Christ forgives the repentant prostitute telling: "We’ and from now on sin no more ", He does not tell her at all to continue as before and more than before …

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The angle dell'omiletica of the Fathers of The Island of Patmos

CHRIST FORGIVE THE PROSTITUTE he regretted telling «VA 'AND FROM NOW ON SIN NOT MORE », NOT THE DICE ANY PROCEEDING AS BEFORE AND MORE THAN BEFORE …

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'Go', and from now on sin no more "are the words of Christ and as such they cannot be questioned by anyone, even by the Church and by her ministers. Freedom of Mercy is a divine freedom that is inconceivable except in relation to the salvation of souls. God allows everything to man, except that which deprives him of grace and exposes it to damnation. The ban that man must do just then, is to live in sin, never a sin can be good, santo, desirable, excusable, tameable, to move with the times, modern and so to follow.

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Capp.

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Maddalena, Yesterday and Today …

The Gospel from John of this Fifth Sunday of Lent [see Liturgy of the Word, WHO] it is perhaps equal to that of the Merciful Father, the most famous and known Gospel passage. So much so that became proverbial and popular expression of Jesus: "Which one of you is without sin, cast the first stone ".

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Even in the analysis of this text and in its correct exegesis, we must not be satisfied with a reading merciful that, while we are having the merit to satisfy all through a renewed apocatastasis, may belie the substance of Jesus' teaching about sin and authentic sacramental practice of reconciliation in the Church. In fact nexists on an exegesis admits that the criterion of political correctness or personalism, but the authentic exegesis is always done in the Holy Spirit is the one who guides and directs the whole truth [cf. GV. 16,13]. The same Spirit that blows on the Holy Church and the blessed masters and doctors, It allows us to scrutinize and learn the true meaning of the sacred pages of the Word of God.

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The context and the setting this Gospel passage very reminiscent of the theme of Luke's mercy and forgiveness that Christ grants to sinners, and in a particular way to some women issues [cf. LC 7, 36-50; 8,2-3]. The sacral setting of the Temple, in which the episode takes place, significantly it emphasizes the power of authority of Christ in introducing an innovation in the worship of the Father. It is no longer to offer an animal sacrifice as a form of sacrificial atonement - on the basis of ancient Israel - but through the way of mercy to the Lord becomes worship: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice " [cf. Os 6,6; Mt 9,13].

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the Servant of God Father Oreste Benzi [Rimini 1925 – Rimini 2007]

The summit of the mercy is the death of God's Son, person who becomes a sacrificial offering to the Father for the sins of all mankind, at all times:

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"It was like a lamb led to the slaughter […] But the Lord is bruise him. If he offers in a guilt offering, see his offspring, will live long, It will be accomplished through him the Lord's will " [cf. Is 53,7; 10].

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Divine Mercy is reached through the sacrifice of the Son, through Christ fact will arise in the world an offspring of rescued and pardoned you repudiate the sin and compromise with evil, to live in the freedom of God's children. Living without sin is not utopian but real possibility because it is a gift that has already been granted in the passion and resurrection of Jesus, It is a gift of grace that is rediscovered. The man is not his sin, but even an animal from saddle ridden by God or the devil, as she claimed by the heresiarch Luther in his wretched teaching.

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We understand: mercy that the Lord has on the world it is in view of a final redemption from sin - Sother souls that the Church in her ministry work -, He continues in the wake of the mercy cult, through which the man is redeemed. The medicine of mercy, It needs truth and justice so that it reaches the soul's health. So the adulteress episode helps us to understand this divine practice, now so disregarded and mistreated.

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Father Oreste Benzi visiting Saint John Paul II with a prostitute sick with AIDS

The adulterous the Gospel of this Sunday, goes about the sin of prostitution and adultery, It is a public sinner and perhaps already known to his accusers. It thus becomes a tool and pretext to accuse Jesus and put him to death as a troublemaker Law. The woman, in this context, It makes the experience of truth and human justice which unfortunately prove imperfect.

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Moses, although remembered as the supreme legislator of Israel, He should also take note of sin and human limitation and that sclerocardia that hinders live according to God's plan, giving the law also grants the exemptions that mortify [cf. MC 10, 4-5]. The law should protect man does not save, It not justified as it had to fully understand St. Paul during his preaching. In Jesus, which it is greater than Moses, it fulfills the law, perfecting it through his person: "You have heard that it was said … but I tell you " [cf. Mt 5,21-ss].

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Christ does not intend to quibble against his enemies, He does not want to hear the judges of a poor woman guilty, He wants first of all to bring the truth so that there is a genuine justification for both guilty that his accusers. So down the position of these men and forces them to look truth within themselves and to see themselves in relation to sin, in any sin: "Which one of you is without sin, be the first to throw the stone at her " [cf. GV 8,7]. Now, sand the woman is a sinner, one who has transgressed the law, they can perhaps be said to be above the law or unable to transgress? Jesus powerfully puts before them a disconcerting truth that the evangelist John has already introduced us in the previous chapter to this page: "It was not Moses give you the Law? Yet none of you keeps the law! Why do you seek to kill me?» [cf. GV 7,19].

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Father Oreste Benzi, a true priest of the road because the true path of Christ …

These men They are not immune from the contagion of sin, want justice, but do not tolerate submit before the light of truth. The effort to discover sinners and pain for the discovery of their pitiable condition leads them to abandon the attitude of condemnation: "Hearing this, they went away one by one, beginning with the eldest to the last " [cf. GV 8, 9].

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Jesus' statement It brings forth the truth in the souls of these men and leads to a justice that restores balance, for them there will be a justification only when, like the publican in the Temple, They will recognize themselves in need of forgiveness and cleansing, by ceasing to use the law as a weapon of accusation [cf. LC 18,13]. Thus removed the accusers "only the two of them remained: the miserable and mercy ", St. Augustine comments as well this time. The story of the woman has not clarified nor resolved, what will be the decision of Jesus? First, Jesus calls, It puts it in the middle, He wants to re-make the truth so we've got to justify. He calls her "woman", the restoration of the dignity that his accusers had taken off his, she is a creature of the Father, can not be defined by his sin, but by the love that God used to call her to life. The question of Christ emphasizes the lack of conviction not on guilt: "Has no one condemned?», This happens every time we put ourselves before the Lord, which does not ignore certain sin but want the sinner himself is aware of his condition of infirmity desiring healing.

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This woman does not express a visible repentance, full of love and emotion as the sinful woman of Luke's Gospel [cf. LC 7,36-50], yet Jesus uses with her a totally exaggerated kindness as opposed to that of the Pharisees: "You judge according to the flesh; I do not judge anyone " [cf. GV 8,15]. The final of the Gospel makes it clear why this particular exercise of benevolence and mercy from Jesus: 'Go', and from now on sin no more ". But what they want to say these words? First of all, be firmly stressed obtained freedom from sin that comes to us through the grace of Christ and his sacrifice: yes she is free to go, but not to sin again.

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the Grateful daughters …

Let us remember that these are the words of Christ and as such they cannot be questioned by anyone, even by the Church and by her ministers. Freedom of Mercy is a divine freedom that is inconceivable except in relation to the salvation of souls. God allows everything to man, except that which deprives him of grace and exposes it to damnation. The ban that man must do just then, is to live in sin, never a sin can be good, santo, desirable, excusable, tameable, to move with the times, modern and so to follow. Sin is always sin and was the cause of all suffering of our Divine Redeemer: "He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities;. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with his stripes we are healed " [cf. Is 53,5].

