Meditation

On the morning of New Year’s Day, in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis celebrated Mass to mark the Solemnity of Mary, Most Holy Mother of God.

Today, the Gospel emphasizes the troubles and contradictions we Christians have to suffer because of Christ and his Gospel, and how we must stand firm and persevere to the end. Jesus promised us: "I am with you always ...

Today, the Gospel invites us to evangelize, it says: “Preach” (Mt 10:7). The announcement is Jesus’ good news, trying to tell us about the kingdom of God...

Today, the Gospel presents us —through two personages— a quality the good disciple of Jesus must have: to dispense with all material goods. Before, however, St. Matthew's text points out ...

Today, Jesus' categorical claim strikes us: "Not everyone who says to me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my heavenly Father" (Mt 7:21)...

We have to receive Jesus in our life; thus, we shall be opening the doors to the very same God. It is like programming our life to keep on going.

God can translate our heart language into the heart language of the listener and they can hear a resonance deep within that speaks to their deepest needs, deepest joys, deepest hurts and deepest longings.

Joy and peace are always fruit of the exuberance of our apostolic commitment and of our struggle to become saints. It is the logic and supernatural outcome of love for God and of a spirit of service towards our fellowmen.

"Peter was saddened because Jesus asked him a third time, ‘Do you love me?’", and he said, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you’". His triple denial makes him rectify, and just remembering it, saddens him.

We find a solid basis for trust in the Gospel: "Holy Father, I pray not only for these but also for those who through their word will believe in me...". It is Jesus' heart, which, in the intimacy of Jesus with his disciples, opens up the inexhaustible treasures of His Love.

Jesus prayed to his Father in our Gospel today, "I leave these my words in the world that my joy may be complete in them" (Jn 17,13).

Jesus let us share his most precious mystery; God Father is his origin and, at the same time, his destination: "As I came from the Father and have come into the world, so I am leaving the world and going to the Father".

All this week the Liturgy speaks of revitalizing, of exulting (jumping with joy), of an eternal and certain happiness. Everything leads us to live in prayer.

Let us turn to God and beg for a deep faith, a constant uneasiness to quench our thirst in the Eucharist Source, while listening to and understanding God's Word; by eating and satiating our spiritual hunger with the Body of Christ.

Spirit of Truth, open up our hearts and our lives to Christ's Gospel: that this light be the light to lighten our daily existence. Holy Spirit, our Helper, make us strong to live Christ's truth, thereby giving testimony to everyone.

The Apostles could not quite understand the unity between the Father and Jesus; they did not quite realize Jesus is God and Man in one person.

We are witnesses of Jesus not only when we know His teachings, but - and mainly - when we want and make others to know Him and love Him. As the saying goes: "Words move people, examples compel them".

One of the main characteristics of Christ's followers is fighting all evil and sin to be found in the world and inside every man. This is why, Jesus is the light of men, the light that illuminates the world's darkness.

Jesus speaks to you as a friend, for He has told you that his Father calls you, that He wants you to become an apostle, and that He expects you to bear fruit, a fruit that is manifested through love.

The Father's love for the Son is immense, tender, dear. We can read it in the Book of Proverbs, when He affirms that long before initiating his deeds "Then was I beside him as his craftsman, and I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while"...

We may see Jesus surrounded by the Apostles in an atmosphere of especial intimacy. He is giving them what we could consider as his final recommendations: what is normally said in the last moment, in the last farewell; that which has an especial force, as if it would be the last will.

Jesus Christ quietly suffered to please the Heavenly Father with an act of costly obedience, through which He willingly offered Himself for our salvation.

There would be plenty to speak about as to why the word of the Gospel does not reverberate with strength and conviction; as to why we, Christians, keep a leery silence regarding what we believe in, in spite of the so called “new evangelization”.

What Jesus says and does emanates from the Father, and the Father fully expresses Himself in Jesus. Whatever the Father wants to tell us is to be found in the Son's words and deeds.

Let us, therefore, get closer, without any fright and with unlimited trust, to Him who is the only Way, the inalienable Truth and the fullness of Life.

In our language we could translate it as “to care about other people's feelings”. Do we care about other people's feelings? Do we listen to them when they speak to us?

As His Holiness John Paul II has written, "Jesus, overwhelmed by his foreknowledge of the trial waiting for him, alone before God, invokes him with his usual and tender expression of trust: ‘Abbá, Father’".

Jesus knows his sheep and his sheep hear his voice. Faith allows us to connect with Jesus through prayer. What else is a prayer but a way to communicate with Jesus Christ, who loves us and takes us to the Father?

We keep mulling over one of the most beautiful and well known images of Jesus' preaching: the Good Shepherd, his sheep and the gate. We all keep in our memory the figure of that good Shepherd we were able to look at, as children.

Faith enter us through the ears, by listening to he Word of the Lord, and the greater risk we run is our own deafness, to miss the Good Shepherd's voice, because our head is full of noise and other dissonant voices.