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«Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you» T oday's Gospel exhorts us to the most perfect love. Love is wanting to do good to others, and here lies our personal fulfillment. We do not love for our own sake, but for the sake of doing good to our neighbor, and on doing it to improve as persons. The II Vatican Council said, «human beings cannot reach their prime but by sincerely giving themselves to others». Sainte Therese of the Infant Jesus said, ‘This is making an holocaust of our life’. Love is a human vocation. Our whole behavior, to be truly human, has to be the expression of the reality of our being while fulfilling our vocation for love. As John Paul II has written, «a man, cannot live without love. He becomes incomprehensible. His life does not make sense if love is not revealed to him, if he does not find love, if he does not experience love and makes it his, if he does not intensely participate in it». Love has its foundation and reaches its highest for...

«Leave your gift there in front of the altar, go at once and make peace with him [your brother]» T oday, the Lord challenges us to convert as He speaks about what goes on in our hearts. The commandment says «Do not commit murder» (Mt 5:21), but Jesus reminds us that there are other ways of killing life in others. We can kill life in others by harboring excessive anger towards them in our hearts or not treating them respectfully and calling them “Fool” (cf. Mt 5:22). The Lord calls us to be people of integrity: «Leave your gift there in front of the altar, go at once and make peace with him» (Mt 5:24), i.e. the faith we profess in our celebration of the Liturgy should flow over into our daily lives and affect how we live. So Jesus asks us to be reconciled with our enemies. A first step along the road to reconciliation is to pray for our enemies as Jesus requested. If we find this difficult it is good to remember and picture in our minds Jesus dying for those whom we dislike. If ...

«As Jonah became a sign for the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be a sign for this generation» T oday Jesus describes that the sign he will give to “evil people” is himself as the “sign of Jonah”: «As Jonah became a sign for the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be a sign for this generation» (Lk 11:30). Just as Jonah allowed himself tossed overboard the boat to still the raging tempest and save the sailers' lives, so Jesus allowed himself to be tossed overboard to calm the storms of sin that threatens our lives. Just as Jonah spent three days in the belly of the whale before being spit out on dry land, so Jesus would spend three days in the belly of the earth before walking out of the empty tomb (cf. Mt 12:40). The sign that Jesus would give to the “evil people” of every generation is the sign of his death and resurrection. His death, freely accepted, is the sign of God's incredible love for us: Jesus gave his life to save our own. His resurrection from...

«When you pray, do not use a lot of words; your Father knows what you need» T oday, Jesus —the Son of God— teaches us how to behave like a son of God. A first aspect is our trust and the confidence we should have when we talk to him. But our Lord warns us: «When you pray, do not use a lot of words» (Mt 6:7). When we talk to our parents, we do not resort to complicate reasoning, nor to using a lot of words, but they simply ask for what they need. We should always know God will listen to us because God —who is also the Father— loves us and listens to us. In fact, to pray is not so much to inform God, but to ask him for all we need, as «Your Father knows what you need, even before you ask him» (Mt 6:8). We will not be good Christians if we do not pray, as a son cannot be a good son if he does not talk to his parents. The Lord's Prayer is the prayer that Jesus himself taught us, and it is just a compendium of our Christian life. Each time we say the Lord's Prayer we let the Fat...

LENTEN MESSAGE- DAY 5 «Whatever you did not do for one of these little ones, you did not do for me» Today we are reminded of the Final Judgment, «when the Son of Man comes in his glory with all his angels» (Mt 25:31), by letting us mull over the essentials of our faith; feeding the hungry, giving the thirsty to drink, clothing the naked, visiting the sick... these are works of love for those Christians who, upon doing them, can see the very same Christ therein reflected. Saint John of the Cross says: «At dusk your love will be tested. Do learn to love God as He wants to be loved and forsake your own condition». For, not making something you ought to do, in the service of the other sons of God, our own brothers, means to deprive Christ of these details of due love: sins of omission. The II Vatican Council, in the Gaudium et spes, when explaining the demands of Christian charity, which confer a meaning to the so called social assistance, says: «In our time, it becomes especial...