THE LAST WORD

Jesus and the rich young man (Mt 19:16-30)

BY Fr Silvano Fausti SJ | Biblist and writer

WHAT JESUS says to the rich young man in this text is not ‘evangelical advice’ for someone who wants to be a better person: it is the perfection that the Gospel of freedom offers to us all. A perfect, mature and complete person lives with everything as a gift received and given by God. With that attitude, he becomes a son or daughter and fulfils the command of loving others with the same love with which Jesus loved him/her.

God gives us different gifts: “Each one has his or her own gift from God” (1 Cor 7:7). Every gift is for the common good (1 Cor 12:7), a manifestation of a love which will never wane. Not all will live as Mother Teresa of Calcutta; but none of us can neglect to live, as we can, that love for the least that she so admirably witnessed.

For all, the way of life passes through poverty, humility and service. Possessions and wealth, pride and domination are the weapons with which the enemy keeps us in bondage. What refers to material goods, refers also to every other good: intellectual, moral and spiritual; they are all gifts received as children to be shared with others, for the common good.

The passage is divided into three parts: the need to be free from possessions in order to be a fulfilled person (vv. 16-22); wealth, real or desired, is not a help, but an impediment to entering the kingdom (vv. 23-26); the disciple is given this freedom in the present which opens up to his or her future (vv. 27-29). This is why many of the first will be last and vice versa (v. 30).

Jesus is the poor, the last and servant of all, because He is the Son (Phil 2:6-11). The Church follows Him, as the salt of the earth and light of the world (Mt 5.13ff); she receives her graces from Whom being rich became poor to enrich us with His poverty (2 Cor 8.9).

In verse 21: “if you want to be perfect”. ‘Perfect’ means ‘accomplished’. An unfinished action is ‘failed or imperfect’. The perfection of which Matthew speaks of is thus the necessary step to be truly a child of God (cf. Mt 5:48).

“Go, sell what you have and give it to the poor”. Goods, until they are shared with brothers and sisters distance us from the Father and the Son. We must remove what distances us from the God of life.

“You will have treasure in heaven”. Only then one has his/her heart where the treasure is.

“Then come, and follow me! “Whoever makes himself a brother or a sister, comes to the Son and follows His way. Giving to the brethren and following the Lord is the fulfilment of the command of love to God and neighbour.

In verse 22: “The young man went away sad; for he had many possessions”. His goods are still his possessions. He does not have them as blessings: he is cursed with them. He is not yet free: he is a slave to Mammon.

THE LAST WORD

ARE YOU ANGRY BECAUSE I AM GOOD? (MT 20: 1–16)

BY FR SILVANO FAUSTI SJ | BIBLIST AND WRITER

THE PARABLE of the Workers in the Vineyard contradicts, at its root, the logic of possession and claim; none can demand what is, instead, a pure gift of grace.

Those regarded as ‘first called’, both in Israel and in the Church, behave like Jonah: they are enraged to see that God is ‘merciful, forgiving, long-suffering, and of great love’ (Jonah 4: 2). They are attached to their spiritual goods, like the rich young man to his material ones. They are like the elder brother, who is angry to see that his father is good to his younger brother (Lk 15: 28). In this parable, those ‘first called’ even risk rejecting the Lord, because He is
magnanimous towards the last.

This parable is a gospel ‘in a nutshell’, similar to Lk 15: 1ff. It goes contrary to the ethics of capitalism, whether material or spiritual. It is not against the law or justice—the labourers of the first hour are given what is right—but it emphasises grace. God’s law and justice are that of love and liberality; His reward exceeds all merit: it is a reward, given out of mercy to all. For all, salvation is the free love of the Father. One cannot steal it by cunning or earn it by sweat: it is grace.

Eternal life, which the rich young man wants to have (Mt 19: 16), can be obtained not by doing something more, but by leaving everything. One must leave not only material goods but also spiritual ones. The Kingdom is of the poor in spirit (Mt 5: 3), of those who have become like children and accept it as a gift from the Father to His children in the Son. The privilege of the little ones and the least, is that, not deserving it, they understand that it is a gift. The others—the rich in spirit—will only accept it if, unlike the elder brother, they welcome the younger one; only if, unlike those who have worked since dawn in this parable, they are happy that their brothers of the last hour, have the same children’s salary as them.

