27.    THE JUDGEMENT OF THE EMPIRES
The event of the century

1. The empires that dominate the world seem eternal. Frequently, its power becomes absolute. Depending on the facts, the reasons supporting them are diverse: the greek culture, the roman peace, the nation itself, the Christian civilization, the liberation of the working class, the defence of the Western world, national security, the pagan culture. What then can be done? Is it possible to collaborate with the absolute power? A violent resistant is pertinent? Is a pacific resistant better? The judgement of the empires, is something forgotten?, does it take place already now?, is it the event of the century?, what is happening?
2. Through the Bible large empires go by: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome. We find in them diverse situations. Joseph becomes Egypt’s prime minister (Gn 41, 41); Moses, saved from the waters by the pharaon´s daughter (Ex 2, 10), liberates his people from the Egyptian oppression (3, 7 – 10). The king of the Chaldeans (625 – 621 b. C.) leaps to the conquest of a vast part of the world and prophet Habacuc asks himself: Shall the Lord keep silent before this crazy adventure? (Ha 1, 2). Daniel, one of the Jews exiled in Babylon, collaborates with the king (Dn 1, 19), but he dreams with the judgement of the empires (7, 1 -18) and he also suffers the snatches of the power (14, 33 – 39). Jesus admires the faith of the centurion (Mt 8, 10) and, nevertheless, he is crucified by the roman power (Mc 15, 15 – 27).
3. Assyria comes from Assur, the god of the empire. Any people must subdue to it. The enemies are exterminated. King Senaquerib (704 – 681 a. C.) boasts about it: “Under the mandate of god Assur, the Great Lord, I fell like a hurricane over the enemy… I defeated them and I oblige them to pull back. I crossed the enemy units with arrows and spears… I cut their throats like to sheep… My horses pranced, harnessed, submerged into the blood that ran like in a river; the wheels of my battle cart were splashed with blood and waste. I filled the plain with the corpses of the warriors, as if they were grass”. Well then, in the fore front, before than the news, the feet of the messenger appear (Na 2, 1). He comes running, flying over the mountains. The messenger announces the peace, but also the event of the century: the fall of Nínive, the capital of the Assyrian empire (612 b. C.). It seemed impossible. But it is written down: “Woe to the bloody city!” (Na 3, 1). Assyrian king Manasés (698 – 643), a vassal rendered to the empire will, “he spilled so much innocent blood that he flooded Jerusalem from one end to the other” (2 R 21, 16). According to the Jewish tradition, prophet Isaiah was one of his victims

4. Babylon contributes to carry out the judgement against Nínive: “I am going to do in your own days, something that you would not believe if you were told it. I am going to call the Chaldeans, that terrifying and violent people who raid to the ends of the earth” (Ha 1, 5 – 6). The judgement is against Judah too, which has made what God condemns. Babylon will be place of exile: “When the seventy years allowed to Babylon have been completed I will come to you and fulfil my promise of restoring you back to this place”. (Jr 29, 10). As Nínive made before, Babylon raises before God like an absolute power, with pride and insolence (50, 29 – 32). She become the city of evil: “Capital of Babylon, criminal” (Ps 137). Finally, she will be taken by the Persian Cyrus (539 b. C.)

5. In the fourth century before Christ the dominium of the world displaces slowly from Eastern to Western. In two famous battles the Greeks stop the advance of the Persian empire: in Marathon (491 b. C.) and Salamina (480 b. C.). And in Ipso, North of Syria, Alexander of Macedonia imposes his dominium (333 b. C.). His first objective is Egypt. With 32.000 infantry soldiers and 5.000 cavalry, he goes towards the south, followed by sea by a fleet of 160 ships. By the way, in the Syrian coast, he first captures Tyro and, then Gaza. The movement of troops stationed in the coast cannot go without notice for the Jews. According to the historian Flavius Josephus, after Gaza capture, Alexander goes to Jerusalem. The people and the High Priest receive him with all kind of honours. Accepting the desires of the people, the Macedonian makes an offering in the temple. Then he goes towards Egypt. Alexander “After fighting many battles, conquering strongholds and putting to death the kings of those nations, he reached the ends of the earth and plundered several nations. And when the world became quiet and subject to his power, he became proud and arrogant. He gathered a strong army, ruled over provinces and nations, and rulers paid him taxes. But he fell sick, and he learnt that he was going to die” (1 Mc 1, 2 – 5). Four generals succeeded him dividing his empire between them: “At his death all cling on the diadem, and their children after them, for long years” (1, 9)

