regain the wonder into our eyes! Folks, there are more wonders in our lives. There is no more waiting. Our life flows like sand over the hourglass, with no chills. There is a general shortage of passion, enthusiasm.
Let’s recover life because this is not life! No ability to turn things around with no prophetic flicker we never would understand that the best age of life is what we have! In my head there is a conviction that the more reckless will be our abandonment in God, the more tender it will be His hugs! He promised: “Whoever remains in me and I in him, he bears much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”
Do you want to know the unpredictability of God? Look around and you’ll see, thank God, the fruits of this madness of the Lord. Why Philip and Federica have given way their job in hospital and they left volunteers in Ethiopia with their child? Why Giulia, the seduction made flesh, after the high school has entered as a novice in a cloistered monastery? Because that couple, as if not enough children and the problems they already had, has ventured into a risky operation of custody? Why Rita forgive the killers of his brother Paul? Why Luca, thirteen years old, continues to caress his young wife that was reduced to a plant?
Go and find a logic in this.

6^ Domenica di Pasqua b  Gv 15, 9-17 (Commento di don Marco Pozza)

Able to get  ignited – Jn 15: 9-17

The Upper Room, from being a refuge against fear, it becomes the basis of a team of mad people that begins to disturb the peace of the world. Besides the Master had     chosen them right for this and, incidentally, all strange people.

Normality has never enchanted more than a lot. He wanted people on fire, he needed people able to get ignited by an ideal, to burn because of passion. He needed friends: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and I commissioned you to go and bear fruit, and your fruit will last” (v. 16).

He demanded some lovers: of Him, of His dream of overthrowing the world, of His boundless desire to love. He wanted people willing to lose their head, to risk their hearts, their faces. Maybe their own life.Jerusalem is the starting point, the world becomes their battlefield, the ends of the earth the limits to reach.

Fiery they start, willing to pay the price of loneliness, contempt, abandonment and derision. In an age where we preached normality at all costs – after three years of general disruption  – they too were normal. But the normality of the Gospel is a logic that touches the madness: “No one has greater love than this, to give his life for his own friends” (v. 13).

The Master had not set a measure, but  His one: “Love one another as I have loved you” (v. 17).
Jesus, remaining in their midst, He has realized that man can not live without someone close, that give courage, makes them feel valuable, accompany him. He also had not choosen one but twelve of them!

Chosen “to be with him” (Mk 3:14). Before they live together, then He sends them into the world. Not held no purse, no bag, no sandals. But for sure a friend! Without things: but not without friends. Two by two they ‘ll knock at the doors of the world.

How many reassurances because we do not have to feel despondent! It almost seems that he even manages to do without us. It seems to want to find a way to get back up there while staying with them. To Leave …just remaining. Embrace of the Father with one hand and with the other tighten their chest.
“I’m too tired. Depressed. Confused. No one understands me. No one cares about me. All of them are against me! I figured if I do one fine!. He is really smart instead. She really is beautiful instead. I’m not capable. I Do not even try. There will be never. So much is useless! But then, what will people say? It ‘s all your fault! Ah, if I had this i shoot myself. “
I wondered if the early Christians had reasoned so, where would come to preach the gospel?

Ascensione

Nose up , Feet down During the Ascension, Jesus glanced toward the ground that swooped into the darkness. Only a few small lights timidly glowed over the city of Jerusalem. Gabriel, the archangel, who had come to welcome Jesus, he asked Him, “Lord, what are those little lights?”. “They are my disciples in prayer, gathered around my mother”. He replied. “Shortly, after returning to heaven, I will send them my Spirit, because those flickering torches would turn into more and more alive fire able to inflame with love, little by little, all the peoples of the earth “. Gabriel, the Archangel, dared to reply: “What will you do, Lord, if this plan would fail?”. After a moment of silence, the Lord said to him softly: “But I have another plan.”
In your opinion, is a beautiful  or sad time? It depends on how you look at this time. Look at that absurdity: this time seems to be even more sad time of death. Because, at least, the cross left a corpse to embalm with tears and ointments, a corpse to visit with flowers and lanterns. Illogical the man, if indeed needs a tomb in the earth to give more comfort than an unattainable point in heaven that speaks of hope. But if in a leap this man would leave the earth in the prime of his youth and his wonderful victory, it would be   only to cry out that even us are destined for eternal residence.
How hard is it trying to understand. We, armed with culture and literature, do understand that He was just between us and now He’s gone, that we could touch Him and now Not. The difficult part of our life begins from this moment in which our troubled heart is into an absurd remorse. No longer having the brilliant and unpredictable Master, we would like to stop overe there thousands of years because we have been told that He will be get precisely the same manner. But it won’t be possible, it was not even for the disciples: they had to obey, they were forced to go back down with the others. With a heartfelt invitation by two men in white garments, to not give the Master yet another impression of not understanding anything, “Men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?”
He returns to the Father, you know what I mean? That those pahths we are going through are not interrupted ones. That our life is not suspended over the void. That the God who you feel tremendously far, He became a tenant of that private apartment which is called “human person”. So that His temporary private address brings the features of each of us: myself, Don Marco, you, Andrew, Angela, Paul … And who wanna adore Him do not have to look for Him in residential neighborhoods of the sky, but in the eyes of the people .
Then we will understand that this was just a game to make us to fall in love of that Man even more. Then we will understand that he pretended to go away. We will understand from this: we will not be scared anymore.

Pentecoste Gv 15, 26-27; 16, 12-15 (Commento di don Marco Pozza)                

A gift exaggerated   After the Ascension, the apostles stood silently with their noses  up. A little ‘stunned and a little’ regret. They got back into the Upper Room, just hiding out cos’ scared from the Jews”: “Now what are gonna do?”
In Jerusalem, no one expected anything from them once they remained without a chief. The istitutional Power was able to restore order after the confusiuon perpetrated by the troublemakers from Galilee. The lesson of the cross had to serve as a reminder to anyone still harbored by those bizarre ideas, but they had miscalculated, as often it happens to us in life!
Too bad they had not reckoned – disciples, opponents and experts – the gift of the Holy Spirit! In the Ascension, Jesus, jus bringing for the first time humanity up there, He took the Father doing the official presentation of the “bride”. The Father, was happy for the choice of the Son, and He would make him a gift now exaggerated for the wedding. He agree with Him, to sent on earth his Holy Spirit with the task to render even more beautiful and attractive the bride. She is beautiful but she brings a lot of spots on her face, many wrinkles on her forehead, several scratches on  her body … the Holy Spirit does not like wrinkles. There is a hymn whose chimes vibrate the heart: “Send forth your Spirit, Lord, and renew the face of the earth.” Renew the face: in other words, remove wrinkles, clean features, shine the glory.
The gospel is wonderful in his strokes, terrible on its story jumps, great in its precision. At the End of Jesus’s timemon earth,  the apostles are believed vanquished, crushed, humiliated. The Pharisees are already toasting when they perceive not to have calculated the last character: the Holy Spirit. They are astonished. There is an “unscheduled”: an image of the heavenly Church, uninvited, takes everyone by surprise and unprepared. It ‘hard to realize what’s happening, impossible to predict the consequences. It ‘a church that embarrasses, disturbs and shakes. Pentecost: that is the record of an “unannounced” accident and, by accident, they do not extract a blackened corpse of the church. Far from it. From the rubble caused by the collision with the Heavenly Spirit , the Church was born. The Church that you would not expect : a Church that you do understand, inexplicable, uncontrollable. A church that, if it were always the same, you would leave a question: “What’s going on?”.
A Church concerned about the things of God and zealous in those of men. And ‘the Church of the apostles! Slippery, unthinkable, unpredictable. strong, passionate, fiery, passionate, irresistible. Love and indomitable. As the times are changing …

Corpus Domini Mc 14, 12-16.22-26 (Commento di don Marco Pozza)