This parable, along with that of the steward in Lk 16: 1ff, is even more irritating than Lk 15: 1ff because it uses economic language: it is a dig at our market-oriented way of conceiving love. The passage is divided into two parts: there are five different calls from sunrise until an hour before sunset (vv. 1–7): at sunset there is the moment of reward, starting with the last ones who receive the same retribution as the first ones, who, of course, complain (vv. 8–16). The focus is on the rebuke to one of the workers of the first hour, who does not accept that the Lord treats those of the last hour as He does. In this parable, Jesus brings back down to earth what was in the ‘beginning’: the way of the Father, who is benevolent to all His children, even to those who do not deserve it (cf. Mt 5: 45).

The Church, if it seeks salvation from her works, will no longer have anything to do with Christ: she will fall away from grace (Gal 5: 4). Christians, knowing that they have been saved by grace (cf. Eph 2: 5), putting aside bitterness, indignation, anger, clamour, slander, and all kinds of malice, are called to be kind to one another, to pardon as God has pardoned them in Christ (Eph 4: 31f).

THE LAST WORD

The Flight to Egypt (Mt 2: 13–15): A New Exodus of Liberation

BY Fr Silvano Fausti SJ | Biblist and writer

THE STORY of Jesus in this passage is presented as a journey; the journey of the Son, retracing the same path of His lost brothers and sisters.

The episode concludes with a biblical quotation: ‘Out of Egypt, I called my son’ (Hos 11: 1), which interprets the event in the light of the Word; the whole history of Israel is, in fact, a prophecy of the life of Jesus. He descends and ascends from Egypt, the Son accomplishes the new and definitive exodus. He is the light to every human being who dwells in darkness and the shadow of death (Mt 4: 15f).

The Nazarean, as the people of Israel, is liberated from Egypt and from exile and returns to the Land. The passage sums up the drama of Israel and of every person. On the one hand, there is the king and, on the other, the child; the good persecuted by the wicked. Initially, the good is the loser and the evil is the winner and the stronger; but in the end, the Innocent wins, precisely defeating evil with His own blood. The story, from an apparent victory of the powerful, becomes the story of the beloved son, who saves his brothers who had sold him (cf. Gen 50: 20).

In verse 13, an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph in a dream. Like his namesake, sold by his brothers, Joseph is a ‘dreamer’; in the depths of his pure heart, he sees God (Mt 5: 8). Dreams often seem unreal to us; instead, they are the principle of all reality. Even if one does not know it, one always realises his dreams. God’s dreams always come true in the end, even if they seem impossible to us (Ps 126: 1; Acts 12: 9; Lk 24: 11, 37).

The angel speaks the Word: ‘get up!’ which awakens us to life, in line with God’s dream. Joseph does not respond to the Word with words, but with his bodily reaction. The answer is himself executing God’s voice literally. He practises love in deed and in truth (1 Jn 3: 18), a worship pleasing to God (Rom 12: 1). To obey means to listen by standing in front, facing the other. He who obeys is like the Son because he hears and does His word.

Mary is mentioned at the beginning of the Gospel as the wife of Joseph (Mt 1: 18, 19). Here the ‘child and his mother’ is mentioned, always putting the child first. Mary, Israel and the Church are not the centre; they lead to the centre, which is Him! Both Jesus and His mother are entrusted to the hands of Joseph, the prototype of believers.

The King of the Jews flees to Egypt because of the king of Judea—just as Joseph fled to Egypt because of the envy of his brothers.

Herod represents the figure of the Pharaoh, present in Israel, in the Church, and in each one of us. In our ‘paganism’, just as there is the quest of the Magi to worship the Lord, so there is the quest of Herod, who, like Pharaoh, will kill his children. Jesus, who, like Moses, is miraculously saved, enters Egypt to fulfil the new exodus.

Jesus in Egypt lives as a stranger, in solidarity with the loneliness of all the oppressed, His brothers and sisters. Herod, like Pharaoh, has also an end; the Son, like Israel, sees his end. God from on high laughs at the mighty and their plots (Ps 2: 4). Jesus’ forced ‘flight’ is not the end, but only the fulfilment of God’s plan. Evil is its executor: ‘He has dug the pit into which he will fall’ (Ps 7: 16).