6. From their descendants there came a “godless offshoot”, Antiochus Epiphanies (1, 10), who reigned from 175 to 164 b. C. “When Antiochus felt confident of his power, he decided to seize Egypt and rule over the two nations. He entered Egypt with a strong army, with chariots of war, elephants, horses and a great fleet”, “the victors seized the fortified cities of Egypt and plundered the land” (1, 16 – 19). Afterwards “he went up to Jerusalem with a strong army”, he sacked the temple and “he took everything with him and left for his country, after shedding much blood and making arrogant statements”.(1, 20 – 24). He count on the complicity of some Jews attracted by the new culture: “they abandoned the Holy Covenant, sinning as they pleased and they sold themselves to make the evil” (1, 15)

7. Antiochus wants to unify the peoples with the imposition of a strange cult: “Antiochus issued a decree to his whole kingdom. All the peoples of his empire had to renounce their particular customs and become one peo ple. All the pagan nations obeyed and respected the king’s decree, and even in Israel many accepted the imposed cult. They offered sacrifices to idols and no longer respected the Sabbath.” (1 Mc 1, 41 – 43). The decree “ordered to follow customs strange to the country” (1, 44), “The sanctuary and its ministers were no longer to be regarded sacred” (1, 46), “that who disobey the decree shall die” (1, 50), the king ordered to rise a pagan altar on the altar of the temple, “abominable idol of the invaders” (1, 54). Coexistence becomes impossible. Aperture to the alien does not mean disdain towards the own. In the fight between greek paganism and Jewish
faith there are three years of crisis, indicated by the uprising of Judas the Maccabee (167 – 164 b. C.)
8. At the beginning, the “Hasidim”, pious people who organize in fraternity, join in the Maccabee fight, but the movement is soon divide. The Maccabee look for the political and religious liberation though the weapons. The “Hasidim” assume a peaceful resistance. They refuse the violent fight and place their hope in God´s hands. The resistance against the absolute power is the manifestation of a hard fight that last centuries. In that combat, evil’s strength and God´s strength are confronted. Antiochus is the most virulent incarnation of the demoniac power. The hope in the liberation is identified with God´s victory and the establishment of his kingdom. Those who are left, the “small rest”, will be called holy all who are recorded among the living in Jerusalem” (Is 4, 3), “there stand the courts of justice” (Ps 122)
9. The book of Daniel is spread in the year 164 before Christ, little before of Antiochus´ death, It is a message of hope in the middle of the difficulties of the present time. Narrations transmitted between the Jews of the Diaspora are made present. Daniel, one of the Jews exiled in Babylon (Dn 5, 13), provided with prophetic spirit (4, 5), has the gift of explaining dreams and visions, revealing in this manner the sense of history (1, 6. 17; 2, 25). That is precisely what is needed now. What is happening is something that overflows, an enigma too large to be interpreted with human means. A revelation from God is needed. The case is not easy. It is necessary to understand from the heart (Dn 10, 12). Daniel contemplates in night visions a horizon of centuries. The empires go by. God stays: “Your throne stands from long ago, O Lord, from all eternity you are.” (Ps 93). The believers suffer the snatches of the power, but God makes justice to them, they participate (now already) in the judgement of the empires. God talks in many ways, also in dreams. His word descends to the depths of the unconscious world and overcomes the individual and collective censoring.

10. Daniel has a dream, that he, right away, writes down: “The four winds of heaven stirred up the great sea, and four great beasts, each one different from the other, came out of the sea. The first was like a lion with eagle’s wings. As I looked at it, its wings were torn off. It was lifted up from the ground, stood up on its feet like a man, and was given a human heart. The second was a beast like a bear; it was raised up on one side and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told: Go and devour much flesh. I went on looking and saw another beast like a leopard with four wings on its back; it had four heads and dominion was given to it. I continued seeing my visions of the night and saw a terrible fourth beast. It was fear full and extraordinarily strong; it had great iron teeth; it ate, tore into pieces, and crushed underfoot whatever remained. It was different from the previous beasts and had ten horns. I was looking at the horns, when another small horn sprang among them, and three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots to make way for the new. It had eyes like human eyes and a mouth that uttered insolent words.” “While I was watching, some thrones were set in place and One of Great Age took his seat.” “Thousands upon thousands served him and a countless multitude stood before him. Those in the tribunal took their seats and opened the book.”, “I continued watching the nocturnal vision: One like a son of man came on the clouds of heaven. He faced the One of Great Age and was brought into his presence. Dominion, honour and kingship were given him, and all the peoples and nations of every language served him. His dominion is eternal and shall never pass away; his kingdom will never be destroyed.” (Dn 7, 1 – 14)