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Cagliari, 7 April 2019

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the personal blog by Father Ivano

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
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There are many houses and fathers: the prodigal son returns home to the one of the only true Father who is the source of grace and the center of the mystery of salvation

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L'Angolo di Girolamo Savonarola: Catholic homiletics in lean times

THERE ARE MANY HOMES AND FATHERS: THE PRODIGAL SON RETURNS TO THE ONLY HOME OF THE ONLY AND TRUE FATHER WHO IS THE SOURCE OF GRACE AND THE CENTER OF THE MYSTERY OF SALVATION

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The prodigal son returns to his father's house where waiting for him there is no sociological fashion, above all, no political correctness. Because God is always beyond any fashion, but above all human political correctness, because God is all without beginning and without end, why not end it is his love, for this eternal is his mercy, for this one is his home, not many; and the only home of the one Father remains in the base centuries, source of grace and the center of the mystery of salvation, culmination and perfect center of unity.

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Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo.

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Jesus Christ be praised !

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The Prodigal Son, work of the sculptor Arturo Martini, 1927 [Rest Home Jona Ottolenghi, Acqui Terme]

In this Sunday glad the fourth week of Lent, the liturgy gives us one of the pages of the Holy Gospels of the best known: the Parable of the Prodigal Son [see text of the liturgy, WHO]. To claim to have legitimate paternal inheritance while the father was still alive was a terrible outrage in the Jewish world, but not only in it. It would be like saying: "I have no time to wait for you to pull the bucket, what to give me right away what belongs to me ". Here then it is that the father gives an initial and a final response: Start the answer is the action that fulfills the son's request, confirming him master of his freedom and owner of the goods which he claimed; the final answer is an act of pure love, which in itself contains a lesson based on the maturity and true mercy; the mercy that comes from God, who has no fear to welcome sinners and eating with them, with all due respect to the scribes and Pharisees of yesterday and today.

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The prodigal son of a far country and he squanders all loose living, until it starts to feel the pinch. "He would gladly have fed on the pods that were fed the pigs, "But no one gave him anything". Honestly it is hard to think that the boy did not have a chance to take for themselves the husks; and this should call our attention to the phrase: "No one gave him anything", referring to this young man who had lost everything. That is to say that no one fed him with love. He devoured his substance with many prostitutes, but he had not been devoured by love sincere and passionate about a single woman. So it is the lack of love generates in him a strong crisis, because most of the physical needs he suffers for human needs. The love which until earlier had received, It generates in him a feeling of fear, resulting in tender nostalgia.

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We do not know if the young man begins to understand that you have lived a life devoid of love, or to understand that out of love had lost their freedom to enter into the spiral of fear, hidden anguish and guilt. The man, which itself remains a mystery, He can not live without love; his life is senseless, if he meets the love from which it can come true freedom: "In love there is no fear, but perfect love casts out fear " [GV 4, 18-19].

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At that point the young man begins to question: "How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and I perish with hunger! I will wake up, I go to my father ... ". In these words prevails not have a sense of pain for the father abandoned, or for its inability to give and receive love; It seems to prevail rather the situation of hardship and extreme need that push him to go home, Perhaps even more folded on itself. For a selfish need is for a party and selfish need decides to return. All this marks his first start and, albeit moved by discomfort and need, and he moves back to his father. "While still far away his father saw him, he took pity on him, He ran to meet, and he fell on his neck and kissed him ". These five words we open their doors on the essence of true love. Seeing someone still far means that in our hearts we were waiting for him. Try compassion means that you do not think more to injury received, on the contrary it is willing to open their hearts and to think of the suffering, no matter what happened. Christian The eternal challenge is in fact to humanely accommodate those who have hurt us, raising the evil from the ground when it falls, instead of raging at him with that spirit of revenge that has nothing to do with justice, even with the right and sometimes necessary punishment to compete for the best good of the person, but above all for its recovery.

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running meeting to the other equivalent to removing it from any uncomfortable taking the first step that breaks the deadlock, This prerogative typical of the great, certainly not of little men who live by grudges, spite and revenge. Throw to a person's neck, in the Jewish culture of the time was not a gesture of circumstance but of deep warm love and extreme confidence.

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Here is the big brother who "became angry and refused to go», beginning to list their merits and demerits of the brother to his father, complaining they have not received anything from his father. "Son, all that is mine is yours ", He reassures the father for his due. In this way the parable stresses that reasoning so also the elder son, in a different but similar moves away to his left and out of the house as the youngest brother, showing a clear rejection of the action of grace. Therefore the Father, that "emotional" meeting was going on at the prodigal son, Now comes a new meeting to the eldest son, explaining both his love for children is free. No One, it has the right to be loved; from any page of the Gospel you get this kind of law, if anything, it yields a duty: to love. From the various steps and articulate the Gospel we can also derive how often love is tragically one-sided, He donated one side with divine power, not accepted and welcomed other human aridity. God loves us not because we deserve it, but because he is the source of love. God can not help but to love, It is not capable; we are, able to help but be loved.

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Like the prodigal son has lost the love of the Father away from him, the eldest son does not have the Father's right to love because it has not strayed. In this same mistake we fall we children of the Church, we priests first, that much of the People that God has entrusted to us to serve, We acquired no right to salvation, only a duty to respond much more and much better than others for what Christ has given us, through the mystery of his participation in the ministerial priesthood.

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How many times do we suffer the Father who can not help but love, feeling like the eldest son of an injustice parable his love and mercy toward his brother offender? How much it is, especially in these times of serious crisis through the Church, We run integral with heat to embrace all that is not Catholic, But at the same time showing little love, sometimes even open rebellion against our Church, turning his back to the brothers and sons of the living members of Christ, which it is the Church, his mystical body? And on this earth, the Christ, He has established only one Church, worth remembering from time to time, considering that soon we will proclaim in the profession of faith, the unity of the Church, not the multiplicity of churches [the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed]; reminds without the possibility of erroneous theological interpretations one of the main documents of Vatican Council II, the The light.

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This is also a way to meditate on the parable of the prodigal son who returns to the house of his father, where waiting for him there is no sociological fashion, above all, no political correctness. Because God is always beyond any fashion, but above all human political correctness, because God is all without beginning and without end, why not end it is his love, for this eternal is his mercy, for this one is his home, not many; and the only home of the one Father remains in the base centuries, source of grace and the center of the mystery of salvation, culmination and perfect center of unity.

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In the unity the Father created us, and awaits you with open arms, the perfect unity of his body which is the Church, the beloved prodigal son hidden inside each of us, so that his children can be "completely one that the world may know that you sent me and have loved them even as you loved me" [GV 17, 23].

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From the island of Patmos, 30 March 2019

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And available Book of Masses for the dead of The Island of Patmos [see WHO]

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
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The patience and mercy of God are aimed at our salvation, non-clearance of sin as a lifestyle

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The angle dell'omiletica of the Fathers of The Island of Patmos

PATIENCE AND MERCY OF GOD ARE AIMED TO OUR SALVATION, NOT THE CLEARANCE OF SIN AS A LIFESTYLE

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Let us understand this first: may God be merciful and magnanimous certainly does not exempt the sinner from the effort of leading a path of truth about his own life. If I do not look at the truth in my heart and I do not recognize the garbage that accumulates there, I'm just a hypocrite who hides the dust under a nice carpet.

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Capp.

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the sterile fig

The Mercy of God is therapy that transforms sinners into saints e, like all therapies, need patience, of time, Constancy and effort. There is no divine mercy cheap without a healthy acknowledgment of personal guilt and a genuine desire for change.

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Let us understand this first: may God be merciful and magnanimous certainly does not exempt the sinner from the effort of leading a path of truth about his own life. If I do not look at the truth in my heart and I do not recognize the garbage that accumulates there, I'm just a hypocrite who hides the dust under a nice carpet.

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In the Gospel of this Third Sunday of Lent [cf. text of Liturgy of the Word, WHO] Jesus reacts vigorously to the so-called Theology of Retribution which consists in considering the misfortunes as the consequence of faults, more or less known, committed by men. In John returns this type of theological vision in the episode of the man born blind: "Rabbi, who sinned, he or his parents, that he was born blind?». Jesus answered: "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but so might be made manifest in him the works of God " [cf. GV 9,2-3].