The coming out of Egypt (Hos 11: 1) represents the birth of the Son from the dark womb of slavery. Hosea was speaking of a new exodus, from an even harsher Egypt, the return from Babylon—a time which will mark the beginning of a new springtime between God and His people, which will blossom in the desert (Hos 2: 16).

THE LAST WORD • the samaritan woman

If only you knew the gift of God (Jn 4: 1–42)

BY Fr Silvano Fausti SJ | Biblist and writer

AFTER THE encounter at night with Nicodemus, the man of the law, and John, the prophet, Jesus meets a woman of Samaria. It is not the female version of the same journey of faith. If Nicodemus and John represent Israel’s typical religious itinerary, this woman represents the more universal faith journey, which starts from our common ‘thirst’ and the ‘water’ that quenches it. Even those who know the law and the prophets, approach God only through the thirst for their deepest desires.

After the prologue (Jn 1: 1–18), the underlying protagonist of John’s Gospel is the water, the origin of life. In chapter 1, John is baptising as he meets Jesus; in chapter 2, the water for purifications is transformed into beautiful wine at Cana; in chapter 3, the rebirth from water and the Spirit; in chapter 5, the pool of Bethesda where Jesus heals the crippled man who has been waiting for the prodigious water.

The encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman takes place in solitude. Jesus speaking to her, arouses wonderment in her, as well as in the disciples (cf. Jn 4: 9, 27). In Jesus’ culture, a teacher would not talk to a woman in the street; even a husband would only address his wife in the privacy of their home.

The narrative is a love story, a dialogue in which Jesus offers His gift to the woman

One goes to the well in the cool hours of dawn and dusk. Why does this woman come at noon, when she is sure to meet no other women? What water does she desire in the hour of heat and thirst? Jesus’ question, “Give me a drink” seems strange to her. It sounds like the advances of someone who wants to approach her. She gets it right. It is indeed the beginning of a courtship. At the edge of the well, Jacob had courted Rachel (Gen 29: 9ff; cf. Gen 24) and Moses the seven daughters of Reuel (Ex 2: 10–22). Jesus, unlike them, does not exhibit strength and courage, but weakness. Tired and forlorn, He is thirsty, like the woman who comes to draw water.

Every word, if not a hidden allusion, is a blatant misunderstanding. Misunderstandings open the horizon to the different; they bring novelty and are actually a fruitful place of intelligence, love and life.

The text begins with a game of misunderstandings about water (vv. 7ff). Beyond the well of material water is that of the law, whose water is the word of life. There is also the deep well, the woman’s heart, which, in turn, points to a more abysmal mystery, from which all existence springs. There is another water, that the woman, despite having had six men, has not yet found. It is the water for which Jesus also thirsts: the love between Bridegroom and bride. The misunderstandings, after water, focus on husband and husbands (vv. 16ff); and, later on, on the various places and ways of worshipping God (vv. 20ff), finally reaching food and harvest (vv. 27ff). Water and bread, love and God, are basic human needs, the primary site of misunderstandings and understanding among human beings.

The various themes are intimately connected, in a succession of images referring back to each other, in precise order where the one that follows, develops the one that precedes. Each misunderstanding results in a further understanding of Jesus, recognised first as the One who gives living water (v. 15), then as a prophet (v. 19), later as the Messiah and I AM (v. 26) and, finally, as the Saviour of the world (v. 42).

The figures and symbols that come into play are suggestive and eloquent: thirst and water, man and woman, the bridegroom and the various husbands, the temple in Spirit and truth, and the various temples, food and the will of God, the toil of sowing and the joy of harvest. These are fundamental realities and everyone has a limited experience of them.

The narrative is a love story, a dialogue in which Jesus offers His gift to the woman; a gradual journey which culminates in her recognizing Jesus as the world’s Saviour. Jesus is the spring of living water, the Bridegroom who seeks the unfaithful bride to give her His love. In Him, true worship is fulfilled: love toward the Father, which nourishes that toward the brethren, without religious, ethnic or cultural distinctions.