The living Bread Everything was ready, both the private and public virtues were up to culminate in the supreme sacrifice, but in the imagination of Jesus a human , too human, gesture was missing, and, therefore, tremendously divine: His own last will. The Son of Man was there, in the middle of the table and, for the first time on earth it was taking a wonder: have the person you love, wedged inside of her, become one with the desire of love. It is by the words spoken by Jesus, after which we can measure the love that overflowed from the disciples – afraid and in love at the same time – as He calls them “little children” although rough men and in the vigor of their own ages. “Take you all; this is my body”, “Take you all; this is my blood.” He had never spoken to them as He did that night. The disciples sensed that their friend is God and God is love. On the Sundays I’m curious to dig on the faces of those who draw near to the Eucharist: fear and confidence, abandonment and remorse, shame and love. The small piece of consacrated bread spreads light on the irreparably actions carried out by  sinner who approaches. No one can claim to know himself if he does not filter his features over the light of the consecrated bread. The Eucharist! The emotion of a God who reaches you as you are: a sinner and a slave, beautiful and irreverent, amazed or indolent. No matter: Christ comes! Sometimes I feel my hands shaking in the act of consecration: the gesture of the Highest Priest.   I Feel the divine weight on my bent shoulders, the tenderness of your weakness of man, the power of an elusive mystery, which whisks you away freeing you at the same moment.
Into our dirty hands, the “Corpus Domini”. “I am the living bread come down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread will live forever” (Jn 6:51). Too bad that we often get this bread with lightly, habit and without full awareness: someone stutters a fading amen, someone feeding him like candy … someone really believe and, almost, you see him cry. But Can you think that all the crimes that you carry in your heart, when you hugs that Host, are no longer yours? Another One made them His own after His forgiveness fell into your soul? But if it lacks those who proclaim the miracle of the Eucharist, how will they believe? It serve real evangelizers on the street: people capable of chasing, complement, accommodate. We believe that even a young punk can become a Saint.

Our weaknesses reveal that Jesus that is the Onlt One able to save him. Perhaps you have also had the terrible temptation sometimes to get close to a group of young people on scooters in front of our churches, to announce to them that the best thing that can happen to a man is to have known Jesus of Nazareth and that life with him is another matter entirely. How they are lost without Him! But how much fear! And then, what to say?

Will they accept me? Who am I to tell them something?
Why do not you try before you give up?

X Domenica T. Ordinario

XI   Domenica T. Ordinario  Mc 4, 26-34

God exists, but not you: relaxed – The Religion of Jesus remained in the centuries the religion          of the Word. He uses the lilies of the field and the mustard seed, the flock and the shepherd, the housewife and the seeker of pearls, the snake and the loaf of bread, the crab and the children who play the flute.
For more than a thousand days he chose to speak in parables and , ignoring the language of the Rabbis,  He knew very well, He clung to the naive language of children to ensure us that history, froma that day,  it is not a collection of unnecessary jerks.
We’re not going along broken paths, our life is not suspended over the void. The God you feel awfully far away He became present inmost man. A storyteller God, that, with the words, get you restless, questioning, surprised and worried. His stories are so bright, are stories that reveal, sketches of everyday life that ignite the desire of the Eternal: it will remain obscure only to those es who held the distraction into their eyes and their heart heavy.
The ancient recalled that, when the finger is pointing at the moon, only the  fool one looks at the finger “De te fabula narratur” (“is about you that we speak in this story”) is the word that stood at the bottom of their stories and tales. And it is about you that is said in this parable. To those are  watching from outside, Grace is not easy to understand, yet the Kingdom of God is already within the story, is a germ that mysteriously makes its way, it grows up , despite the man sleeps or rises night and day, the seed sprouts and grows up, as it does that, it does not even know.
In the womb of history lies the seed of beauty. Are not the men to realize the Kingdom but it is God who frees His creature from a heavy wheezing, only the announcement is left to her and , when the time comes, the collection.

The Kingdom of God is like a metaphor of a dream: hidden, silent, childlike and divine, It slowly grows, sprouts and kindled.
Because God exists: and this is enough to make our hearts to  go crazy. It exists but is not you, and this is enough for us to relax and feel ourselves “less God”. Because no one will ever be able to explain why in a world in which man dreams of becoming God, there was a God that one day he dreamed of becoming man.

Not for nothing, this story – turned on the edge of the lips of a Rabbi of Nazareth – is accused today of being the most ambitious history of the earth. A story told in parables seeds and flowers blooming.

A colorful story.

XII   Domenica T. Ordinario Mc 4, 35-41

Have you still no faith? In this passage from Mark’s Gospel, everything is designed to describe the situation of humanity, in its slow history, and everything aims to proclaim the divine plan that the Son of God wants to accomplish.
It came in the evening: the night of fear and doubt; the end of the day and its ephemeral certainties. Jesus invites His Church to take off and to “move” to the other side.

It is an invitation to Easter which is a “passage”: the one of the Red Sea for the chosen people, freed from slavery and led to freedom; passage from death for the Son of man freed from sin and led to glory. The other side is the one of God, which is not seen and Which Jesus reveals the way to (Jn 14,4).
The boat crossing the lake with His disciples and Jesus, it is the Church. Like Noah’s ark, it was built just to “pass trough”. But a storm breaks out. The evil forces Unleashes against it. The boat is full of water, here a symbol of death that takes man’s breath away. Evil fight against the Spirit. And Jesus sleeps.
The absence of Jesus weighs heavily on the hearts of the faithful: not seeing Jesus, they are afraid and they even think that they would never be able to make the crossing and that should never have set sail on that boat. But the insistent prayer of the faithful, who call Him, is felt by Jesus. He wakes up. He is there, as promised (Mt 28:20).

Jesus saves his Church from all the storms that threaten to make it sink. Jesus did not rebuke the apostles for not waking him up right away, but instead blames their lack of faith.
We must pray Him, and pray with faith. The fear of dying, which is negative, it is then replaced by the fear of God, which is obedience of the faithful to their Savior.

This is our situation: the weakness of our boat draws strength from the presence of Christ: he makes us to go.
There are moments in everybody’s life when we have the impression of sinking, overwhelmed by grief or from our mistakes, when a stronger pain comes, evidence unsustainable, despite all our efforts, perhaps sincere.

It happens so also the apostles: to the disciple the pain is not avoided.
Make steadfast, O Lord, the faith of the Christian people, because we do not exalt in success, we do not broke down in the storms, but in any event, we do recognize that You are present and accompany us on the path of history.

XIII Domenica T. Ordinario  Mc 5, 21-43

Doctor of souls and bodies – A man named Jairus walks through the crowd: “Make                   way, make way!” and he kneels before the Man of Life. “Master, my baby is sick, come …” “Do not cry, your baby will live, go to her”
The Author of life walking in the middle of the bedlam of the crowd, among screams and cries of those who are desperate reasons for living. Suddenly Jesus turns: “Who touched my clothes?” Then looks down, scans the crowd, his gaze has flashes of majesty and lay down on a poorly dressed woman, wasted in the face and miserably enterd among the anonymity of the crowd.
A prematurely aged woman, it would have been enough to touch the hem of His garment to feel revived in Life; the eyes of Jesus and the others are  burning on her  and prevent her from escaping but she comes forward and tells Him, speaking without speaking, sweet words entrusted by the eye, and He to her, “Go ‘in peace, daughter, your faith has saved you. Be healed forever. Be good and happy. Go! “.
They look at him puzzled: to  touch Him was a poor woman, and He let her to touch him.

Like one day you will leave  a thousand other women to touch Him bedside of his kingdom because in that Man dwells in the power of life. He is still the Creator and never it was heard He fled from his responsibilities.

To the Artisan, better if artist, it will always remain in the heart the fate of his own creature. His masterpiece. He, who loves life and declared enemy of death.