11. Daniel approached one of those who were standing there and he gave him the interpretation: “These four beasts are four kings who will rise from the earth. But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom to possess it eternally, forever and ever.” (7, 17 – 18), “The fourth animal shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, different from all the kingdoms. It will devour the earth, crush it and destroy it. The ten horns are ten kings who shall rise from this kingdom. Another one will rise up after them and destroy three kings. This king shall insult the Most High and persecute the holy ones of the Most High. He shall try to change the feasts and the laws. The holy ones shall be handed over to his power for a time, two times, and half a time. But judgment will come and dominion will be taken from him; he shall be destroyed and utterly wiped out. The kingship, dominion and leadership of all the kingdoms of the world shall be given to the people of the holy ones of God Most High: his kingdom will be without end. All the kingdoms shall serve him and be subject to him.” (7, 23 – 27). Daniel grew pale and he kept these things in his heart. (7, 28).

12. Human realities (empires) appear like beasts. Divine realities appear with human figure. History is judged before the throne of the Ancien (God) and before the throne of the son of man (the saints, Jesus of Nazareth). In the times of Jesus, the political beast is the roman empire. Rome is the “celebrated whore” with which kings and inhabitants of the earth fornicate, “the great Babylon” that gets drunk with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus, “the beast” that walks towards its destruction, the city that settles over seven hills (Rev 17, 1-9). An important detail: the religious beast puts itself at the service of the political beast (13, 11 – 12).

13. In the region of Gerasa, no sooner did Jesus left the boat than “he was met by a man with evil spirits who had come from the tombs.” (Mk 5, 2), “nobody could dominate him” (5, 4). The problem overflows, alienates, marginalize, destroys. The man meets Jesus, goes to him, addresses him with the messianic title, but all of a sudden shows resistance: “What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God? For God’s sake I beg you, do not torment me.” (5, 7). It is what he had said to him: “Come out of the man, evil spirit.” (5, 8), Jesus confronts the problem, he makes him to get out, he asks him his name: “My name is legion, since we are many” (5, 9). The problem looks like it is of political origin: the word “legion” recalls the roman military force, the number “about two thousands” fits more in a legion than in a herd; the demons (like the Romans) want to stay in the region (dominated), they want to go into the pigs, the pigs throw themselves into the sea. The legion is a herd of pigs that goes to die into the sea, like the Egyptians (Ex 14, 15 – 31). The man has inside the madness of the country. A “large herd of pigs” that grazed at the base of the mountain could serve like symbol and signal. When coming out, the demons cause some damage.

14. The swineherds flee and narrates what had happened. People comes. They see the man “seated, dressed and in his right mind” (Mk 5, 15). They filled themselves with fear. “They then began to pray Jesus to go away of his limits” (5, 17). The problem raises blisters. When going into the boat, the man healed asks Jesus to stay with him. That who wanted to go into the legion, now wants to go into the boat. Jesus does not accept it. He says to him: “Go home, with your family and tell them what the Lord has made to you” (5, 20). He announces it through the whole region (see L.M. Romero, Jesus´ word liberating efficacy, evd, Estella, 2009, 242 – 253). In the photograph above, a coin of the imperial Rome with the pig can be seen, a symbol of the Legion X Fretensis, one of the legions stationed in that zone, famous due to its naval victory in the strait of Sicily (Fretum Siculum), from which its name comes.