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Obviously this theological vision is busted, God likes to punish men, But Jesus has the chance to make some useful considerations. The Lord makes it clear that the conversion is necessary in order to make a true experience of God. The problem is not the disgrace or death - that can affect everyone in every moment - the real problem is that he does not want to convert to God and does not want to return to him with all my heart.

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The conversion, We know it is the Holy Spirit, but it occurs only when man is able to maintain a certain fear of God. If there is no fear but audacity and insolence, our life is a goner! Natural death is the logical consequence of that death to the grace we have experienced with the distance from God.

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Since the conversion involves the fear of God, the Lord gives us time so that our lives can repent as much as possible. God expresses patience so that the sinner may be fertilized by the Word, from the sacraments, by trusting prayer and experience of ecclesial communion. Jesus is the factor that daily application to the Father the time for each of us to be converted. We are irrigated and fertilized by the blood of Christ, waiting to bear fruit for change.

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Inside the Liturgy of the Word this Sunday, there is the proclamation of a proclamation of mercy and patience, but this is put as an objective need for a fruitiness and a conversion. We can not affirm that God in His mercy and patience does not look on sin, He pretends not in front of the sins, He closes his eyes becoming our accomplice and blanketing everything with a thick layer of dull gooders.

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God the Father never tires of welcoming sinners, but repentant sinners! He conosce our weakness, nevertheless asks us to leave Jesus to save you from sin does not become an incurable cancer that leads to death. God does not want any man to be lost, does not want the sinner to die but life in abundance, you must always believe in the good news.

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Scripture assures us that there is sterility and death it can not be strengthened or rehabilitated, Today not dwell on the greatness of our sin, but on the greatness of the Father who only he asks us to fill our distance from him, just as he had the courage to do the prodigal son.

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Cagliari, 23 March 2019

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the personal blog by Father Ivano

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
but bring, spread and defend the truth not only of
risks but also the costs. Help us supporting this Island
with your offers through the secure Paypal system:



or you can use the bank account:
They were IT 08 (J) 02008 32974 001436620930
in this case, send us an email warning, because the bank
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The transfiguration. the incarnation memorial, passion, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ the Lord, We should not celebrate with Assyrian-Babylonian dances around the altar reduced to totem

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L'Angolo di Girolamo Savonarola: Catholic homiletics in lean times

The Transfiguration. MEMORIAL INCARNATION, PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION OF CHRIST THE LORD, IT SHOULD NOT BE CELEBRATED WITH AXIRO-BABYLON DANCES AROUND THE ALTAR REDUCED TO TOTEM

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Often, in the name of their own exotic and arbitrary "traditions" that hide only the excessive self-centered personalisms of some of their founders, our lay movements risk losing sight of the Catholic tradition of the universal Church; and certain pitfalls you understand from their own way of praying. It is not uncommon that at the center of some liturgical actions end up being placed man and not Christ. Like this, the centrality, It is no longer given dall'Eucarista, but from everything around it it has been put into circulation: by so-called "resonance" - which not infrequently are real emotional rants riddled with doctrinal and theological errors - until the Assyrian-Babylonian dances performed around the altar mutated into a kind of totem.

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Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo.

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Jesus Christ be praised !

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Assyrian-Babylonian dances around the totem [to open the video click on the image]

This IIª Sunday of Lent The Holy Gospel narrates the Transfiguration of Christ the Lord [cf. LC 9, 28-36, text of the Liturgy of the Word, WHO]. After the passage of the temptations which Jesus, true God and true man wins the presence of Satan [cf. WHO], the Lord again to the mountain salt. Joining him is Peter, James and John, the columns of the first Church. On Golgotha, Jesus is transfigured, changes in appearance. His face shines like the sun and his clothes became white as light. The Blessed Evangelist Luke, unlike the Blessed Evangelist Matthew, He has it that Lord Christ was praying [cf. LC 9, 29].

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It is precisely in prayer we discover different, if we truly pray to God. If we pray ourselves and praying we love our religious traditions or lay passed for God, confused with God or worse often put above God, This is another matter. Actually it is also a very dangerous business, This insidious and always in the areas of religious life and lay movements that often took their own lives on the rubble of religious life. Often, in the name of their exotic and arbitrary "traditions" that hide inordinate self-centered personalities of certain founders, our lay movements risk losing sight of the Catholic tradition of the universal Church; and certain pitfalls you understand from their own way of praying. It is not uncommon that at the center of some liturgical actions end up being placed man and not Christ. Like this, the centrality, It is no longer given dall'Eucarista, but from everything around it it has been put into circulation: by so-called "resonance" - which are not infrequently rants emotional riddled with doctrinal and theological errors - until the Assyrian-Babylonian dances performed around the altar mutated into a kind of totem.

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The problem is that today a large number of faithful no longer knows what the Holy Mass, reason for which they have been inserted in it so-called quirks and malvezzi better known as liturgical abuses, that are designed precisely to make up for this lack of knowledge, so that all fall and drown nell'emotivo subjective or group. We try then to say it in a few short and precise words: Mass is the sacrifice of grace is at the center of the mystery of redemption. In the First Eucharistic Prayer, O Roman Canon - that in many churches is falling into disuse, replaced almost unique use of the shorter of the Eucharistic Prayers, the second -, after the People of God acclaimed "The mystery of faith", the priest, that is not simply "the president" but a old christ which it acts as such In persona, followed by reciting:

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"And now, Sir, you served us, But also your holy, Son our Lord same Christ Our Lord, and also of His Resurrection from hell, But the ascension into glory: cellent Majesty, of touched given, bestowed upon us, pure sacrifice, this holy, stainless, Bread of eternal life and the Chalice of everlasting ».

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[In this sacrifice, or Father, us your ministers and your holy people celebrate the memorial of the blessed passion, the resurrection from the dead and glorious ascension into heaven of Christ, your Son, our Lord; and we offer to your divine majesty, the many gifts you have given us, pure victim, holy and without blemish, holy Bread of eternal life and the cup of eternal salvation].

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Already from these brief words it should be understood that in the celebration of all sacramental actions, which I am a Trinitarian action taken in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we realize our encounter with the Risen Christ. In the Eucharistic Sacrifice Christ the Lord is present - through the Holy Eucharist - with his whole life: from his incarnation in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary until the descent of the Holy Spirit - the Comforter - sent by the Father and the Son in the Upper Room at Pentecost the Apostles.

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With the resurrection, the passion and death of Christ It is far removed, is something proved by the fact that the Risen One showed himself to the apostles with his glorious body in which the signs of the passion were always impressed. And the glorious body of Christ, followed today in bringing impressed upon him the signs of the passion.

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When the celebrant recites "... this holy and living sacrifice", It indicates those words redeeming action of the passion and death of Christ the Lord. One might therefore wonder: to someone who is on Calvary, under the cross, the Blessed Virgin Mary, along with Mary Magdalene and the young John the Apostle, They were dancing in a circle joyfully embraced in a passionate circle around “totem cross“? Faith and tradition they hand down anything, for instance:

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Stabat Mater Dolorosa
by Cross in tears,
While her Son.

[The Sorrowful Mother was
in tears at the Cross
on which hung the Son]

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O is instead that

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He danced the playful mother

under the joyful Cross

on which hung the Son?

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When you pray really, even in the total loneliness and isolation, please always in communion of faith and love with the universal Church; not in communion with a particular group or with his personalistic style of prayer. And when you truly pray, alone or with siblings, after a while’ time you have this exact feeling: it changes in appearance, it is less rigid, the thought flies toward a real infinite and one experiences a feeling I would say mystical. The experience and the dimension of prayer necessary part - and so should be - from a physical dimension through which we will be led into a whole metaphysical dimension of experience.

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This is the predicament in which Christ the Lord communicates with Moses and Elijah according to a faithful chronicle of the Holy Gospel. Moses represents the Law of Sinai, Ten Commandments, the Jewish Torah. Elia, the Prophet ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot of which the Jews await the return at any moment. The law and the prophets, the ancient and first covenant dialogue in communion with Jesus, the Word of God who became incarnate not to abolish the law of the ancient prophets, but to bring it to full fruition [cf. Mt 5, 17-19], and the fulfillment is he: the Word made flesh [cf. GV 1, 14].