Even today, however, He remains there: on the road, dusty as His friends, to translate screams and shake hands. “May you be blessed for ever, Master.”
After her, the daughter of Jairus: “I repeat, have faith, do not fear. Your little girl will live.”
And life goes on; strictly on the road.
Because even today, of whom he is lucky enough to contemplate the eye in vision, he tells the sweetness of a Man never forgot the life of this world. Because man, the reproach of history, is still His most risky bet.    “May you be blessed for ever, Master.”

XIV   Domenica T. Ordinario      Mc 6, 1-6 (don Marco Pozza)

O God, send us fools. In the synagogue of Nazareth, on hearing Jesus speak, all those present “were amazed by the gracious words that came from his mouth,” till to bear witness (Lk 4:22). At the time they were fascinated, captivated, captured, but one moment later the admiration turned into fierce hatred. “How dare He, just a simple carpenter’s son in the country, tospeak like that? That man, who they had seen as a child play with their children? “
No one is a prophet in his homeland: this is known to all, but Jesus, perhaps, was expecting  by his fellow villagers a sort of exception to the rule or an exception that confirmed the rule itself. Along the way, however, you will find that the enemies are right there, “one of the family, in his home and will marvel at their unbelief” (Lk 6.4:6). The Evangelist Luke describes well the anger erupted in the hearts of his countrymen: “They drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill to throw Him down headlong.” In short, they wanted to kill him, all together, through clenched teeth, compact. Why? Because holiness, when it is pure, become a “sign of contradiction”, it reveals the thoughts of hearts and, therefore, it shocks till to become mortal. Especially if there is a unanimous crowd willing to lash out at him.

His countrymen, to believe in the divinity of Jesus, they would probably asked for a miracle, an emotion, a magic, as in Capernaum!

They were “recommended”, villagers of Jesus son of Joseph! But, of miracles, Christ was the enemy, and these were all torn from His own piety, snatched out His condescension, even stolen by cunning.
We know that the true miracles did not consist in the blind to opens his eyes, in the cripple who throws the crutches out, or in the dead one raised, but in the faith that had aroused such events and consequences that faith itself produced.
In Nazareth, Jesus did not do any miracles because faith  were lacking and this prevented to receive His Word! They “They were filled with wrath, and rose up, threw him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill to throw him down headlong.”
O God, send us some fools, who undertake totally, that they forget, that love not only in words, that really donate to the end. We need fools, of unreasonable ones, of passionate ones, able to dive into the unknown insecurity opened by poverty.

We need fools of the present , in love with simplicity, peace-loving, free from compromise, determined to never betray, obedient and with spontaneous and tenacious, strong and sweet.

O God, send us fools.

XV   Domenica T. Ordinario Mc 6, 7-13 (Commento di don Marco Pozza)           

“Here we are, you and I, and I hope that between us Christ is the third.” “I need to speak to you, the time has come, get up, come on, friends” is the invitation of Jesus to his disciples.
It looks like a king who decided the conquest of the kingdom: the first investigates and get close to the people to know their thoughts – “Who do people say, and you say I am?” – And then to rework impressions and extend the work to trusted men to bring in the whole kingdom.

Go, win, get back to him: the strategy of all the great men of history.
Jesus looks at them one by one and it’s like looking at the same page for twelve times and always see the same inscription: misunderstanding.

He smiles and continues. “Go and preach the kingdom of heaven is at hand”.

So that they can be trusted and accepted, Jesus gave the apostles the gift of miracle: “They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil the sick and healed them.” No bread, no bag and no coins in his belt: with only a handful of words in the throat to hold and let out at the appropriate time. The city will welcome them not because they are Simon, or Judas, or Bartholomew, or James, or John, or so on, but because they are the messengers of the Lord.

They will look fo a family to live in and where they do not listen to them, it will remain dust rammed by booties. They hunt them and mock them, chase them and offend them; and they will respond with the most beautiful sermon, with the meek silence of those who are not naive enough to not understand or arrogant to overwhelm.

One day those same opponents will search for them because they will try to turn they sight to the Pierced one: “We’ve been looking for you becasue your way of doing made us convinced of the truth that you announced”.
Yesterday them, the Church today. Preach to everyone, without exception.

The disciples as messengers of God in the history. Grace will make them graceful and they tell him when there will be no story to tell. With a warning not negligible: they held no purse, no bag, no sandals. But a friend yes! Without things, but not without friends.

Two by two they will knock at the doors of the world. Because when the man will be hungry, a piece of bread will be found; when man will be tired he can find a shoulder to hold on.

XVI   Domenica T. Ordinario  Mc 6, 30-34 (don Marco Pozza)

Church, where are you? Christ is looking for you       “Like sheep without a shepherd” and too exhausted …
The apostles, left without scrip or stick, but only with a friend as companion, tell the Rabbi  what it happened, they told Him about the miracles rushed along the streets of Palestine, the glimmers of the Kingdom organized in the cracks of daily life.
Jesus heartened them, listens to them, forces them to rest: “Come away by you alone, in a desert place, and rest a while.” They had no time to eat, people were looking for them, they followed them everywhere.

Jesus teaches them, makes them to sit at His amiable presence and heartened them.
He Recoils of their exhaustion and He realizes that the flock was orphaned of shepherds and immediately notice, for that unique ability to read the nuances on everyone’s face, that there is no crowd to Him, there is the creature came from his hands, that unique and unrepeatable mystery of tenderness. He realizes they’re without shepherds … Even today, in the Church, we’re lacking pastors … but maybe they are not performing their task well.

They focus on rather strict rules than creativity. To  the  authority stick than authoritativeness. In the tradition of obedience and servility instead of the novelty inspired by the Spirit. To “it has always been done this way” than “groped to take off.” Fatigue prevails on fantasy?

The management on the pastoral care? The habit on the Passion? The patch on the embroidery? No shortage of officials, since there are too many: it lacks some  passion of the shepherd. And the flock warns. The folks lose their passion,get resigned. They get crazy and dream to become a shepherd: they get the stick, imitate the voice, they get responsibility for destruction. And so it was born a flock of sheep without shepherds.
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture. Saith the Lord” (Jer 23,1:6). Or woe to those who play to Christianity. Because if the sheep are helpless and without a shepherd, perhaps it is also because they are taken over other interests that are not in tune with the Gospel. What has been heard into hears, the gospel commands us to announce it over the rooftops for all to hear. Roofed over. But also from the roofs down: in case anyone has forgotten the role of pastor.

Good thing Jesus is always here, with us.

XVII Domenica T. Ordinario Gv 6, 1-15 ( don Marco Pozza)

The “little” that becomes “a lot” Last Sunday people had a thirst for words, today they’re             hungry for food.
In addition to being without a shepherd, the sheep are also hungry. The disciples sensed  a bit of anxiety because a people hungry creates much concern. Jesus also warns some anguish in the hearts of his friends and teaches them how to handle an emergency, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”. He asks that, with the same voice that soon will whisper to Heaven for receiving a multiplied and unexpected response. He asks because he wants to make them understand that there is no fear, they have it all: He is there, there is the huge disproportion between what and what would take, there is the right environment for teaching the people , and themselves, to the logic of Heaven.
“Make them to sit down” is a lovable command. The demand for bread comes to the ears of a boy with five barley loaves and two fishes; they seem little more than nothing: more than five thousand gorges await to reduce hunger. Yet it is the little of the mustard seed, the little widow in the shadow of the temple, the age of the little shepherd David or Joshua the leader. The little Mary, a humble woman of the suburbs. The little that has everything into it if you agree to let play the right hands. Everyone noticed the disproportion, “I have little more than nothing, but it’s better than nothing, let’s try.”
The Master looks up: eyes able to imagine a different story. Snack becomes satiety: “Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost.” They feared being lynched for lack of food, they are busy to pick up the superfluous. With an unexpected discovery: everything depends on the hands in which it is located.
Imagine: now they want to make Him King! Because a man like Him, He  solves problems to the bitter end, paving the way, ensures the future generations. Born here, on the edge of a field full of people with a full stomach, the misunderstanding that will lead the man to the gallows of the Multiplication to the Calvary. He asks the little – talent, force, intelligence – to perform the miracle of the exuberance. People understand exactly the opposite: “We ran out of tribulation, let’s do this the King.” And it is from the Herod’s days that puppet-God  collects consents to the bitter end; but is not the Jesus of the Gospels. That one woudln’t be so hard to follow because He doesn’t ask too much and, to be honest, He does not even ask a lot. He asks simply everything. To make us to realize that maybe what we’re looking for  elsewhere is already in our hands. The rest depends on the hands of those with whom we choose to work together with.
Five loaves and two fish: not seemed nothing in principle.It would be enough to have faith.