15. In the first Jewish war (66 – 70 a. D.), the rebels attacked that zone: “All the people savagely participated in the slaughter of Cesarea, they distributed themselves in gangs and they devastated the Syrian little villages and the neighbour cities of Philadelphia, Esbus, Gerasa, Pella and Escitópolis. Later on they fell over Gadara, Hippus an the regions of Gaulanitide, and they destroyed or burnt the localities” (F. Josefo, The war of the Jews II, 458 – 459). Although Gerasa was attacked by the rebels, its inhabitants acted with piety: “They did not meddle with the Jews who coexisted in the city, but they escorted to the frontier to those who wanted to abandon the territory” (ib., 480). General Vespasianus “brought from Antioch the whole twelfth legion, two thousands infantry soldiers selected from the other legions (the III Gallica, the VI Ferrata, the X Fretensis and the XII Fulminata, six infantry cohorts and four cavalry sections” (ib, 500). The Legion X Fretensis participated in the occupation of Galilee, in the capture of Gerasa and of Jerusalem. Titus conquest the city and he destroys the temple. After the second Jewish war (132 – 135 a. D.)a roman colony was built over the ruins of Jerusalem: “Aelia Capitolina was a pagan city inhabited by gentiles. In the southern gate, looking towards Bethlehem, a pig image was engraved”  (Atlas of the Bible, P&J, Barcelona, 1991,180)

16. Jesus, the prophet of Galilee (Mt 21, 11), does not want to be confused with others who have come before (Jn 10, 8). The zealots announce the kingdom of God, but they expect to impose it in force. These does not find in Jesus support words, but of critics: they deliver their companions to be cut their throats by the Romans (Lk 13, 3), they see the wolf coming and they flee, they are salaried employees, they do not come in through the door, they steal, kill and destroy (Jn 10, 1 – 21). Although some of his disciples could had been a zealot, like Simon (Lk 6, 16) or Judas Iscariot (Mk 14, 10), Jesus is not one of them. He is not armed. He is “the good shepherd” (Jn 10, 14). His weapons are others, the signals of the kingdom of God.

17. In a special way, Jesus is the son of man. Crucified by bestial powers, he comes “on the clouds of heaven” to judge history. In an impressive challenge, Jesus told Caiaphas: “From now on you will see the con of man sit to the right of power and to come on the clouds of heaven” (Mt 24, 64; Ps 110, 1). The son of man comes with his “angels”, with his “saints”. The saints, joined in communities, judge the world (1 Co 6, 2), they sit to judge the twelve tribes of Israel (Mt 14, 28), to judge the nations (Mt 25, 32)

18. The judgement of the empires is present. August 20th 2010. President Obama, accomplishing his electoral promise, withdraws from Iraq the last combat troops (in the photo), United States ends so a war that she could not win. It leaves a ruined country and with little hope of stability. More than 100.000 Iraqi civilians and 4.419 soldiers of the occupying forces have died. The attempts do not stop. The United States have spend about 800.000 million dollars. With that money hunger could have been eradicated for 16 years from the world. This is a bestial world, a more human world is needed. February 23rd 2011. After the fall of the dictatorships of Tunisia and Egypt, popular protest gains strength in Yemen. In Algeria the police massive deployment aborts two protests. In Bahrain  the brutal force against the peaceful protestors provokes dead and wounded people. In Morocco disorders leave five dead. In Libya Gadafi fiercely refrains the protest with hundred of dead. The question arises: what is happening?, do the empire vassal dictatorships fall?, is this the Arab version of the Berlin’s wall fall?, is it a cry for democracy?, is it fear to hunger?

* Dialogue: over the judgement of the empires
– it is present now already, it is the event of the century
– Daniel’s dream is present, beasts that submit the earth with power
–  in Jesus´ times, the political beast is the roman empire
– the problem of Gerasa seems of political type
– the son of man comes to judge history
– the saints, joined in brotherhoods (communities), judge the world
– This world is bestial, a more human world is needed: what is happening?

26. BABEL’S TOWER
The deified power

1. Several questions arise before the narration of the tower of Babel: For instance, is it a legendary narration?, does it have era limitations?, does it explain languages origin?, does it indicate humanity origin?, why does God distrust the tower and the city built by the humans?, does he dislike the towers?, does he dislike urban civilization?, what does the tower symbolize?. Higher tower fell, says the proverb. Present catechesis pretends to discover the deep sense of the narration and, above all, its present message.

2. In first place, we place the text in its context, it is to say, we see what there is before and what there is afterwards. Before we find a list pf peoples (Gn 10), a map of the world typical of the era in which the narration is written down (between  centuries X and V b. C.); then comes the narration of the city and the tower of Babel (Gn 11); Abraham’s vocation comes later on; Abraham comes out of this environment, embracing the word that says: “Come out of your land”; “all families in the earth shall be blessed in you” (Gn 12, 1 – 3)

3. Let us see the list of peoples. According to the biblical text, humanity has filled the earth (Gn 9, 1); from Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth (9, 18 – 19) come three large families of peoples (10, 1 – 12). Among the Semite peoples are the elamitas, Assyrians, caldeans, aramean. Among the children of Ham are the peoples of Cana, Egypt, Ethiopia, Arabia. The children of Japheth populate Asia Minor, the islands of the Mediterranean and the remote coasts, like Tharshish.