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Tender way over the figure of Peter, Mediterranean and fiery as ever, who would like to stop this time putting it in a nice picture frame. Would that life would stop there at Tabor, without going to Calvary.

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The cloud finally envelops the three disciples entering inside. A cloud that is God that envelops the man every time the man decides to become enfolded. And after this winding is heard the voice of the Father: "This is my Son, the beloved. listen to him " [cf. MC 9, 7].

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The Father proclaims Jesus to his disciples his beloved Son, that we are called to listen, acknowledging adoring in him the word of the Incarnate Word.

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In front of these words the disciples fall down with his face to the ground and are afraid. The Gospel does not say that they are afraid, but who fear. That holy fear of God of which we very much needed today. A holy fear that is ineffable gift of the Holy Spirit of God, who does not want our fear, but our free and adoring respect. For as he wrote the equivalent, and almost contemporary Thomas Aquinas Jews, Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides: "The fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom". .

Jesus, It does ultimately awaken the disciples fallen to awe on his face to the ground; and straightens them using precise words: "Arise and be not afraid ' [Mt 17, 7]. They are advised to remain silent.

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Only after Easter will be able to understand what happened. Jesus revealed his future glory in the transfiguration, But that will happen only after the death on the cross. There will only be the Mount Tabor, that of the Transfiguration, the disciples will have to discover another very bitter Mt.: Mount Calvary. Among these mountains there is another even in the experience of Jesus' human life: the mountain on which previously has retired for forty days and where it is attempted by the Demon. Monte, the latter, depicting the terrible reality of the mystery of evil, following us since the beginning of time.

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Life is suffering and joy who will compete in a constant battle in our history. A life that is full of wonderful moments and very sad moments, sometimes intersected with. But just when it seems that everything vanishes, God comes to save us, to support us. When conversely everything looks positive, When is life to live us instead of us to live life, sometimes that negative event occurs that we did not expect.

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Life is basically this: continuous Easter through which Jesus, rising again, It gives new hope to all of us, inviting us to climb the mountain and not to fear God, but to feed free and loving fear of the mystery of God's love, which is realized through the incarnation, the life, passion, the death, the resurrection and ascension into heaven of Christ the Lord, whose glorious body still lives bringing the passion imprinted signs. That's why, The holy Mass, The sacrifices; It is the bloodless sacrifice of the cross that is renewed, not a joyful banquet, a canteen between cheerful diners, more or less dancing, more or less according to the drumming antics dictated by a gypsy Spanish was not hurt by decades of impunity ...

 

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From the island of Patmos, 17 March 2019

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If the demon who dared groped even Christ the Lord is able to take in ambition, We can do what he wants

/3 Comments/in /by

L'Angolo di Girolamo Savonarola: Catholic homiletics in lean times

IF THE DEMON who dared GROPED EVEN CHRIST THE LORD CAN take ambition AND THE VANITY, IT CAN DO WITH US WHAT IT WANTS

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If the devil manages to catch us in the weak point of ambition and vanity, he can do with us what he wants and get what he has wanted since the dawn of time.: to prostrate ourselves before him and worshiping him call him Lord, if anything, after saying, before the evil that sometimes seems almost suffocate the Church itself: "... but who am I doing this to me against the powerful and domineering acolytes of the Devil? What good is getting life bitter, when to live in peace, within the Church today, I just do not see, Not to mention, and above all make your business more rigor and its?».

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Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo.

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Jesus Christ be praised !

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Jericho, Mount of the Quarantine or the Mount of Temptation of Christ

In the Gospel passage This Iª Sunday of Lent [see text of the Liturgy of the Word, WHO] we are faced with a paradox: really it happened that the devil has tempted God Incarnate, the Word was made flesh? It may be that the devil attempted to play God in his humanity, pretending to be unaware of what Jesus was divine in his humanity and his divinity in human?

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The blinded by pride and megalomania always start overestimating the most of themselves and underestimating others, why they are doomed to defeat. It may be that they do not fall in the near, but inevitably fall at the first change of season, with the wilting of wildflowers.

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In the Gospel of the temptations, one would think that the Devil overestimate himself and underestimate God. In the early centuries of the Church, with the reason we were able to grasp and define the revealed mystery of the Person of Christ: two natures in one person, the human and the divine. Thanks to the minds and the wisdom of the heart of the great Fathers of the Church in the first eight centuries of the history of Christianity he came to define the mystery of the Person of Christ, which first called for the establishment of appropriate terminology, taken through entries drawn from philosophy and greek lexicon, modulated and applied to our first great theological speculation: before being able to perceive and then to define what was meant primarily, with the words "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God ..." [GV 1,1]. Introduced by the intellect of the mystery of Christ, true God and true man, the reason must give way to faith [CF. S.S. John Paul II, Encyclical Faith and Reason], because the problem is no longer either the lexical or philosophical. When you open the portal of faith that goes beyond the human logic, the reason must give way to other categories, for example the gift of perception laid in every man by the gifts of grace of the Holy Spirit. With human reason we have to read the lines of this Gospel, with faith, fruit of our freedom blessed by the grace of God, we must penetrate, because word after word we first introduced and then taken to feel as real and was the perfect human nature of Jesus.

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Part of this ineffable mystery It is also enclosed in another reality: As in Jesus - true God and true Man - divine perfection could coexist with human frailty; because it is quite clear that the Devil does not attempt the Christ of God, but the Jesus-Man, trying to hit the fragility of his perfect humanity. The devil tries to corrupt the divine perfection of humanity as it used bribed our originally created mankind as perfect by God.

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Then the devil aimed at those tender and human frailties Jesus himself will show one by one during its entire existence, during which weeps [cf. GV 11, 35] and deeply moved [cf. GV 11, 33], It is emotionally troubled [cf. Gv11, 33], She suffers and feels scared to death: "Dad, if you want, away this cup from me. Nevertheless not my, but your will» [LC 22, 41-42]. Jesus chose to remain silent when questioned authority [cf. Mt 27, 12] and while he is accused, instead replicate starts writing with his finger on the ground [cf. GV 8,6], so to say the least provocative. He rebels repeatedly injustice perpetrated in the name of God by the religious rulers of the time and does so even with harsh words, at times deliberately offensive, for example calling "brood of vipers" zealously religious observant [cf. Mt 12, 34], devoted more to the tradition that the Word of God; and the apostrophe repeatedly "hypocrites" [Mt 23, 13-29]. I don't pay for this, place in the language of Jesus called "race" or "tribe" of vipers was offensive not only to the individual concerned but also for her entire family tree, It considers it appropriate to add to the burden dose also calling "snakes" [Mt 23, 33], knowing full well that era in Jewish culture - and not only in the Jewish one - the snake was a symbol of evil. It ignites passion and gravely says, and accuses it on Moses sat hypocrites who are not what they preach [Mt 23, 1-3], equates many church zealous era to "whited sepulchres", take care to point out what these tombs are beautiful outside but full of putrid rot inside [cf. Mt 23, 27]. Do not hesitate to get angry and to lead hands, or accuracy ropes [cf. Mt 21, 12-13. MC: 11, 11-15. LC 19, 45-46]. Jesus is filled with pain and perhaps intimate disappointment when he turns to his apostle with a dramatic question: "Down from, with a kiss you betray the Son of Man?» [LC 22, 48]. Regarding the latter two sentences would be the things to which we should pay attention, first of all the question posed as a question which is also found in the original Greek version, just to say than it is a formulation or a random translation: Jesus addressed a question to the traitor listening for an answer, but never come, because in practice the traitors do not respond, because they are inherently evil nature cowards; because the strength from God, the weakness of the Devil. That's why the man of God is intelligent, while the man of the Demon is just smart. And while today we continue to review the episode and the figure of Judas, We do not always say the true dramatic query: As the man Jesus suffered before the betrayal by Judas? Or maybe, even more than the betrayal, for the failure to reply on his part? there, we try to think only those who today, even in the most senior echelons of the Holy Church, They refuse to respond to Christ the Lord who continues to question them through the voice, often deep pain, of devotees believers of Christ Priests and faithful.