XVIII   Domenica T. Ordinario Gv 6, 24-35

Lord, evermore give us your bread

Today’s Gospel presents Jesus’ s speech in the synagogue of Capernaum, to explain about the meaning of the manna in the desert, but also to talk about the importance of faith in Christ who is God’s messenger.

Jesus, in fact, He brings the latest revelation and opens the way that leads to God.
Whom is following Jesus with faith, Who enters with Him in the community through baptism, which takes Jesus as a model and he listens to Him , he will find the truth that satisfies the hunger for life just through Him. Because this truth is God himself who, through Jesus Christ, He offers to all the people, the chance to share His own life.

This truth is present and it can be taken in the word and example of Jesus, but especially in His figure, because He is the truth, He is the Way and He is the Life of God himself!
We can easily imagine the scene that the Gospel describes today.

The crowd had been satisfied by the great and unexpected miracle of the loaves. They then saw an opportunity to find in Jesus a material certainty, for their future: Jesus, in one way or another, He would have solved everyday problems, the ones that still tragically afflict individuals, families and entire nations. Jesus speaks of the bread, the source of life. He doesn’t forget the urgency of bread, for those ones who are hungry, but He does not even want us to stop at the material dimension, while necessary …

His speech goes beyond the earthly life and aims directly to the bread that gives eternal life: a need to get the material bread, another thing is to get nourished by the bread of heaven. We all know that bread, which is the Eucharist: Jesus who makes Himself the Bread of Life.

A life that goes beyond the temporary earthly existence after death: eternal life with Him. Yet, if we look around us, many of us, who also call themselves believers, are struggling to even think that Communion may be the great food of the soul.
It’s hard to even get into the depth of this gift of Heaven. Generates as a stunning, even to think that that little Host, that sometimes, or daily we receive , It is really Jesus in person. By the grace of God, however, there are many for whom the Bread of Heaven is truly the nourishment of the interior life and can not live without it.

Could Jesus make us a greater gift? Surely No. So why such a gift is so underappreciated? I really think we have to ask us and try to give us an answer, if so … asking the grace to understand that make the Eucharist our food is to give full meaning, strength and serenity to our human experience down here, to prepare , as of now, to ‘live God’ … what could we wish for?

XIX   Domenica T. Ordinario Gv 6, 41-51 (Commento di don Marco Pozza) 

Think…How beautiful He is ! (Damn jealousy) Jesus, with overwhelming charm, at first glance he                     was impressing people with its unique beauty, but what it                        was winning over the hearts were His words that produced what they said: “Look!” and the blind man saw all, “Walk!” and the lame are straightened, “Heal!” and the sick healed.

One day They wanted Him to solve “all of their  problems.”
The crowd acclaimed Him, He sneaks away; Full bellies pointed to Him as a magician, He escapes and withdraws to pray alone.
People do not understand him, he starts from scratch once again every time, just leaving the memory of that unique beauty of His, among the streets of Palestine.
Neither those ones that passed so close to Him did understand Him, even those thet , together, they shared breads, fish and hope.

Neither the the villagers did, Also His people misunderstood Him and they threatened Him to throw him off the cliff. Because everything is fine but definitely not this one: “the bread that came down from Heaven” it cannot be the son of the carpenter Joseph and Mary laundress, no charisma in Him, no charm either…

It can not be that God has hidden Himself among the Nazareth streets, at the sunset or dwan with no previous notice. God, if It was such, must be the one who they had always imagined in their own minds. Another God would be difficult to digest: it would undermine the image of God they created, also to read once again the passages of Scripture and understand that faith is an eternal way to go and retrace again.
Then Lucifer came, he is an expertise of jealousy, and he obscured the primordial beauty. The world gave him credit: they killed the author of life because Beauty was scary. He returned, He came back and they felt Him in those long one thousand days of adventures: Is jealousy that prevents us to scrutinize the world from the position of God.
It borned there, at the intersection of jealousy and lies, that bold moralistic image of God and of His proposal of love. His was and is simply still is, an invitation to a brighter life. Quite completely another thing men understood and so they killed Him.

They killed him out of jealousy: It was too much that Bread promising satiety, the world needed  a lot less.Yesterday, hodie et semper.

XX Domenica T. Ordinario Gv 6, 51-58 (Commento di don Marco Pozza) 

A living Bread: a New Bread It would be interesting to know what the apostles                understood out of they to be part of the “Body and Blood” for the first time: “You Take; this is My body”, “You Take; this is My blood.” John,the apostle, who rested his head over the shoulder of the Son of Man, will keep forever every word.
To Give Himself to us it is the greatest gift that Jesus could do to us and it makes us understand what love we are loved.
For a sad and precious privilege, the sinner needs love that chase him from farther and uplift him from down below. We love Jesus because He first loved us. Being a live participant of a Christ who tries hiding in your chest, that creeps into your thoughts, waking up your numbness.

The Eucharist! The emotion of a God who reaches you as you are: a sinner and a slave, uncaring, cowardly and rotten, dirty, beautiful and irreverent. Astonished, stupid or indolent. No matter: Christ comes in! “I am the living bread come down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread will live forever” (Jn 6,51).

The Eucharist is letting ourself to go, grab and scramble from the wave of Jesus Christ. To follow unpublished paths, ftracing fantasy routes, flip programs over.

Who celebrates the Eucharist feels free, he knows to be a man but not man anymore. He knows he does not deserve the Eucharist – “O Lord, I am not worthy to receive you …” – but knows that embrace that make him to star again , that will set you on the road, which turn weakness into unprecedented power. We mut desire the communion with God with the same intensity that you need the air we breathe.
Those who believe in the Eucharist is not staying with folded hands, but he keeps the sleeves rolled up. If the head is slightly tilted it is not for deviant mysticism, but to seek for new roads into the slots. Because in the scent of the broken bread he smells the power of the dream. Become a dissatisfied, an impatient half measures, one decided to lose anything to groped the adventure of poorest nudity  in front of God and, for that, dreaming is a duty. When in the world is something new happened, it happened thanks to terrible, incurable dreamers, who strongly imagined a different reality, new, beyond the commonplace.
I’m always fascinated by people that, when celebrating the Eucharist, they imagine a different way of being men, priests, free: to rise and fall, to build, destroy and divide.

To be crazy about God! If you are an “Eucharistic man” you must  groped new businesses.

XXI   Domenica T. Ordinario Gv 6,60-69 (Commento di don Marco Pozza)

The author of the joy   After the speech of Jesus, many of his disciples went away; Jesus probably expected it, imagined their fatigue, the bitterness and the uncertainty of that Word to them. People of fishermen, the fray soon became their fishing          lake after they came across the voice of a man with amiable presence. Everything it happened so sudden, one morning like the others: Jesus had noticed them so often immersed in their work and habits, He looks at them and calling them. He removes them from the torpor and throws them on a different future. A handful of words and the lake appeared smaller in their eyes of dreamers: they went and saw where He lived and from that day they shared home, expenses, dreams and much of that joy to spread throughout the region. Andrew says it  to Peter, Nathanael finds out either, a few steps further he is named the loan shark Matthew; Then James and John … Francis, Therese, Edith, Luigi, and Philip Ambrose up to me, maybe even up to you. People flashing because someone flashed them before, He gave them life and called them up to show the irrepressible need that dwells in the human heart: to get involved.
Their being to the world would be giving their lives, love and presence.   Because of them would not remain out of breath but the memory of someone who loved them. Even among the disciples on Sunday  moodiness winds, they born the first insinuations of the Cross Disability, that misconception by many that sailed, it becomes bigger. As much as  Jesus had to tell them the truth, without any attempt to bargain their trust: “perhaps you also go away?” Free Jeses and free them  because  in the streets  of the Gospel there can be no happiness without liberty.