The Church, like the woman of Samaria, finds in Jesus the Bridegroom who redeems her from her failures and gives her His Spirit as Son, to love the Father and the brethren.

THE LAST WORD • BEATITUDES

The sending of the Seventy-two (Luke 10: 1–16)

BY Fr Silvano Fausti SJ | Biblist and writer

The passage begins referring to Jesus sending the disciples: (‘The Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of Him to every town and place where He was about to go’ (Lk 10: 1), and ends with Him as being sent: (“whoever rejects me rejects Him who sent me” (Lk 10: 16).

The source of the mission is always the Father, who manifests His mercy for all His children. The Son is the first to be sent by Him because He knows the Father. Then, the Son sends those who recognise Him as their brother.

Though Luke carefully avoids duplicities in his Gospel, here, instead, he specifically —and he alone!—does it, taking up and extending the discourse of Luke 9: 1–6 where Jesus calls the Twelve, gives them power to drive out demons and to cure diseases, and sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.  He warns them not to take anything for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt; stay in the same house and if people do not welcome them, leave that town and shake their dust off their feet.

Luke emphasises the apostolic (= missionary) importance of this text for his Church, and calls to continue the work of Jesus. That of the Twelve to Israel and the seventy-two to all peoples, constitute a single mission.

Through this identical and multiple mission of the one Lord, He becomes “One” King over all the earth (Zech 14: 9) and His name sanctified among all nations (Ez 36: 23). Unity and totality are the underlying concerns of the ‘Catholic’ Luke.

The mission stems from the love of the Father for all His children and ends in the love of the children for the Father and among themselves. It expands into an ever-widening horizon, until it embraces the ends of the earth: it is the circle of the Father’s arms, which is open to embrace all His children without losing any of them, because He does not leave any children out.

The mission stems from the love of the Father for all His children and ends in the love of the children for the Father and among themselves

The conditions of the mission of the Seventy-two, like that of the Twelve, are the same as those of Jesus. The difference is that He is the Son who left the Father and came to seek His brethren, to call sinners to repentance (Luke 5: 32) and to save the lost. (Lk 19: 10). The Twelve are called and the Seventy-two are appointed to collaborate in His work.

This mission, as from Israel, aims at reaching the ends of the earth; so, from Jesus it also extends to the ends of time. Then the Lord will come. “But it is first necessary that the Gospel be proclaimed to all nations” (Mk 13: 10). The final end of the mission is that the names of the disciples, in the name of Jesus, will be written in the heavens (Lk 1: 20), that is, in God.

This long discourse has an introduction: “the harvest is plentiful” (Lk 10: 2), that is, all humankind; anyone who knows the heart of the Father is solicitous for all their brethren. The discourse has an opening image, which gives colour to the mission: “lambs in the midst of wolves” (Lk 10: 3), under the banner of the shepherd who became a sacrificed lamb. This is followed by four instructions describing the mission in poverty (Lk 10: 4), and the specifications regarding the proclamation of the Kingdom: “say”, “dwell”, “eat”, “take care”, (Lk 10: 5–9). The announcement, urgent and necessary, takes place in a context of contradiction and rejection (Lk 10: 10–15). It ends by affirming that the mission of the disciples is the same as that of Jesus, sent by the Father (Lk 10: 16).

THE LAST WORD

The wedding at Cana (Jn 2: 1–12)

BY Fr Silvano Fausti SJ | Biblist and writer

THE PASSAGE speaks of a wedding, of a shortage of wine, of servants, of six stone jars, of water and of beautiful wine, reserved until this moment. The bride is not named; the bridegroom only appears at the end, as the table master’s interlocutor. The wedding represents the covenant between God and the people, the wine that is lacking signifies the love of man that is failing; the stone jars for purification, which are empty, allude to the unfulfilled law. Water, the first element of creation, becomes ‘beautiful wine’, given at the end, that we can draw from ‘now’.

This scene is meant to immediately make us realise that God is shockingly different from what we imagine. The first sign of the Son of God is to add more than 600 litres of wine to a banquet! With all the hunger in the world and alcoholism, could he not have done something more useful and less futile? Perhaps Jesus changed water into wine knowing that His devotees would then abundantly turn the wine of the Gospel into the water of the law. Jesus appears giving an overabundance of ‘beautiful wine’ to a wedding feast that is languishing and dying for lack of wine.