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In these deeds, actions and words is enclosed and manifests the humanity of Jesus, who continues to call all of us when necessary, its modern priests, doctors of the law and religious zealous folded into the idolatry of human forms and traditions, with the titles of our legitimate right: race of vipers … hypocrites … snakes … whitewashed sepulchres … Current words yesterday, but perhaps even more so today. Because of this, when the Liturgy of the Word obliges us to preach some of these evangelical passages, we always do it in the past tense, as if the breed of vipers, the hypocrites, the serpents and the whitewashed sepulchres weren't us, but only the members of some religious currents of Judaism of the Jesuit era, now dead and buried in history.

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These words lit with passion, sometimes even pedagogically aggressive, they sum up the historical mystery of concrete humanity and the virile floor gesuano, which if not collected and penetrated will make it impossible to reach perfect communion with the Christ of faith: the incarnate God, dead and risen.

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The man Jesus cannot be changed into a de-virilized holy hybrid with feet off the ground and eyes rolled up to heaven, because that is offensive, rather: this is a blasphemy against his humanity and his divinity. To read this passage on temptations it is therefore necessary to start from the fact of faith that everything really happened, that it is not a parable or an allegory; then focus on concrete historical humanity, physical and palpable of the Divine Word: the man Jesus.

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The first temptation that the devil addresses is the invitation to change stones into bread, to which Jesus replies with a phrase taken from the book of Deuteronomy: «Man shall not live by bread alone» whose continuation is «... but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God» [Dt 8,3]. We are faced with the temptation of the immediate, completely and immediately in a concrete and superficial way, while instead our concreteness is what comes out of the mouth of God, because that alone is a bread of life that bears fruit and eternal nourishment, it cost even to suffer a whole life, given that before eternal bliss human life is only a breath, and in this breath also salvific pain deserves to live [cf. S.S. John Paul II, Saving pain], to thus pay the price of our redemption.

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The second temptation is perhaps the most terrible: "I will give you all this power and the glory of these kingdoms". It is the temptation that encompasses ambition and the desire to dominate others. It is the desire for command, of government understood not as a service to the brothers and members of the People of God, but as power for power's sake leading to the perfect diabolical reversal: using the Church for evil purposes in the lust of being someone, or to "become an important figure through the priesthood" [Homily of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI for the ordination of 15 deacons, Vatican Basilica IV Sunday of Easter, 7 May 2006], better through the episcopate, even better through the cardinalate; instead of serving the Church with love and always seeing in her the palpitating Body of Christ, our mystical bride towards whom we run towards with the passion of the couple in love on their wedding day, as depicted by the Evangelist John through the poetics of his pages.

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If the devil manages to catch us in the weak spot of ambition and with vanity he can do with us what he wants and get what he has longed for since the dawn of time: to prostrate ourselves before him and worshiping him call him Lord, if anything, after saying, before the evil that sometimes seems almost suffocate the Church itself: "... but who am I doing this to me against the powerful and domineering acolytes of the Devil? What good is getting life bitter, when to live in peace, within the Church today, I just do not see, Not to mention, and above all make your business more rigor and its?».

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To address to man Jesus the last desperate temptation Satan becomes theologian, perhaps even an ecumenist, maybe even politically correct progressive, if anything speaking in German and Dutch rather than in Aramaic. Satan begins to speak with biblical mastery as if he had just graduated from a doctorate in sacred theology from our pontifical universities: "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; indeed it is written: “His angels will give order for you, because they keep you”» [LC 4, 9-10].The Devil, as St. Jerome said: «He apes God and wants to create another reality» [The exact phrase then also taken up by St. Augustine is: The devil is the ape of God, the devil is the monkey of God], because he is the master of reversal; also of the reversal of the Word of God used in a deviant way to do evil deeds. The man Jesus, who thank God had never studied in our pontifical universities and who by nature was politically incorrect, he knew the Torah better than the devil, then he replies without hesitation with another Bible quotation: "Thou shalt not test the Lord your God" [Dt 6,16]. And a warning clearly emerges from this sentence: the man Jesus reminds the Devil that he is indeed a true man, but also true God.

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Finally "The devil departed from him..." we read at the end of this page of the Gospel, ending with the sentence: «… to return to the appointed time», that is, to return to us and among us.

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Satan exists today more than yesterday. It is not a symbolic image, it is not — as some theologians of the 1970s defined it, whose theories are sadly still used today to train our future priests — "a mythical and allegorical depiction of man's ancient ancestral fears". Satan exists, it is real and wants to rob us more than ever of our image and likeness to God; he wants to rob us of our amazement and our love in front of God incarnate dead and risen, who in his one person contains the perfect human nature and the perfect divine nature, teaching us to be real men to be real children of God in the way God intended us, created and loved before the beginning of time.

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From the island of Patmos, 10 March 2019

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And available Book of Masses for the dead of The Island of Patmos [see WHO]

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
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They were IT 08 (J) 02008 32974 001436620930
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From the theatrical mask of the Greek hypocrite to the beam and straw in the eye narrated by the Holy Gospel

/in /by

The angle dell'omiletica of the Fathers of The Island of Patmos

THE MASK THEATER hypocrite GREEK TO BEAM AND THE HOLY GOSPEL narrated by splinter in

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Unlike Greece, the hypocrite is not the actor who plays a role in the ancient theater, but becomes one who has no heart and sincerity towards God only has a formal relationship and built on mechanical habits. In Jesus', the Pharisees tended to be hypocrites in this sense: they did not really know God, mnemonic simply performed the precepts of rabbinical law without really understand them and without that they could help them live better the faith.

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Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, o.p.

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Dear brothers and sisters.

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aphorisms

This Sunday VIIª Ordinary Time we are given a popularized from the Gospel passage of the beam and the splinter in [cf. text of the Liturgy of the Word, WHO]. In ancient Greece many men lent themselves in the role of hypocrite [hypocrisies] ie actors, bringing a mask, and pretended they staged a tragedy or a comedy. For the ancient Greeks it was important to talk and tell stories that would help viewers to experience a deep and intimate relationship with their gods. In today's readings the Lord offers us food to have a deep and sincere relationship, a faith that is true and sincere at the same time.

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First we read in Sirach: "The result shows that the tree has grown, so the word reveals the thoughts of the heart " [27, 5]. In this author's proverb, the jew wise Ben Sirach, We want to draw attention to the consistency of words. They arise primarily from the thoughts of the heart: in the heart of Jewish culture is the intimate place of encounter with God. Therefore, if each of us has this experience and intimate personal encounter with the Lord, through prayer, certainly we will have words of joy and hope. We will help others also to have a fruitful and intense encounter with God.

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aphorisms

In this research a basic coherence between thoughts and words, the Lord always helps. St. Paul writes:

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"My dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, progressing more and more in the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord " [1 Color 5,58].

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The apostle calls every Christian the perseverance, to be patient even in times of difficulty and crisis, and then, when you need more stability. The work of the Lord is the continuous victory over death: In this compound, this should be understood today as replicate all fashions deadly as for example drugs, prostitution, promotion of abortion, dell'eutanasia, the “marriage” between couples of the same sex and the opportunity given to them to adopt children … At the same time we are also called to win with the Lord their dead, that fears, wounds and existential dramas. Indeed, lin consistency and perseverance, They have these beautiful fruits in all of us.