He put in account that someone would not hold, that others would get tired, then gave way that someone along the way. He stopped and relaunched them the commandment of freedom. To give birth inside of  them – experts in accounts, barter and gains -the question: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”.

After an experience of familiarity with Him, they chose Him to the bitter end because He was the joy, as well as the Life. Joy was the one that would go screaming and trying.
Make a mistake again: one for all, Peter. But He never put him to shame. And Peter, to pay back, it will not stop. Despite his imprisonment, beatings, persecution: He now is a rock. The Master, by focusing on its strengths, has transformed him: Should he focused on the flaws then He would put him to shame. He and many others after him. Up to me that, kneeling, I feel the roar of the question: “Perhaps you also go away?” I Think and I look at it; I look and I try to answer. I look and I am silent. No. He deserves an answer: “I’m with You, Lord. I would miss you so much.”

XXII Domenica T. Ordinario  

Mc 7, 1-8.14-15.21-23 – Mons. A. Riboldi

The truth of man is in his heart Jesus bubble hypocrisy with harsh words and exposes our hearts, from which originate the good and the bad things. With Heart we mean the center of the projects,       which the Lord has deposited in each of us: a good that originates from His own heart and in the external actions or words, in looks, involving all that we are.
That’s easy to meet people – you can see it immediately – that have the clarity of heart in what they say or do. Follow “the law of the heart” – that should be the norm of our behavior – is the same as “follow the law of love” that God gives us that, “with all my heart,” I give to others.
God knows how we need that everything we do, say, give to others, be the expression of a clean and simple heart ! It’s like giving a ray of sky, with either just a look or  a word.
But it is difficult to keep our heart clean from the many temptations that we have.
We need a constant discipline as the one of the saints.
Often we stupidly defend ourselves with hypocrisy, that is to stop only at appearances, but that makes no sense if it is not inspired by the wisdom of the heart.

So many times we used to hide behind our attitudes, seemingly blameless, true monstrosities. Certain silences ‘educated’ or certain ‘half-sentences’ are, at times, and often are, stinging slaps directed to make the greatest possible evil.
Some exterior justices are just true covers to great injustices. Certain blameless behaviour are nothing but refined ways to conceal consciences that are true dung. Jesus calls all this hypocrisy.
Deliver us from the evil of hypocrisy and freeing the heart to open to the good, not just mean to try to have a good conduct before men, observe traditions and ways of human thinking, but, above all, is to have a cleaned dress of what we are inside. Infact,  if we are inwardly ‘light’ inside , this will be reflected ‘outside’.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,preserve me a childlike heart pure and clear as spring water. Obtain for me a simple heart, that does not fold to savor its own sorrows. Obtain for me a magnanimous heart in giving oneself, easy to compassion. A faithful and generous heart, to forget any good and rememberof no  harm.
Give me a sweet and humble heart , that would love without expecting to be loved in return.
A happy heart to disappear in other hearts sacrificing itself before Your Divine Son.
Give me a big and indomitable heart, so that it no ingratitude can close, no indifference it might get tired of.
Give me a heart tormented by the glory of Jesus Christ, wounded by His Love with a wound that heals in heaven. “ (L. Grandmaison).

XXIII Domenica T. Ordinario – Mc 7, 31-37

Open up 

Christianity is also the occasion of awe and wonder: the dumb finds back the elegance of the word, the blind man regains the sensuality of the sight, the deaf feels back again echoing noises in the galleries of his eardrums and the lame enjoys again the sweetness of the steps. All of that under the eyes of a nature which is an explosion of life: marshes become springs of crystal clear water, the desert coverest thyself freshness grass and nature finds back that primordial alphabet that is the footprint of God in the streets of this world from the dawn of time . (Is 35, 4:7)
The God sung by Isaiah is an old seducer ; Jesus brushe din the Gospel deeply knows about the sensual side of love. Discreet and lovable, colorful and delicate, to lead you to a secluded place away from the crowds, because your deficit would not become  derision for any reason.

Only there, on the edge of the area where the Creator is preparing to restore His own creature, He will put His fingers in your ears, He will touch you with his saliva, looks up at the sky and say the odd word that d ‘ It has since become synonymous with movement and fun: “Ephphatha”. Few syllables, the brevity of a sound that widens to the Infinite, the battle cry of a Life: “Be opened.”   A verb in the imperative, the most hidden and manifest desire  that inhabits the heart of God: that no house be without the feast of the heart. A verb the, into the Italian language, has synonymously “turn, enlarge, loosen, puncture, facilitate, ease, burst, break free, bud, bloom” in the alphabet of Heaven on this Sunday becomes synonymous with “wonder, wonder, get involved , widen, alzasi, struggle, rejoice, savage life. “
The Gospel is the only classroom where combining the synonyms of the verb “open” you do not risk a blatant failure but the exact opposite: a well-deserved promotion for having widened his eyes on the dizzying perspectives of God.
The Gospel invites us to move from a land of resignation to a blissful one, to abandon the security of monastic vestries to inhabit the endless desert of the world, to reawaken the thirst for the infinite that beats in the heart of the story. Of the man himself, perhaps hidden under a handful of embers.
”Open (…) and then not tell anyone.” The healed man performed a full transgression: because only the unhappy man manages to imprison the joy in his own heart. From the day that the Gospels opened bursts of light down here, some men stopped to confuse a flashlight with sunlight and they dove into that light and got their eyes opened, they got revived in their footsteps, they heard  the sound Horn in their sleepy eardrums. From that day all the opponents and enemies stumbled by the wonder too, “He has done all things well, He makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.” He awoke the dawn as He began to preach the Gospel of Life, “in the beginning was the Beauty”. Be opened!

XXIV   Domenica T. Ordinario  – Mc 8, 27-35 (commento di don Marco Pozza)

The image of Him – After the miracle of the loaves and fishes, They wanted to elect Jesus as king, but, in His heart, however, from a few days another question hovered: “Who knows what image of me people has made.”
Jesus wandered about this question since someone had whispered after a hard language of Jesus when He asked them: “Did you also go away?”.
The answer: “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”, To Jesus, this was not enough because He wanted to prepare that small community not to lose heart in front of thorns, not to be discouraged before the cross. He had brought them onto the street to remove every illusion out of them: in Caesarea, under Heaven and alone with their thoughts.
He was interested to know what people thought of Him, not for vanity or ambition, but for the care that they had the right image of Him and the Father: “Who do people say I am?”.
Who knows what glances among them the Twelve was exchanging to report Him about the confusion of the thoughts of the people: “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.

“ Then fixing them by crossing their eyes. Before the other, then their “who do you say that I am?”
Because even if in them the image was blurred, who hand down the right of the Son of God? The apostles are silent, fear of failure is great, maybe a moment, a little more; Peter,an expert on mistakes and large peaches,  anticipates them all : “You are the Christ!”. that means “You are Everything, you are my God, You are You and for me it is enough.”
He turns to the friend fisherman and stabs him with His eyes, “and you are Peter, and upon this rock I will put up my church.” The more risky building construction of the history. It should, however, need to change everything: stop with Cephas, “You shall be called Peter.”
Jesus began to openly dsclose to his disciples that he must suffer a lot and He had to be killed and He would have been resurrected on the third day.” On the road He led them He prepared them for that prophecy  remained on His lips so far. He spoke to them with care, slowly proceeding ahead on it, use the sweetness of better days. An High surgical intervention to correct the image they have of Him. Looking at them on their faces their anxiety increased, their lips showed signs of tremor: “What does He say?!” Peter backs away with his head bowed. Others show no sign of resume: he also spoke on behalf of them. It borned there, at the crossroads of a dusty road, the first step of Judah that no longer tolerated a weak and losing Master.   Others thought about it for a long time, including Peter. Moreover, the challenge was difficult as much as the promise: “You shall be called Peter,” said the Friend. Peter – as transformed by Him – was born to bloom in the middle of the story, the nostalgia of Him.