In the Bible, the nuptial union is the highest symbol of the covenant between God and His people; a relationship of interest and care, of complicity and belonging, with feelings of trust and companionship, of tenderness and union, which make life beautiful. His coming is the ‘now’ in which the covenant is renewed and we experience the joy of meeting the Bridegroom. The Church is represented by the disciples to whom the glory of Jesus is manifested: they understand the sign of the wine and believe in Him.

The narrative focuses on the gratuitousness and greatness of the gift. The presence of Jesus is the renewal of the covenant, the beginning of the eschatological wedding. The passage is to be read, not only as a sign, but as ‘the beginning of signs’, as a symbol which illuminates what the Gospel will later tell about Jesus of Nazareth. Just as the healing of the blind man manifests that Jesus is light, the gift of bread that He is food, and the resurrection of Lazarus that He is life, so the beautiful wine manifests His glory: Jesus is the Bridegroom. With Him has come the hour in which the wedding between God and His people is consummated.

With Jesus has come the hour in which the wedding between God and His people is consummated

From the story also emerges the continuity of the one covenant, both ancient and new, like the commandment of love (1 Jn 2: 7), of universal value. Indeed, the beautiful wine of the Gospel is drawn from the stone jars, symbol of the law.

Wine in fact comes from water, the primordial element of creation, and makes its first appearance with Noah, after the Flood and the renewal of the cosmic covenant (Gen 9: 20, 21).

The drama of Israel is the same as that of every man, being ‘the lack of wine’. Where is the love, joy and life for which we were made and of which we feel defrauded? Through Jesus, the Word becomes flesh—everyone can taste the wine offered in abundance. With Him is realised the blessing promised to Abraham and, in Him, to all nations (Gen 12: 2).

With this sign, Jesus did not cure someone of an illness, as He would do elsewhere; He simply saved us from that subtle evil that destroys our humanity, ‘the lack of wine’, being the absence of love and joy. Jesus, the Word became flesh, God and man, is heaven opened on earth.

THE LAST WORD

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life (Jn 14: 6)

BY Fr Silvano Fausti SJ | Biblist and writer

“I AM”, an expression dear to the evangelist John when referring to Jesus in his Gospel, is applied here to three substantives, the way, the truth and the life.

Jesus, as the beloved Son who loves the Father and His brothers and sisters, is for us the Way of salvation, because He reveals to us the Truth of God and of man; and He is for us the Life, because He gives us His love, which is the very life of God. For in Him the life of all that exists resides (Jn 1: 4), and He possesses and communicates Life like the Father does (Jn 5: 26).

The way is not a road, but a person to be followed; the truth is not a concept, but a man to be encountered; the life is not a biological fact, but love to be experienced.

The way is always in reference to the Father’s house, from which or towards which the believer walks. The way of God is traditionally the law. Now, the doctrine of Jesus (Acts 9: 2; 24: 22), is the new law, which brings us home.

The ‘truth of God’ is the flesh of Jesus, the Son who makes us see the Father. The ‘life of God’ is the same love between the Father and the Son which Jesus witnessed by His life and has given to us through His death. Other paths lead astray, other truths are fallacious, other proposals for life are deadly.

Jesus, as the Way, leads us back to our identity, where we come from; as the Truth, He makes us see our own reality as children and that of God as Father and as Life, He is the love of God himself, beginning and end of everything.

Jesus is the way because He is the truth of love, which gives life. Thomas will find this way by entering into His wounds; in them he will touch the truth of an extreme love that knows how to give life. It is not so much a way to go, like the law; it is rather a way that leads us, because it gives us the grace and truth of the Son (Jn 1: 17).

No one comes to the Father except through me. One would expect to hear: No one ‘goes’ to the Father… but Jesus says ‘comes,’ because He is in the Father and the Father is in Him (Jn 14: 10). His very going away to prepare a place for us is a coming to us (Jn 14: 3); the love that He reveals to us on the Cross draws us and unites us to Him, making us capable of loving as He loves us.