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In this journey, in the footsteps of the Lord it is very strong and clear: Jesus, Luke's Gospel in the thunders: "Hypocritical! First remove the beam from your eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye " [Luca 6,42b]. Who, unlike Greece, the hypocrite is not the actor who plays a role in the ancient theater, but becomes one who has no heart and sincerity towards God only has a formal relationship and built on mechanical habits. In Jesus', the Pharisees tended to be hypocrites in this sense: they did not really know God, mnemonic simply performed the precepts of rabbinical law without really understand them and without that they could help them live better the faith. So, in the journey of faith and fight to the death, God banishes hypocrisy. At the same time, God asks us a continuous exercise of humility, get in more open discussion to stress that he himself presents us, especially in the concrete circumstances in life. When will we know to be humble, we will be a little’ come humus, ready to be fertilized and produce fruit according to the word of God. Only then we will be ready to fraternal correction.

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As she is written by John Donne:

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"No man is an island, complete in itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the whole '.

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aphorisms

Each of us will live that whole like a big brotherhood, ready to be all brothers in baptism. So also able to accept the correction that can annoy. Then it will be the end of the pride and the beginning of the indwelling of the whole Trinity in our hearts, ithe Lord will make us strong and persevering to exit from the island of our selfishness, looking very different islands, including not least the Isle of Patmos, greek archipelago, island also known as The site of the last revelation, in which St. John the Apostle, during his exile, He wrote the great message of hope that is the Apocalypse, which he tells of the woman clothed with the sun and the victory of Christ over evil prince.

Amen.

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Rome, 3 March 2019

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Dear Readers,

on this page you can find the Book of Masses, if it consult Agenda Calendar you can check availability for the celebration of Holy Masses of suffrage for your Dead

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
but bring, spread and defend the truth not only of
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They were IT 08 (J) 02008 32974 001436620930
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The personal blog of the Fathers of The Island of Patmos

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“Be merciful, as your Father is merciful, which is in heaven ", not as pleasing to the world, but as God

/12 Comments/in /by

L'Angolo di Girolamo Savonarola: Catholic homiletics in lean times

«BE MERCIFUL, MISERICORDIOSO HOW IS YOUR FATHER, WHO IS IN HEAVEN ", HOW NOT LIKE THE WORLD, BUT HOW LIKE A GOD

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For the world is mercy, and what highly merciful grant through euthanasia death to a person seriously ill, or a senior who is simply tired of living, if anything it alone and abandoned. But this is not mercy but terrible abomination, just as it is an abortion, ie kill a poor innocent, after the ultrasound or amniocentesis was found that Down syndrome is suffering the unborn child and therefore is not perfect according to the standards of an increasingly unclean world.

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Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo.

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PDF print format article

 

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Jesus Christ be praised !

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"Be merciful as your Father which is in heaven"

The passage in Luke this seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time [cf. LC 6,27-38, see text of the liturgy, WHO] It could suggest that there are times when you end up with the fear that not only the Holy Gospel we tend to get what you want in the way you want, because having made a further leap forward, it is reasonable to fear that it is faced with the authentic forgery of God's Word, doing it to say that Christ God has never said. Many would be examples, Let us take just one among many: "Do not judge lest you be judged" [Mt 7, 1]. Let us see how he was often literally falsified this warning, enough to hear certain sermons built on improntanti sociologisms the desire to please the world, Then to hear from certain pulpits rants like this:

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"The Church has finally realized that it could not continue to judge and condemn how long did, but that it was necessary to understand, to understand, receive, be merciful ... ".

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Comments of this kind are authentic blasphemies uttered in the Father's house from where he proclaims the Word of God. Indeed, warning "Do not judge lest you be judged", Christ the Lord probably refers to His apostles and to the Church of the future? Who I am, the subjects and objects of this warning? They are the ones - as explained a little later in this Gospel passage -, who used to watch "the mote in your brother, but you do not notice the plank in your own eye " [Mt 7, 3]. The warning is therefore addressed to the human hypocrites and hypocrisy exercised in its various forms, What this explained by divine magistralità by Christ the Lord in the discourse that follows [cf. Mt 7, 1-29]. As regards instead the Holy Church of Christ, It is aware and is clearly indicating what is right and wrong thing, what is lawful and what is unlawful, what is holy and what's evil, it is a duty and an obligation to which the Church can not and must not shirk. Or to put it with the Word of God: the church, unless otherwise betraying its mission, has an obligation to tell and teach how the believers of Christ should enter "through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad the way that leads to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat " [Mt 7, 13]. The Church therefore cannot fail to judge and condemn evil in a severe way where necessary, place that sin is not a different way of understanding and living the life, but the negation of the gift of life in Christ and the consequent and probable chance of being eternally damned.

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The Church can not derogate from that obligation that it comes from its divine Founder who wanted it as a means and instrument of salvation, or as will be defined by Vatican II and then by the Catechism: "The Church, the universal sacrament of salvation" [Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 774]. And here it is well noted that the concept of universality, together with the totality implies exclusivity. God has never contemplated the many instruments of salvation, as he never contemplated the many different churches or religions, His Church is one and only one, the one entrusted to Peter and to the College of the Apostles, all within a criterion of uniqueness that does not contemplate the multiplicity. It is different to the speech related ordinary means of salvation, that the Church of Christ and the sacraments of grace of which it is a dispenser, ed i extraordinary means of salvation, which are enclosed in the mystery of God's heart that in more ways than one, through the most disparate means so-called overtime, It can lead single men to salvation. Means overtime that they belong only to God, and of which no man can avail, for example by claiming that Christ's Church is just one of many means is means of salvation. No, the Church and the sacraments of grace of which it is a dispenser is not just another media, but the only way that Christ the Lord has given to man and mankind to be redeemed through the blood of his cross.

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The phrase on which structure the pace of Luke's Gospel: “Be merciful, as your Father is merciful, which is in heaven ", harmonizes with another Old Testament phrase that warns us and calls us to be "holy because I, the Lord your God, I'm Holy " [Lv 19, 2]. The assumption is therefore the sanctity of mercy, no worldliness. It was not compassionate or charitable when you love the world, but just when you do not like the world. The Holy Gospel and the apostolic letters teach us that in fact the measure by which we can measure our true love and our true mercy, is when we are not at all welcome the children of this world:

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"If the world hates you, know that it hated me before. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you from the world, that's why the world hates you " [GV 15, 18-19].

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And for our world charity and love means allowing two men to be able to crown their own “dream” with a wedding and then buy a baby from a surrogate mother, while the exact opposite, for charity and for the love that makes us worthy sons of our Father who is in Heaven, those who perform such monstrosities and thereby compromise the life of these innocent creatures, perhaps "it would be better for him to have hung a millstone around his neck, and to be drowned in the depths of the sea " [Mt 18, 6].

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For the world is mercy, and what highly charitable grant through euthanasia death to a person seriously ill, or a senior who is simply tired of living, if anything it alone and abandoned. But this is not mercy but terrible abomination, just as it is an abortion, ie kill a poor innocent, after the ultrasound or amniocentesis was found that Down syndrome is suffering the unborn child and therefore is not perfect according to the standards of an increasingly unclean world.

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Think about how many things the world does and continues to do in the name of a concept of mercy now completely subverted by the great reverser of good and evil, from the one who turns evil into good and good into evil, that Satan. Think about it well: the modern era comes to life under the stage of guillotines where the cry for freedom, equality and fraternity, people were being fed to the Executioner without trial, or of the summary trials which were farces, or because of jealousy and envy denounced social. but yet, freedom, It is a high Christian principle, instead it is a precondition for the creation of man, which it was created by God's free and endowed with free [Genesis, capp. 2-3]. Not to mention equality and fraternity, whose natural home is located within the Gospel message where these truths are explained and communicated much better than they have been circulated by Robespierre during the regime of terror at the sound of decapitated heads in the name of equality and emptied a fraternity of Christ and filled with neo-paganism.

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Even the world with his fearsome Principe, long has appropriated words that are fundamental terms the Christian message, before emptying them of their meaning and turning then into another. Even more so, Today more than ever, We have to understand first of all that what true mercy, after being "merciful, as your Father is merciful, which is in heaven ", not as the children of the Principe of this world.