XXV Domenica T. Ordinario   –

Who wants to be the greatest … From the shores of the lake near Jerusalem, Jesus spoke to His disciples: “The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of men and they will kill him but, once killed, after three days He will rise again.”

He was entrusting them, with delicacy and care, the challenge of Jerusalem, the sloth of the Cross, the novel of Easter morning. They did not understand – but argued about who among them was the greatest. While a little ‘behind Jesus, walking, the disciples were at odds with each other and perhaps even arguing loudly.

Fragments of conversation reached the ears of the Master, lovable and severe, that at the moment, He pretended not to hear, perhaps, to not put shame on them in public. And once home – away from prying eyes and ears – Jesus said that even the hair of the head were numbered, and then He asked them, “what were you discussing on the way?” Caught out the apostles, strong of souls trained to sincerity, remained silent.

Strong was the risk of repeating the fool of a few hours earlier when Peter interjected receiving praise and infamy. The Rabbi looked at them and a bit of ill-concealed pity it streaked His eyes: He took them from the World, still need patience – and it will be useful even to lose one – before they could understand that “ye shall not be so.”
There was a baby on the door jamb, Jesus got up, He patted him and made him sit in front of the disciples who had eyes downcast and ashamed and said, “Whoever welcomes one such this child in my name the he receives me.” They saw them out with lowered ears: it was the first nascent Church. More than sketches of saints and excerpts of principles, they had the features of poor and miserable people, who paid dearly for their advanced arrogance.

In the twilight of Capernaum, it emerged the human side of His Church-Bride: What would us have been doing with beautiful and perfect disciple? They would serve only to make us got shamed of our nakedness and blushed for our pettiness and, maybe, someone would rise in suspect of being unworthy of belonging to the evangelical ranks. Instead He took them so: from the village, stained with humanity and nostalgic for him, disheveled and smelling of road. To tell that the Church has never been the perfect community but a handful of forgiven people who, in turn, will become the paradox and the ambition of a man who is not afraid  of the indignity of His children.

Those children that, apparently sly, they are still busy on the road to mutter about who among them is the greatest.

XXVI Domenica T. Ordinario Mc 9, 38-43.47-48 (commento di don Marco Pozza)  

The Church between incense and jealousy This time the disciples seem to have, perhaps, a hint                   of jealousy that mysterious energy that seems to belong to others, to those who “are not of us.” John says to Jesus, perhaps with a touch of naivete typical of those whose hearts are still boyish, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not of us.”
Stories of  more or less declared ambitions in the group of the Twelve: Jesus’s friends are them and only them to be given the grace to revive life on the rubble. This time, however, in front of them is the figure of a big Jesus, devoid of any trace of jealousy, which teaches them to an opening of horizons, “Do not stop him; no one who works a miracle in my name, could soon afterwards speak evil of me. He that is not against us is for us. “ Story of a man that no one wanted to sleep in the days of the birth, which few dared to declare the friendship on the paths of Golgotha dizzying but, at the height of his fame on earth – in the thousand days between Lake Tiberias and Golgotha – all wanted befriend a sign of jealous belonging. As if to say: “Nobody touches Him, He is ours.” He had a lot to do, as deep knowledger of the human soul, to explain them that the boundaries should be extended, that the fences have invented them down here, that in the prairies of the sky is something very risky to divide men and women, the good and bad, “ours” and the foreigners, the worthy and the unworthy.

About Him, and His Spirit, no one can say “it’s mine, it’s ours” because it will not be private property of Christians but of all those who – even away from having known that Face – will give a glass of water in His name.
How beautiful  the face of the Church conceived and organized by the Nazarene is , the hospitable presence where there is room for everyone: for those, in the figure of Christ, has put his faith and for those who have only heard of Him, for those n ‘I believe and for those who feel curiosity for those looking for a confirmation of his answers and for those looking for an application that turns on its steps.

A place that everybody, spontaneously, would call home, that intimate and familiar space where you feel safe even in the dark. How far today our Church from that idea …
The Church – one organized by men – will have nothing to say about morality until, those who listen to us, they will not have experienced the pleasure of God in our lives. A glimmer of pleasure without any jealousy. Because the face of that Man knows no preference whatsoever. At least Him.
Now the Cross that is showing up on the horizon is clear: Love irritates the Story.

XXVII Domenica T. Ordinario

The man does not separate ever  Today’s Gospel makes it clear on the sacrament of marriage, because Jesus wants, essentially, offer us the knowledge of the reason for the gift of life that , let remember it always, it aims to eternal salvation. There, it lies the answer for each of us, that is an invitation to eternal happiness.
It is natural that marriage find its ideal location  in this response, which is the most common vocation to holiness: chosen, called to live the great gift of charity, fighting all for each other.
This gift creates a union, which should be irreversible, for eternity: a unit that slowly built, sometimes even experiencing the cross. Such love is always about sharing of life, even in small daily choices, to become “flesh of my flesh, bone of my bones.” Love in marriage can never be an occasional event of life, to use and throw, but it requires a virtue that seems strange today, “fidelity”… “until death do us apart”, and then one day be together forever.
God willed that the love between spouses became a sacramental, that means way of sanctification; He wanted, in other words, to give it a sense of the holy things, those in which Himself works beside the man.

So the couple know they can count on a “state of grace”, ie the grace of marriage, the sacrament that overcomes many difficulties, namely to hear Jesus and to take part of married life.
Jesus calls immaturity in love as  “hardness of heart”: for this reason Moses had granted the divorce.

We are immature in love when, because of our selfishness, we live by “I, and not by” us “; how to overcome this obstacle against love and against marriage?

First of all, knowing and re-evaluating the role of love, to live it without focusing only on the sexual aspects.

XXVIII Domenica T. Ordinario Mc 10, 17-30  

Sell what you have and give to the poor A young man approaches Jesus and asks Him: “What do have I to do to get the eternal life?”. “Having”, as if, possessing great wealth this guy would like to buy even the eternal life instead of “win” it. In fact, Jesus states: “If you want to enter (not” have “) in the eternal life, keep the commandments in your heart.” That is: Do not think to “have”, but “to be”. The young man replied that “All these I have kept forever” and, looking around, waiting for Jesus to tell him: “Easy… Eternal life is yours.” Instead, things do not go as he thinks, and Jesus, looking at him with tenderness, loves Him.
That young man is a smart guy but he sees everything as “things”, even the commandments, and have the belief that life does not depend on the goods, from the things that anyone has, but how you use them. That young man should be helped to understand and Jesus loves him because he’s a guy who believes in honesty and obedience, who lives with commitment. He will be almost cruel, even if necessary, to answer him: “Why do you call me “good”? And why do you ask me about what is good? No one is good except God alone.” But this young man is not yet a saint : He is a wealthy man. Jesus helps him throwing a terrific chance: “If you would be perfect …”. Courage, young, you pick up your life! Prove to yourself that you are not the servant of the things, but the master, so that you can do whatever you want, even sell them, even give her. Anything! The young man remains motionless and completely wrong-footed. He is a good guy but  he does not like gambling. The commandments? If they were forty, he would have been observing them all but give up the security of things, no way!
”So, who can be saved?” They ask the apostles. And at this gospel page back to get complicated. How to say: none. Almost that everyone, in one way or another, we were rich. And it is also true. Everyone, in fact, possess wealth and more: loves, habits, places, nostalgia, dreams only familiar to us. My children, that woman, friends? We believe are legitimate, but I’m still “things”, are the “great possessions” that the young man had spoken of in the evangelist. He lowers his head, turns and goes away in a sad mood. Sad. Because he understands that he has been offered an opportunity that will never happen again. In life nothing is repeated! The hours, the days, the years are unique and unrepeatable. Always! Either you live as a protagonist, or you lose them. Sad, because it senses that he will remain “such a” one of many, one of the flock, one that follows the “current”. Because only those who have the courage to sign their lives have the right and the joy of being called by name! And Jesus sees him to leave, but does not try to stop him,  He doesn’t  tries to convince him just lowering the price. He let him go away. Jesus respects the freedom of that young man like the one of everybody. He does not resort to the “you have to be perfect”, but remains faithful to the “if you would want to be perfect.” There is no joy without freedom!