Jesus, the Son, is the only way to return to the Father; through Him we know and love God, we know and love our brothers and sisters. This does not mean that whoever does not know Him is lost. In fact, the Son, the eternal Word of the Father, has always been at work, in infinite ways, to enlighten every person and make them know the truth of love (Jn 1: 9, 14). In fact, “whoever loves is begotten by God and knows God” (1 Jn 4: 7b), “for God is love” (1 Jn 4: 8b).

THE LAST WORD

Jesus feeds the multitude (Mk 6: 34–44)

BY Silvano Fausti SJ | Biblist and writer

“HE LIFTED up His eyes to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them” (6: 41). These are the words of the Eucharistic memorial (Mk 14: 22f), the point of arrival of every mission, in which we receive the bread which is the Son, and which makes us children of God.

This section of Mark wants to lead us to overcome deafness and blindness, in recognising the Lord in the Eucharist.

The continuation of this Gospel passage will be a comparison between the Church and this bread, culminating in the contemplation of a crucified God, object of the proclamation that makes us born again (baptism) and food that nourishes new life (Eucharist).

This passage begins by acknowledging the source of the Lord’s gift: His compassion, His hesed—the hidden essence of God, which will lead Him to give His life for us.

The scene takes place in the desert, where the people received the Ten Commandments, the manna, the quails and the water. Now the new people receive the Word itself, which becomes their nourishment and life.

The story puts in contrast two economies—two different ways of managing one’s existence: that of man, who lives on what he has or buys; and that of God, who lives and gives life in perfect gratuitousness. There is bread—the disciples have it and do not know it—that is multiplied by distributing it and that can satiate multitudes.

The story, called “multiplication”, actually speaks of sharing. This is how this satisfying bread comes into existence and suffices for all.

The central theme of the passage is “eating”. Eating means living. It is mysteriously true that the human being is what he or she eats. Biblical wisdom says: “Eat without money and without spending. Why do you spend money on what is not bread, your wealth on what does not satisfy? Come to me and listen, and you shall live” (Is 55: 1 ff passim).

The Eucharist is not the commemoration of a past event, but newness of life, filial and fraternal. “Whoever eats me shall live because of me” (Jn 6: 57), Jesus says. His bread is Himself, as He Himself is His Word: as Word He makes us see the mystery of God, as bread He makes us live it. In the background there is the memory of the exodus with the gift of manna and the miracle of Elisha (2 Kings 4: 42 ff).

Jesus, who gives word and bread, is Word and Bread. Living by Him, we live the fullness of life that has been promised to us.

The disciple eats of this bread. The banquet that Jesus prepares in the desert, very different from that of Herod in the palace, allows the person to pass from a dead existence—closed in selfishness and administered by the desire of possession, power and appearance—to a new life in love, under the sign of self-giving and of service in humility. The disciple now belongs to a new people, which has the characteristics of the bread they eat.

Five thousand is precisely the number of the primitive community (Acts 4: 4), of which is said that they lived in their daily life what they celebrated in their Eucharist.

THE LAST WORD

Love Your Enemies (Lk 6: 27–31)

BY Fr Silvano Fausti SJ | Biblist and writer

Jesus reveals to us the face of a loving God. He is good to me, even if I am far from Him. He blesses me, while I ignore Him. He intercedes for me, while I forget Him. As long as I am saved, He is willing to sacrifice anything for me. He even gives me what I do not dare to ask from Him and does not ask back what I have failed to return to Him. Truly, His love for me has made Him travel much more than two extra miles: an endless road! He is all condescendence towards my abyss.

Secondly, in His love, He reveals to me who I am for Him: infinitely loved, even if I am full of shortcomings and wrongdoings. He pours out on me His love and grace, together with His mercy in every moment of my life. To know God in the Spirit is to experience and know God’s love for me, a sinner. This is salvation.

Thirdly, these words reveal to me who I must be to others: a brother or sister, like Jesus. What he has done for me, becomes an imperative toward others; to become for them what essentially I am: the face of Christ, my true face. From homo homini lupus (man, a wolf to man), to become homo homini Deus (man, a God to man), like Him. This is my vocation as a child of God, to which His love calls me and empowers me. To the extent that I know His face, I am transformed into His image, from glory to glory, according to the working of his Spirit (2 Cor 3: 18).