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From the island of Patmos, 24 February 2019

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
but bring, spread and defend the truth not only of
risks but also the costs. Help us supporting this Island
with your offers through the secure Paypal system:



or you can use the bank account:
They were IT 08 (J) 02008 32974 001436620930
in this case, send us an email warning, because the bank
It does not provide your email and we could not send you a
thanks [ isoladipatmos@gmail.com ]

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Christ's invitation to welcome the gift of happiness that becomes eternal bliss

/in /by

The angle dell'omiletica of the Fathers of The Island of Patmos

THE CALL OF CHRIST TO WELCOME THE GIFT OF HAPPINESS THAT THAT BECOMES ETERNAL BLISS

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The words of the French philosopher Blaise Pascal seem suited to our being witnesses of bliss: "Happiness is neither of us, nor out of us: It is in God, that is, outside and inside us ".

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Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, o.p.

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Dear brothers and sisters,

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Salvador Dali, The announcement, work carried out on the occasion of the opening of Vatican II

in this VIª Sunday in Ordinary Time the Liturgy of the Word gives us the Lucan text of the Gospel of the Beatitudes [see text of the Liturgy of the Word, WHO].

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There are evangelical pages that they are eternal and that's why we know by heart, but yet, whenever we listen, excite us and we always give something new and often unexpected. God sees our reality according to a vision of eternal present simultaneously: therefore, every time that speaks to us in His inspired Word, in our now daily, in our time it seems insignificant fills his tender love and eternally true and present.

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The passage of the Beatitudes Lucan It first remembers what constitutes one of the greatest human research: the pursuit of happiness.

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Salvador Dali, The Temptations of St. Anthony

In the statement the United States of America's founding fathers, with Thomas Jefferson, the 15 September 1787 They declared that the pursuit of happiness is a truth in itself obvious. With the philosophical language we would say that the pursuit of happiness is an axiom, something so obvious that it can not be refuted. This text has also inspired a great movie, I recommend everyone to see, just called The pursuit of happiness, Gabriele Muccino Will Smith and the little Jaden Smith. The film is the story of the broker American Chris Gardner, it reduced to poverty because of a series of existential contingencies and working, finds the strength along with his young son Christopher to roll up their sleeves and rebuild everything. Together the two Gardner begin their path to happiness. One of the most beautiful phrases of the film is that dad Chris says to the little Christopher:

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"Do not ever let anyone tell you you can not do something. Me neither. Ok? If you have a dream you must protect. When people do not know how to do something they tell you that you do not. If you want something, and will inseguila. Point".

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With these beatitudes the Lord wants us to show what is the path that has prepared for us, so that we can achieve happiness is not simply a job, as it happened in Gardner in this film. Happiness is not money: is not only materiality yet is not even abstractness. The Lord teaches us that happiness is bliss.

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Salvador Dali, the vision of Hell granted by the Virgin Mary to the little shepherds of Fatima

Jesus' invitation to bliss It has a spiritual and human foundation at the same time: primarily because it is the Lord who helps every man to live the individual beatitudes. Secondly because, all bliss, It consists of a real condition of insecurity from which flows an act of concrete love given by God to His believers.

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From the material and spiritual poverty, by grace you get the kingdom of God, that is, being in intimate contact with him at all times as baptized persons and children of God. From famine Trinitarian Love, the Lord gives us the fullness of the Holy Spirit when we are confirmed members. From the desperate cry of those who have sinned, the Lord gives the smile of one who has been forgiven in sacramental confession. And finally, Jesus, also we remember those who are in tear, division and deeper persecution for the sake of His Holy Name. Here Jesus turns to the martyrs: both those who today still lose their lives because they killed in hatred of faith, as recently happened in France on the altar with the murder of his father Jacques Hamel, both for those who live a white martyrdom because isolated from relatives, friends and brothers, until almost the removal of more family relationship for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ and for the love of the Church.

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To the martyrs a great reward is prepared: the immediate vision of God's Love in Paradise, without having to further purify, for the martyrs in the Blood. The ability to have an authentic look on the love of God who becomes Eucharistic Bread, white for martyrs.

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On the contrary, the three "woes" that Jesus gives to the rich, satiated and color reflect laughing like a false happiness can take root in man: a happiness that is not of God, but by money, from sexual satiation excessive and disorderly or the exercise of a power that mocks the authority of God and his commandments. Those troubles are warning today. You should be educated to stay away from these attitudes and behaviors that fill us with fleeting svuotandoci the one true treasure: God's presence.

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Salvador Dali, Last dinner

The pursuit of happiness nellc happiness Jesus is described as an attainable goal every day. in the Sacraments, like I said. But also because we know to be those who proclaim the faith that is not passive stasis, but continuous journey towards that which gives us a sense of deep happiness.

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The words of the French philosopher Blaise Pascal they look really suited to our being witnesses of bliss: "Happiness is neither of us, nor out of us: It is in God, that is, outside and inside us ".

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So together, dear brothers and sisters, We ask the Lord to assimilate more and more these eternal words. Every day we can be at the Bliss School. With a contemplative look, We ask you to find the ray of sunshine that illuminates our window, the sign that the Lord wants to make us eternally happy because blessed.

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Amen!

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Rome, 16 February 2019

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To become real fishers of men, first of all you have to be real men

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L'Angolo di Girolamo Savonarola: Catholic homiletics in lean times

TO BECOME THE REAL FISHERS OF MEN, MUST BE THE FIRST REAL MEN

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Throw networks means getting away from the shore and take in the immensity. In order to draw men, first of all we must be real men, legitimate children of a God who became true man in all respects and by whom we freely and lovingly let ourselves be caught, to thus become true fishers of men.

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Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo.

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Jesus Christ be praised !

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Immensity, Roman work of painter Anna Boschini [Vitarte, WHO]

The page of the Lucan Gospel offered by this 5th Sunday of ordinary time [text of the liturgy of the word, WHO], first of all it reminds us of the mystery of an inseparable reality: the Jesus of history, real man, and the Christ of faith, true God, expression of the mystery of the nature of the Redeemer who is one in his person and one in the Trinity, because every action of encounter between the true God and the true man with humanity, it is an action of grace of the Trinity in our history, in our present being and in our future becoming, single and collective.

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The man Jesus also teaches us the art of preaching, which is the ability to communicate in order to seek and live true communion. The historical Jesus demonstrates this, able to discuss already as a teenager with the doctors of the Temple [cf. LC 2, 41-50] who were amazed and wondered where he got this wisdom. Approached Jesus that with simple words, at times disarming - within which, however, the pillars of our faith are contained - he speaks and refers to the children and the simple who listen to him, who understand him and above all who follow him [cf. MC 10, 13-14; Mt 18, 3-4; Mt 18,6].

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If whoever preaches the Gospel does not sow and does not reap, if he does not cast the empty nets to throw them on the boat full, things are in these terms: or has landed in a city of totally dry hearts from which it is good to proceed further by shaking the dust from one's sandals,[3] or he is a misunderstood prophet destined for more or less white martyrdom, or he's a bad preacher who doesn't practice what he preaches.

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The historical Jesus, Jew among the Jews, that in his perfect human nature he was the son of an ancient culture - the Jewish one - made up of symbols and images; in a Judea that at the time had also assimilated the wealth of Greek and then Roman symbols and images, to make his preaching effective he addresses the people speaking in parables. And as we know the parable - that is, the story - is a symbol, beyond which there is a human message, morale, ethical and spiritual.

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But beware of a pitfall that is always lurking: symbolic is language, not the God incarnate in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Jesus is a human and divine reality narrated through the Gospels which are also historical sources, put together by direct or immediately directed eyewitnesses. The divine mystery of the incarnate Christ of faith is contained in the historicity of Jesus who speaks in parables or allegories, lived, dead and risen.