4. Greek historian Herodotus (484 – 425 b. C.) leave us a map of the world that extends from Sudan to central Europe, and from India, in its eastern limit, to Iberia in the western limit. In Psalm 72 we can see a similar map. It is said of the promised king that “he shall dominate from sea to sea, from the Large River to the confines of the earth”, “the kings of Tharshish and the islands will render tribute”, “the kings of Sheba and of Arabia will pay taxes”. It is the ancient version of the world. The modern vision is evolutive.

5. According to Teilhard de Chardin (1881 – 1995), the man appears in the world “without noise”, so smoothly than, when we begin to be aware in the first carved quartzes, already covers the old world: “from the Good Hope Cape to Peking”, “over a well defined, although immense area, that extends from the southern Africa towards South China and to Malaysia”. From the point of view of the science, that from far away cannot apprehend more that the sets, “the first man is already and he cannot be another thing, that multitude”. This is why the problem of the monogenism, it is to say, the doctrine according which the whole humanity comes from a unique couple, escapes from the science as such: “It is undoubtedly that the presence and the movements of a unique couple are absolutely inapprehensible to our direct look and in any increment” (The human phenomenon, 222 – 225).

6. Each civilization considers itself the navel of the world. “What History essentially records, through the institutions dynamic multiplication of the peoples  and of the empires, is the normal expansion of the Homo sapiens in the bosom of the social atmosphere created by the Neolithic transformation” (towards 7000 – 4000 b. C.). More or less prominent over the past, we discover five focal points of civilization that display over the Neolithic shell: “central America, with the Maya civilization; the seas of the south, with the Polynesian civilization; the basin of the Yellow River, with the Chinese civilization; the valleys of the Ganges and the Indo, with the Indian civilization; the Nile and Mesopotamia, finally, with Egypt and Summer. All of them focal points, which probably appeared (except the two first, much more late ones) almost in the same epoch. However, focal points largely independent among themselves; everyone of them worked in a blind way to extend themselves and irradiate, as if he alone should absorb and transform the whole Earth” (ib., 249 and 252). Life advances in trial and error steps. This is not the luck, but a leaded Luck (ib. 135). The minimum common creed of all evolutionism processes is this: a physical tie exists (a kinship) among all living beings and, by extension, among all real things (The vision of the past, 39 and 181)

7. Let us see the historic bottom of the narration. In the second millennium before Christ, in the environment of the “growing fertile moon” that spread out about the Arabic dessert, several empires appear. At one side  is Egypt. The Hittite empire succeeds, which is born in the heart of the present Turkey and it collapses about the year 1.200 under the pressure of the peoples of the sea, Philistines and Cretans. At the other side is Babylon. Its king Hammurabi (1728 – 1786 b. C.) establishes the famous code that includes the law of the Talion: “If a man damages the eye of a notable man, his eye must be damaged. If he breaks a bone of another man, his bone should be broken”. So it appears in a stela, that is preserved in the museum of the Louver (Paris)

8. The tower of Babel is already known in the second millennium before Christ. With some 90 meters high, it was several times destroyed and rebuilt. In the year 689 b. C. Assyrian king Senaquerib destroys the tower together with the city. An inscription of Nabucodonosor (604 – 562) affirms: “The elevated home of Marduk, my lord, I artistically rebuilt at the summit”. God Marduk ordered him “to ensure its foundations in the bosom of the subterranean world and to level its summit at the sky”. The tower is definitely destroyed by the Persian Jerjes in the year 469 b. C. In the photo, above, we see the reconstruction of a ziggurat, tower of the temple, of Babylon, made in the Museum of Berlin (Babylon Atlas)

9 Herodotus visited Babylon. Here is the description that he makes of the tower: “In the centre of the temple has been built a tower that has the length and the width of an stadium (185 meters); on this tower another one is raised and so successively till a total of eight of them. The stairs to climb to the towers ascends rotating by the outside of all the towers”, “in the highest temple there was a large bed, richly decorated, and a golden table beside the bed”, “over there a woman selected by the god himself spent the night, according to what the Caldeans affirm”, “they also affirm, but they don’t make me believe it, that the god himself visits the temple and he sleeps in the bed, what also happens in Thebes of Egypt, according to what the Egyptians affirm” (I, 181 foll.)