XXIX   Domenica T. Ordinario Mc 10, 35-45 (commento di don Marco Pozza) 

The Gospel today presents the strange request for two apostles on which you bet your head there, you swear on their transparency. One is John, the  diligent and timely discipleand the other one is James, the brother different in character and temperament, but yet both so similar in asking the Man of the Gospels, about the first recommendation of the story, “Teacher, we want you to do whatever we ask. “ Perhaps He was surprised too and looked at them: “What do you want me to do for you?”. They certainly greedy: “Grant us to sit in Your Glory, one at your right hand and one at your left.” Poor Messiah in the throes of passion increasingly looming, every Sunday is facing the greedy mood  who has sunk in the heart of His  people. A few kilometers before He heard them mumbling to each other. He took patience, and waited to get into the house to reprimanded them: “What were you discussing on the way?”. They held their peace: strong was the shame of having discussed which of them was the greatest. Closest to Golgotha, the struggle becomes fierce, someone decides to put his face, exposing themselves almost to the public greedy: “One right and one left, Master. This is enough for us.” Perhaps John thought that it was enough to have great mystical gifts to withstand the force of that look, or he, like myself too, in front of His mystery he was groping in the dark, where everyone seems to walk a little ‘groping: saints and sinners, hell and Madonna.

Patience for the rich young man, gently blamed on last Sunday: his fervor was equally traveling as his ambition to have eternal life. OK for him, but to slip this time are two of those who have just heard the third announcement of the Passion: they heard and attempted to secure themselves the  future, sparking dissatisfaction on the other ten ones for having taken the initiative.

The suspicion that evening was strong for the Man of Nazareth, that the crew of disciples – sought, loved and accredited – he looked at His words like a foreign film without subtitles: they saw the images and translated His words in their own way . Up to fill some newspapers: corruption, administrative offense, rapes, arrived that fall, officials overwhelmed by storms scandal, institutions rusting of the suspect. Gossip stories, betrayal and thoughts.

He, graceful in his endless patience of educator, to revive its paradoxical and ambitious challenge, perhaps colored too by a touch of naivete: “Among you this has not to be so, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. “ The problem is that He really believes that.
We, have more and more nostalgic about Him, at this bend in the story.

XXX Domenica T. Ordinario Mc 10, 46-52 (commento di don Marco Pozza)      

The blind man “sees” Jesus The blind man from the today’s Gospel, was not a fool because if even too much chaos did not favor the people’s compassion, he sat down on the edge of the road leading to Jericho; there people often dropped a few coins at the feet of beggars. He was blind but his hearing worked perfectly, he couldn’t see, but felt the passage of strange but very familiar steps for him.

This time there was the chance of a lifetime and he bet on everything. Many of those present would want to silence him as if it were not enough misery to have two pupils unable to discern the features of things and faces of the people: the others surely could see well. If his vision lacked, he appealed for help to his parched throat, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”.
Jesus stopped : certain times He liked to be called, feel wanted, invoked. It was not pious need for vanity but simple search of a piece of crystalline faith. It is longing for true faith. He stopped, attracted by the hoarse cry by so up for the lack of light, “call it!”. Extraordinary Teacher, “just call him right you that would want to silence him. You, not others.” Just that imperative – call! – To give birth in their own conscience examination most successful in history: the true blind were those one who rebuked the blind man to keep him quiet.
The only one who saw us really well was the one who did not see, the blind man of Jericho road. Call him! And he threw his cloak, he jumped up and ran to the Light: “My Lord, that I may see!” See men walking, trees, animals, things … that I can see you! Blindness desperately seeking the Light, the misery in the presence of Grace, “Go, your faith has saved you.”
Detailed analyzes revealed that in fact this man, beggar of Light, was a blind which could impossible things a handful of disciples: “see with their hearts” the essence of the story. Get up! He tells the Light that has blinded you to the point of give back the view; and with it the thrill of the light, the mystery of light and shade, the evidence of grace at work.
Bartimaeus was blind but he recognized Christ; I can see very well – words from an eye doctor- and Christ passed in front of me today, and yet I did not recognize.
Ironically the invitation was directed to me, ‘Get up!

1 Novembre Mt 5, 1-12 (commento di don Marco Pozza) 

Who are the saints? (People like you can become like them)

The today’s Gospel brightens over the horizon like a gash that opens up in a dark sky.
Does it make sense to name the  man of the suburbs and the bins as blessed?

“Blessed (…) Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven. “
Easy promising horizons of happiness tomorrow . Men are scared of today, they shakes about it , they stuns even in their heart. In the Church it is also nice to hear these words to resonate.

The problem is beyond the door of the church where the story calls, shouts, insults. Blessed are you! Some days even the sky seems to mock the gasps from here.
Here is the spectacular sense of this liturgy: who are the Saints?

Are those people who were able to read the story through the eyes of God. People – not born as holy ones, ed – but people who agreed to let been driven from heaven to be able to think of themselves as God had them in mind: men perfectly human, just armed of Beatitudes, they have looked into the face of history and have crossed or circumvented or shunned it. Heroism? More than heroism it was perhaps about  confidence even if, today, to trust someone, it seems a high form of heroism.
Men and women got down to the  streets just perfectly aware of their future: today discarded and tomorrow blessed with that unheard childhood spirit that drove some of them to border on madness and paradox. Ending to call as sister who is – for some – is the enemy , the exact opposite: death, precisely. Sister, however: almost a door that once crossed, it throws us on to other places of God. I guess  Saints always as men with their feet firmly fit on the ground: “No one takes seriously the reality as the saint for verily every reverie, his path fraught with danger, surely be avenged. Become a saint it means to break away from the real man himself, to enter the real God, “he wrote one day Romano Guardini. Holiness, then, as the max of  the realism rather than the praise of the imagination. Holiness is all about: letting us to be thought by God and live as He meant.

2 Novembre Commemorazione defunti Vivere da vivi – Gv 6, 37-40   (Commento di don Roberto Seregni) 

Living alive Here, it continues to rain.Yesterday, during the visit to the graveyard, I saw many tears mixed with rain.   The cemetery ground is a salty land, watered with tears and hope. It’s a land which preserves the certainty that death is not the last word, but a point made in the penultimate chapter.
There is a page yet.

The final one. Not only the end, but the purpose.
For us Christians, disciples of the living God, there is no end, but that is only the purpose of everything that is the Risen Christ.
Today’s liturgy invites us to put ourselves in front of the death, the one of our loved ones but also to ours.

The celebrations of these days are for our loved ones who preceded us in the garden of the Father, but it is crucial to remember that at the center of the celebrations of today there is no death.
The focus of this day is the certainty of the resurrection of Christ.
Yesterday a dear friend wrote to me on the eve of her trip to the Holy Land. I asked her to remember me in his prayers and in particular before the Holy Sepulchre. She was surprised by this desire of mine and she asked me why.

Simple, I replied, because it is empty.
Jesus left the tomb empty, He emptied all our fears, He emptied our anxieties of nothingness and meaninglessness of death.

Jesus’ tomb is empty, the new life given by God is stronger than death.
On this day, in our visits to the places of memory, let’s put at the center the resurrection of Jesus.

Let’s abandon the concern of death and instead let us to be prodding from the only real concern that a Christian should have: not to live as “dead”, without love, without passion, without chasing the dreams of God.
Courage, dear friends, let’s start again from here, from this strong word in our lives that invites us to live alive.

