Popolo di Dio

This is the era of the Mystical Body, as Pope Pius XII has said.Therefore, if this era’s characteristic were really put into effect, the impact on society would soon be unmistakable.And one of these effects would be a mutual esteem among countries and peoples. This is not usual. In fact, it is much more common to find strongly enforced borders between one people and another, to fear the might of the other or, at best, to forge alliances for each nation’s own advantage.But it is difficult to think of acting solely out of love for another nation; popular morality has not reached such heights.When, however, the life of the Mystical Body among individuals has been developed to the point that all truly love their neighbours — be they black or white, red or yellow —as themselves, it will be easy to transplant this law to the relationship among nations.And something new will happen. For love brings us to find similarities or to make them. Each nation will learn the best of

Rome, 1978 When someone passes by us during the day, at work or at school, our only task is to always love. But we must love as Jesus. To do this, we must always listen to his voice speaking within us, so that we do not make mistakes by exaggeration or by default. The Gospel warns us, for example, not to give holy things to dogs, and even though we can and should always consider ourselves inferior to everyone else, since God alone knows the graces he has given us and which we have not made enough use of, we must be very careful not to speak of 'holy things' in surroundings which have not been prepared to receive them. Otherwise they will be despised, 'trampled on', and we will be ridiculed, 'torn to pieces', as the Gospel puts it.At the same time, we must remember that the Gospel itself also teaches us to love our neighbour as ourselves and, therefore, to share the spiritual goods we may have, the light

Commetary on the Word of Life: Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (Mt 26:41) These are words that Jesus addressed to Peter, James and John when he found them overcome by sleep during his agony in Gethsemane. He took these three apostles with him — the same three that had witnessed his transfiguration on Mount Tabor — to have them close to him during that extremely difficult time. This was their opportunity to prepare themselves through prayer together with Jesus, because the events about to take place would be a terrible trial for them as well. Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak In order to understand these words, we should keep in mind the circumstances in which they were said. What Jesus was giving his disciples was more than words of advice. We should see these words as reflecting his state of mind, that is,