10. Babylon is full of temples dedicates to the idols, gods and goddesses. They have their own worship and the “sacred prostitution” is practised. Herodotus affirms: “The ugliest habit of the Babylonians is this: any woman of the country must go to the temple of Aphrodite (Venus, in latin) and join once in her life with a stranger… and only after she has joined him and lent her service to the goddess may come back to her home; and from there on there is not a gift so great that could entice her; those who are pretty and attractive go out soon from there, but those who are not attractive stay in the temple for a long time not being able to accomplish the law; there are some that have to wait eve three or four years” (I, 199). The “sacred prostitution” also appear in the Cananean worship ( Dt 23, 18), In this context, the temptation is: “You shall be like gods” (Gn 3, 5)

11. The Jewish people perceives like victim the symbolism of the tower. They endure the oppressor force of Babylon in the time of the exile, after the conquest of Jerusalem by Nabucodonosor (586 b. C.) Prophet Jeremiah says it: “The king of Babylon, has consumed and routed me. He has left me as an empty vessel. Like a dragon he has swallowed me, and filled his belly; he cast me out.” (Jr 51, 34). It is recalled in psalm 137: “By the streams of Babylon, we sat and then wept as we remembered Zion.”, “our captors asked for song, our tormentors wanted songs of joy”, “Babylon’s Capital, criminal!”. In the Revelation the judgement of the great city, with which the kings of the earth sin, is proclaimed: “Babylon the Great, mother of prostitutes and of the loathsome idols of the whole world” (Rev 17, 1 – 5).

12. Babel is the Hebrew name of Babylon. It is a city symbol. Like Jerusalem, but the opposite. Somehow, they are the two cities between which the men split up, the city of God and the city of evil. Genesis narration presents in a simple form Babel’s enigma. It is a united people: “All the world was of the same language and identical words” (Gn 11, 1). It is spoken about an emigration that settles in Babylon: “When the humanity displaced from Eastern, they found a meadow in the country of Senaar and they settled there”.  Babel is in the land of Senaar (10, 10). Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them in fire.” (11, 3). The technique is good. What is bad is the power made god. The pretension results idolatrous: “Let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top reaching heaven” (11, 4).

13. “The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that humans had built” (11, 5). In spite of being very high the tower, God has to go down and to put a limit to human pride. The deified power engenders incomprehension, isolation, confusion: “Let´s go down and once there let’s confuse their language, so each one cannot understand his neighbour” (11, 7). Babel, that means “God´s door”, becomes “city of confusion”, the city of the muddle: “That is why it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the world” (11, 9).

14. The dispersion is the final point of the process of Babel: “From there the Lord dispersed them over all the earth surface” (11, 9). It is the judgement, the sentence against the city of evil. Babylon becomes the deserted, abandoned, avoided city. Due to her infidelity, also Jerusalem participates of the inhuman destiny of Babel. Since she forgot her mission, Jerusalem listens from the part of God the communication of her replacement: “I shall call my people to that who is not my people” (Rm 9, 25).

15. Pentecost is the counterpoint of Babel. If the experience of Babel is based in the idolatry, that of Pentecost rests in the faith; “the wonders of God” are perceived (Acts 2, 11). If the experience of Babel drives to incommunication (persons of the same people do not understand between them), the experience of Pentecost drives to communication (persons coming from many places understand between them): “All of us heard them to talk about the wonders of God in our own language” (2, 11). If the experience of Babel drives to dispersion, the experience of Pentecost drives to communion and to the community: “The Lord added every day to the community those who ought to be saved” (2, 47).

16. When Abraham goes out of Ur of the Chaldeans (11, 31), a new story begins. We are at the gate of the biblical experience. In the middle of an environment marked by the idolatry, Abraham embraces the word that God addresses him: “Get out of your land and of your relatives and go to the land I will show you”, “in you all peoples of the earth will be blessed.” (Gn 12, 1 – 3). Abraham breaks ties, he leaves everything, he leaves his land, he escapes from the style of life of the pagans, he places himself in God´s hands. Due to his faith, as an answer to God´s word, nations of the world are blessed.