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Jesus walking over the waters of the Sea of ​​Galilee [cf. MC 6, 45-52; Mt 14,22-32], who performs the miracle of wine at Cana [cf. GV 2,1-11] who multiplies the loaves and fishes [cf. Mt 15,29-37], who heals the sick and who raises Lazarus [cf. GV 11, 35-44]; but especially, Jesus who on the third day rises from the dead, it is not a set of symbols and allegories to be interpreted with the criteria of modern theology, because all of this is historical and real. And only in the face of this real historicity, we can then proceed with spiritual criteria and with theological readings, not vice versa. In fact, if Jesus existed only in the past or instead he also exists in the present, this all depends on his resurrection [cf. Antonio Maria Sicari, Travel In the Gospel, Jaca Boock, pag 270].

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In today's Gospel proclamation an original story was not told but a real fact, beyond which there is the symbol. It is not a play on words but a correct use of words in the delicate vineyard of the mystery of faith. Through the earthly life of Jesus the parable is born from his concrete and palpitating human reality, or the metaphor, which is an effective communication tool. Thinking instead of from the metaphor, or whatever you want from the fairy tale, the tender fairytale idea of ​​a Jesus is born to be interpreted within purely spiritual and theological categories, it is a thought which, however widespread, remains dangerously non-Christian, definitely not Catholic.

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That day Jesus actually got into Simon's boat, inviting him and the other fishermen to put out to sea and cast their nets, and fulfilling his request, Simon really replied that they had tried in vain to fish all night without catching anything, finally saying: "At your word I will cast the nets", thus making a free act of faith.

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What is the spiritual challenge of this parable inserted into a real fact? First of all, Jesus invites Simon to leave the shore to go out to sea, moving away from that shore strewn with the shells of our limits, of our obvious lack of charity. Throw networks means getting away from the shore and take in the immensity, finally to bring to the surface what has been enclosed in each of us since the dawn of time, which is being created in the image and likeness of God: you will be holy because I - the Lord your God - am holy [cf. The Pt 1,13-21; Lv 19,2; Is 11, 45]. And when we just seemed totally lost, God bursts again into the history of man in a real and physical way through the mystery of his incarnation; and through Jesus it is God himself who comes in person to rescue us, it is enough that through an act of free faith one accepts to go out to sea to cast the nets, to be caught by his grace and to be caught by his grace.

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It is the miracle of fishing: abandoned the shore with Jesus, cast the nets and fishing deeply, those men made their true image and likeness with the Eternal Creator re-emerge by re-establishing their communion with God and shortly after bringing the communion of God into the world.

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Faced with the miracle of fish, which is a miracle of faith and abandonment to God, Simon returns to having first of all the perception of good and evil, so much so as to tell Jesus: "Get away from me because I am a sinner". Faced with that awareness, Jesus fills Simon with grace and implicit forgiveness by answering him: "From now on you will be a fisher of men". That statement in itself implies: because you have had the goodness to follow my word and to leave the shore, to get offshore to fish out yourself e, with yourself, recover your Lord and Creator, so that I could perform the great miracle of faith on you.

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In today's Church, what is often lacking are not men to fish - who often would like to let themselves be caught, or who sometimes ask, they beg to be caught - perhaps what they lack are good fishermen. What then Our Lord Jesus Christ, beginning, center and ultimate end of our entire humanism, he in whom all things are recapitulated, those in heaven and on Earth, the visible ones and the invisible ones, head of the mystical body which is the Church ...[I Ef, prologue] may he always make us wise and holy fishers of men, with his grace and with the comfort and prayer of the good People of God. Never forgetting that in order to fish for men, first of all we must be real men, legitimate children of a God who became true man in all respects and by whom we freely and lovingly let ourselves be caught, to thus become true fishers of men.

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From the island of Patmos, 10 February 2019

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
but bring, spread and defend the truth not only of
risks but also the costs. Help us supporting this Island
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"In God we can all become great writers and artists love the unit"

/in /by

The angle dell'omiletica of the Fathers of The Island of Patmos

"IN GOD WE CAN ALL BECOME THE GREAT WRITERS AND ARTISTS OF THE UNIT OF LOVE»

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Explain and show our faith so it does not get in the chair, It is not filled with pride, but first of all to love with an act of deep love and tender and generate the union of all men with God.

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Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, o.p.

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Dear brothers and sisters,

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Saint Raymond of Peñafort, patron of jurists and faculties of canon law, who according to the pious legend crosses the waters on his cloak as a Dominican friar

The Liturgy of the Word of this third Sunday of the ordinary temo [cf. Born 8, 2-4.5-6.8-10; Shall 18; 1 Color 12,12-30; LC 1,1-4; 4,14-21, readable texts, WHO], It recalled to my mind the memory of when for the first time I was on a ship. It was a ferry that carried from Naples to the island of Ischia. I also remember the presence of the crew: there was the ordinary seaman, the attendant to passengers, those responsible for the kitchen, the ship's doctor and finally, obviously, also the ship's captain and his assistants. Each had a very specific and distinct task, but all, at the same time, they had a single purpose: lead ship in the port of Ischia.

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This example of diversity and unity it is also the theme of today's readings. In the first reading from the Old Testament we listened:

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«Ezra opened the book in the presence of all the people. […] The Levites were reading the book of the law of God, translating and explaining the way, and in this way they made reading understandable " [Born 8, 4 – 6] .

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This book being explained it is the Mosaic Law that the Jews had received through Moses at Sinai. So both Ezra, prophet, that the Levites, the priests make clear something that God had revealed to him but that he needed clarification. In that passage we also know that is announced a day consecrated to the Lord. So, the work of the prophets and Jewish Levites was almost show the existence of a time dedicated to God. Levites and prophets, so, They have a specific task: make clear and live the message of God.

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The second reading also focuses on this when St. Paul writing to the Corinthians affirms:

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“God has arranged the members of the body in a distinct way, as he wanted " [1 Color 1,14]

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So here it is confirmed this is the Lord himself who wants a certain distinction and diversity within the People of God. From the first two readings we also learn that the Lord asks us to learn in our place. Being able to understand what are their gifts and put them at the service of the whole ecclesial community without being selfish is the greatest act of humility. It is in fact God Himself to call every single person in a specific task: those to religious life or priesthood, those at the wedding, as a primary distinction.

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The beginning of the Gospel of Luke it specifies one of the common tasks that Jesus entrusted to the whole Church. We read:

 

«Jesus returned to Galilee […] He taught in their synagogues and they praised him " [LC 4,14]

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To teach or explain the word of God, or indeed the content of our faith is the task that we all believers receive from Jesus. Of course, in the first place we ministers, in a homily or in the daily catechetical. But the laity. In particular those who live the faith in the world, together with his sons and his family, can not only with the explanation of what he believes, also bear witness to the beauty of faith in God. A faith that is alive meeting, tender and real with Jesus Christ. In tal modo, by clarifying what we believe and hope that the Lord has given us, can we allow faith becomes love of charity. So to offer a knowledge of God let's give a loving God and our neighbor concretely. We can say with the Lord:

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"Today this Scripture has been fulfilled that you have heard".

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Like this, really, It also unveiled some’ of that great mystery of the Triune God who loves us, with the authority of a Father, with the beauty of the Son and of the Holy Spirit motherhood. It will be really the most beautiful and intense caress that we can give to those we love, or who does not feel loved by anyone.

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Explain and show our faith so it does not get in the chair, It is not filled with pride, but first of all to love with an act of deep love and tender and generate the union of all men with God. As she is written by the painter Eugene Delacroix in his diary, where it expresses that in God we can all become the great writers and artists of the unity of Love:

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"The feeling of unity and the power to realize it in the work make the great writer and the great artist".

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Amen.

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Rome, 27 January 2019

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
but bring, spread and defend the truth not only of
risks but also the costs. Help us supporting this Island
with your offers through the secure Paypal system:



or you can use the bank account:
They were IT 08 (J) 02008 32974 001436620930
in this case, send us an email warning, because the bank
It does not provide your email and we could not send you a
thanks [ isoladipatmos@gmail.com ]

.

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The personal blog of the Fathers of The Island of Patmos

Theological club

the Father Gabriele blog

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