In these words, then, I see the story of God in Jesus, His love for me, my own story and everyone else’s who, healed from the hostility towards God, is called to be healed from animosity towards everyone.

The love for enemies is proper for those who have come to know God in the Spirit of Jesus

The discourse is addressed to the disciples. It is a catechesis on the core of the Christian life: the merciful love, the only possible love in a world of evil, the only force capable of overcoming it. The love for enemies is proper for those who have come to know God in the Spirit of Jesus. This love extends to all men and women, and reveals the essence of God.

The passage is articulated into a verse of four commands: ‘love’, ‘do well’, ‘bless’ and ‘pray’ for enemies (vv. 27, 28), followed by four amplifications that tell us how to overcome evil with good (vv. 29, 30), concluding with the general principle of love: “as you would like others to do to you, do likewise to them” (v. 31). These believing listeners have already understood and accepted the Kingdom. This is the central point in the teaching, the touchstone of their faith: called to the gift of a new life, purified and capable of walking it (cf. 5: 1–11; 5: 12–16; 5: 17–26), diners of Jesus, enabled to live from God and to act like Him (cf. 5: 27–32; 5: 33–6: 5; 6: 6–11). They accept His action as the foundation and source of their own lives. It is the new life in Christ, life in the Spirit, which the believer lives in relation to the world and to those who still do not know that they are his brothers and sisters and consider them as enemies. This love of the enemy is the weapon with which the believer overcomes evil in the world, and is the main means of spreading Christianity, much more effective than any crusades, which have the opposite effect.

THE LAST WORD • ADVENT

BY FR JOSE LORENZO GUZMAN JIMENEZ | DIOCESAN VICAR OF CIUDAD GUZMAN, JALISCO, MEXICO
EDITED BY FR RAFAEL ARMADA MCCJ

WE BEGIN Advent, a time of preparation for the celebration of Christmas. It is a time to think about one’s own life, the life of the community, to enter into a process of conversion and to nourish our hope.

In the face of situations of suffering, discouragement, meaninglessness, God has a promise: that of a better life, which he offers us in his Son Jesus. This hope is His gift, but it is also our responsibility and we nourish it with the Eucharist.

In the Gospel, to describe the end of suffering, Jesus speaks of the wondrous signs in the stars and the roaring of the waves of the sea. The reality of suffering and domination is not forever, and Jesus gives us this hope. When this is over, He will come with great power and majesty, referring it to His second coming, with which liberation will come. It is what we wait for and anticipate with the celebration of Advent and affirm in every Eucharist, when we say: Come, Lord Jesus!

This gift of God—hope—demands an attitude from us. We cannot wait for it idly, with our arms folded, but in an active way and in this lies our personal and community responsibility. Jesus shows us how to sustain this hope. He asks his disciples to be alert, to read the signs of the times, to lift up their heads, to watch and to pray continually. We will be reminded of this throughout the four weeks of Advent.

A new attitude, which does not dull our minds or blind our hearts, is needed to banish injustice, greed, corruption in the world. The growing sensitivity towards the care of creation and the planet, our common home, and of her inhabitants, are signs of the times, as well as the call to an ecological conversion that Pope Francis speaks of in Laudato Si’ (LS 217). Consumerism, as we have lived it in the last decades, has caused devastating damage on our common home. Nature has rebelled herself against human greed in the form of droughts, fires and floods, preventing
especially the most vulnerable populations of the planet from developing their lives in a dignified way. A new lifestyle is needed, one that respects the sustainability of the Earth and guarantees in the future the basic needs for the whole of humanity.

This is God’s invitation to us through his Word. It is up to us to seek and find ways to sustain ourselves in the hope of new life. The way to sustain ourselves in the struggle against these destructive desires is to watch and pray constantly. May this commitment accompany our preparation to celebrate the Birth of Jesus, along with the lights, Christmas decorations, celebrations and family gatherings.

Let us ask God for the light of his Spirit to keep us alert, attentive, vigilant and prayerful, not only during this Advent that we are beginning, but also throughout our lives.