17. On September the 11th 2001 a brutal attack was carried out against the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, symbol of the economic and military power of USA. In its moment, the Twin Towers were the world highest buildings. It was said that they could not be neither demolished nor burnt. They came down. The impressive verses of Raphael Alberti, written in 1980, when the towers had just been built were recalled. By then the poet visited New York and wrote his poem titled N.Y.: “The wind does not come down here,/ it stays there in the towers,/ in the large heights, / that some day will fall, / whipped, devastated in their own boastfulness. / Fall down, city, of terrible shoulders, / fall down from yourself. What lump/ of closed windows, / of  panes, of plastics,/ of defeated, folded structures./ Then it will come in,/ the wind will be able to come down / to the level of the bottom / and from then on it will not exist / neither farther up nor down” (ABC, 24 – 9 – 2001). Well regarded, this poem has biblical inspiration. There is the symbolism of the tower, the city, the arrogance, the descent of the wind, the judgement of the empire. The poesy is prophecy.

* Dialogue: What problems does the narration present? Which is its deep meaning? Is its message present?
 

25. THE FLOOD THAT IS COMING
A boat in the middle of the waters

1. Due to ignorance or negligence, some chapters of the Genesis can be a loft, that high part of the house where useless or for lack of use, id est, old junks, are stored. That can happen with the narration of the Flood and it can happen what the poet sung: “Of the sitting room in the dark angle, of his owner perhaps forgotten, silent and covered of dust the harp could be seen”. Years ago, in 1977, the musical “The Flood that comes” was performed for the first time. The perspective is of a future more or less imminent. Also in the Gospel. To look backwards is not the case, but forward. We must be vigilant before the flood that comes.

2. There are two mixed narrations in the Bible (Gn 6 – 9). The last writer has respected the two testimonies received from the tradition, without avoiding repetitions and differences. Such as the biblical text reached us, we find a prologue (Gn ,1 – 8), the two mixed narrations (6,. 9 – 8, 22) and an epilogue (9, 1 – 17). The present catechesis is a triptych, a retablo that has three pictures: a denounce of the general corruption, a boat in the middle of the water and a signal of alliance.  

3. In the first pictures we see a denunciation of the general corruption: “When people began to increase on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that men’s daughters were very beautiful, so they married those they chose.” And also: “At that time there were giants on the earth, and afterwards as well, when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. These were the heroes of old, men of renown. Seeing Yahweh saw how great was the wickedness of man on the earth and that evil was always the only thought of his heart, he regretted having created man on the earth and his heart grieved.” (6, 1 – 6). The earth is corrupted by violence and vice:  “the earth filled up with violence”, “it was vitiated, because all flesh had a vicious behaviour upon the earth” (6, 1 – 12). However, “Noah reached the Lord’s favour” (6, 8). Noah is the just side present in the humanity. Thanks to it there is “a rest” on the earth (Sir 44, 17).

4. Some problems: is it bad that God´s sons get married with men’s daughters?, who are those God´s sons? In the book of Enoch (about year 150 b. C) they are “angels”, God´s messengers who corrupt themselves. In the first centuries Christians are the “descendents of Set” (4, 25 – 26), believers who get contaminated by the pagan environment. According to another interpretation, they are “gods” (sons of god)

5. About the twenties of the past century, in the ancient Phoenician city of Ugarit,  some texts that allow to know better the religious environment surrounding Israel are found. In this context “gods”, ancient heroes, famous men are mentioned. The sexual commerce of the gods with the daughters of men is considered normal, nothing is seen reprehensible in it; on the contrary, it is attractive. This clearly appears in the Syrian epic story of Gilgamesh, where – conversely – Goddess Istar courts hero Gilgamesh. It was said about him that he was “divine in two thirds and human in the other one”. What in the pagan environment is good, is bad in God´s eyes. It is vicious to surrender to the stellar cults with the practices that accompany them; for instance, the “sacred prostitution”. At the bottom, the pagan style of life is the radical temptation (Gn 3, 5). In the photograph  a Cananean stela can be seen, with hands that rise towards a half moon, with a disc and two small circles (Bible Atlas). It is possible that human life is measured in months. (Gn 9, 29).