Have a great week!

XXXI Domenica T. Ordinario

YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD, YOUR GOD…AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF

Mark tells us of a scribe who is seeking God and wants to know how to get to him with certainty.

When asked what is the heart of the Law, Jesus responds relatively predictable, but essential.

The love of God, which is realized through love of neighbor are the two commandments which unite all the others.

In the Old Testament the commandment had become prayer “Shema, Israel” (“Hear, O Israel” – Deut 6:4-5) always present in the hearts, minds, hands and homes.

Jesus adds the need to put it into practice, through love of neighbor that allows individuals to see if he really loves God (1 Jn 4:20).

Fraternal charity distinguishes and characterizes the true Christians, faithful to Jesus.

The scribe then, happy to be comforted in his faith, congratulates Jesus. He is the man who complimented God, pleased to find himself in agreement with God.

This wise old man is moving who complimented the young Rabbi, without suspecting that you are complimenting God himself.

Jesus is moved and gladly welcomes the observation of this man who is a true believer (Jn 1:47), and responds to his praise as each of us would want to hear. Jesus confirm the scribe in his faith and reassures him that he not is mistaken.

XXXII Domenica T. Ordinario  Mc 12, 38-44 (commento di don Marco Pozza) 

He gave everything he had – Mk 12: 38-44 Those ones that are considered “Great” usually like crowds filling squares but not the small people with their own problems. I do not look great confidence and friendship, but loyalty and obedience; Also into this Jesus of Nazareth is an exception: He Drag the crowds, He seduces hearts but when all hanging on His every word, He reveals precise attention to people. “And He saw a poor widow put in two coins, basically a penny.” In the crowd, He turns His gaze to the honorable poverty of the woman. The Gospel is full of men and women who, after meeting Him, are no longer the same, are transformed, radically change life.Sitting in front of the temple treasury, Jesus looks how the many rich, strutting, me throw a lot of money like nothing: very good people, really. Then here come a poor widow who throws just two coins. Jesus then called in if the disciples to tell them: “Do You see her? That poor widow has put in there, more than all the others, because much of the other is unnecessary, as the” little “is” all she had to live on “ (Mk 12: 41-44).
Jesus of Nazareth could find gestures of beauty and sincerity hidden among many vulgarities, banalities, and falsehood. To this He devoted himself to recall the beauty that got blurred, threatened, removed from the illness, invalidity, marginalization, from death, from sin. Who falls in love with Jesus feel a strong desire to love Him and follow Him to learn to see the world through his eyes, he will do anything to have a beautiful life, and we will devote to recover from all that beauty hides and disfigures it.
This is the Jesus from the Gospels they want to steal: A strong, combative, free man  but tender and loving beauty, especially the spiritual one. The scribes, like the Pharisees, they know everything of religion, flaunt their wisdom and sin of presumption in thinking to please God. The widow, on the contrary, throws the balance of his life and, having given everything she plays everything that is, to God, with a humble and light hand, gives her coins, her coins, her few talents. And because they are a few money, she places them gently in the vessels of the temple. Throwing them in, she empties her life, she opens her heart, she plays all out. Embarrassing this widow, the exact opposite of the rich young man. Gospels hand down the sadness on his face in the moment of refusal, even though he knew and observed all the commandments.
I look my face in the mirror and I consider that this woman – a  poor and perhaps unattractive widow – “ she pass me ahead” and it scares me because she screams to me  that God’s dreams do not accept calculations, they ask to tear my story up, to speed up, not to be ashamed of my little. She reminds me that there can be no loyalty without risk.
On the other hand even today God is likely to invest in me.

XXXIII Domenica T. Ordinario Mc 13, 24-32  (commento di mons. Antonio Riboldi)

Running blindfolded … – Mk 13: 24-32 – Who we are and how do we live over the short time that God allow us to live us on earth? If we will not be misled by the sirens who try to divert us to                       make us to live the present moment only, we feel as time goes on to the speed of sound, and then, the years we have been living are just like moments …

It seems like that life runs more than we would like, in a continuops movement, as a run-up in hopes, anxieties and sufferings, but above all, if you follow the reason, one might wonder: “What it will be of all of us, of the world, at the end of time?”
So all the questions we ask ourselves then become right whether made serious, nobility of thought, because they question all of us, for whom we live, the way we live, running to the future that awaits us.
It is true that many people do not want to ask thremselves, just choosing to run blindfolded, without even wondering where it will end its run on this earth and ruled that the conclusion of everything is nothing of a grave. How sad it is! This really cancel each man’s humanity and spirituality, to contradict his obvious anxiety of the infinite, which is the clear record that testifies that our being  as “in the image and likeness of God”, then created for eternity. We all should know  that God has given life over to us not as a short stay that will end with the death, would be meaningless. If we seriously think about it, we can feel that there is a strong question about the future after death.
Where does this ‘anxiety’ of the eternal come from? It may be the consequence of being only “dust and mud,” or rather the profound gift of the Spirit who already lives in us? Let’s ask for light to believe or to confirm our faith:  Yes, life It is a gift of God, to build the holiness that is to love as He loved us, and so be ready, tomorrow, to meet Him that, for Love, has already re-opened the doors of heaven.

At Catechism we learned that the reason for our being in the world, was clear and reassuring: ‘To know God, to love Him, serve Him in this life in order to be happy with Him in Heaven’.
Unfortunately our time, both so advanced and technological but too materialistic, it deleted this fundamental reason of our existence: a sort of Eve for the big party in the future, in view of which we should learn to live with responsibility, each earthly choice, with the necessary love , which draws on looking into heaven and that prepares us for eternal life that awaits us.
Jesus faces the speech on the last day, not as a breaking of the bonds or the weakening of hopes, but as a radical change that will finally focus on what is really important in this life: His love and our love relationship with Him.

SOLENNITA’ DI CRISTO RE Gv 18, 33-37 (commento di don Marco Pozza)      

“The” goal, not “the” end – Jn 18: 33-37

• Contemplating the Crucified Beauty, we will not talk of “the end” of the human history of Jesus but,this Sunday, we will discover – and now with no doubt – “the goal” of the story, in other words, how it was the beginning into the imagination of the One who gave shape and beauty. Speaking to the male or female will help us to understand how the man and woman have interpreted their lives here on earth.
  The story have been written to female gender to emphasize the anguish and fear, distrust and fear, fatigue and that inertia typical of those who lived without risks.
  In Sacred Scripture will also have been justified: from the wicked, lazy servant in the parable of the talents to the young rich but sadly remained nameless through the endless and annoying series of false prophets, men and women lived without infamy and without glory.
  They will experience a great nostalgia for having contemplated, belatedly, that the real Gloria lived in the torture of a crucified man who has always defended what was denied and despised by the intelligence of those who governed the story.

For those who have always used the masculine gender, the liturgy today will unveil “the goal” of the story, in other words will be set ablaze bright the great secret that the Creator had placed in the heart of history to make it beat with hope here. For them, life will be an adventure without boredom to come to contemplate the radiant and charming face of Him who, strangled as a criminal had the courage to say that: “My kingdom is not from here.”
Jesus and his disciples were caught for fools, drunkards, their voices were slaughtered in the gallows and strung with twine in the synagogues, and yet they were NOT silent. Because for them the story tended to “an end”, not to “the end.”
The saints are the true realists, take into account that man, as it is, has no hope, and they do not run away from this to take refuge in the future. They are the real utopians: despite everything, are busy and hoping against hope. They live in the prodigality of Eucharistic love of God. The saints are humble: namely, the mediocrity of the Church doesn’ t discourages them to empathize with it definitively; because they perfectly know that, without the Church, they would not find the way that leads to God. They fight against mediocrity, not just complaint but stimulating, contaging , turning the hearts best.
   Whose was it true glory is not yet known. Remains that Pierced face as a last word of a liturgical year. To not to die of despair.