6. Let us see the second picture: a boat in the middle of the waters. Flood narrations (it is to say about a large inundation), are present in many peoples. Names and some circumstances change. So happens, for instance, in the Assyrian tradition. In the middle of XIX century are found in Nínive rests of the royal library (VII century b. C). Among them is the epic story of Gilgamesh, written in clay boards about 2600 b. C. Its original is in the Britannic Museum of London. In its board number eleven (attached photo) the epic story tells that the hero Gilgamesh initiates a trip to visit an ancestor who has reached the immortality. This talks to him about the flood that he lived in pass times. The gods decide to exterminate the human race. They see only him virtuous and they order him to build a vessel, to renounce to the wealth and to save his life: “Demolish this house, build a ship! Leave you possessions, look for your life”.

7. In the biblical narration, God tells Noah to build a vessel in firm land: “build an ark”, “you shall come into the ark, you, your wife, your sons and your sons’ wives with you”, “You shall bring into the ark two of every kind of living thing, male and female, to keep them alive with you”. (6, 14 – 19), “The flood lasted for forty days on the earth”, “the waters rose and increased greatly on the earth and the ark floated on the surface of the waters.” (7, 17 – 18)

8. Last time that the biblical text is drafted, the addressee of the alliance is the people who lives in the exile: “This is for me like Noah’s waters, when I swore that they would no more flood the earth; so now I swear not to be angry with you and never again to rebuke you”, “my alliance of peace shall not move” (Is 54, 9 – 10). The exile is a flood that has devastated everything. The people is invited to understand the meaning of the alliance with God: peace, life, salvation. It is said in psalm 124: “Had not the Lord been on our side, the raging waters would have swept us away.”

9. In the third picture we find an alliance with a signal. Noah offers a sacrifice and God pleases himself in it: “Yahweh smelled the pleasing aroma and said to himself: Never again will I curse the earth because of man” (8, 20). After the tempest the calm comes. God´s project goes forward: “Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth” (9, 1, 1, 26). Human life must be respected (9, 6). It is said in the psalm 24: “Who will ascend the mountain of the Lord? Those with clean hands and pure heart, who desire not what is vain, and never swear to a lie.”. The alliance has the rainbow like signal: “This is the signal of the alliance” (9, 17). According to God´s project, “large waters cannot turn off neither love nor the rivers inundate it” (Cc 8, 7)

10. In the frame of the conventional Judaism, John calls to conversion: “Produce now the fruits of a true change of heart, and do not deceive yourselves by saying: ‘Abraham is our ancestor!’ For I tell you, God can make children of Abraham from these stones. The axe is already laid to the root of the tree and every tree that fails to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Lk 3, 8 – 9). It is an image. John refers to Jesus: “I baptize you with water, but the one who is coming will do much more: he will baptize you with wind and fire. He comes with a winnowing fan to clear his threshing floor and gather the grain into his barn. But the chaff he will burn with fire that never goes out.” (Lk 3, 16)

11. In the Acts, Peter invites to escape from the general corruption: “Save yourselves from this crooked generation” (Acts 2, 40) Those who embrace his word, are baptized: “Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved” (2, 47). In times of Noah “the hope of the world took refuge on a raft” (Wis 14, 6). Like then, it is necessary a raft in the middle of the waters. The community is a raft in which we are able to confront the floods that are coming. The raft can be tossed by the waves, but the Lord opens a way among the waters. (Mt 14, 22 – 34).

12. The flood is symbol of the judgement that surprises to those unconcerned, but he saves the just. It is necessary to be alert so we are not surprised, to avoid the general weakness, to be watchful: “Keep yourselves avoiding that your hearts become boring due to the licentiousness, drunkenness and life worries, and that day come upon you without warning” (Lk 17, 34), “At the coming of the Son of Man it will be just as it was in the time of Noah. In those days before the Flood, people were eating and drinking, and marrying, until the day when Noah went into the ark. Yet they did not know what would happen until the flood came and swept them away. So will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. Of two men in the field, one will be taken and the other left. Of two women grinding wheat together at the mill, one will be taken and the other left.” (Mt 24, 37 – 41). In the middle of ordinary life (they ate, drank, married wife or husband) the flood burst in. It is human condition. At the end, in the flood of the death, the void is not present, but the Son of man, the Lord is present: “When you see the first events, stand erect and lift up your heads, for your deliverance is drawing near”. (Lk 21 – 28)

* Dialogue: Over the flood that is coming
– it is necessary from the general corruption
– it is necessary a raft in the middle of the waters
– it is necessary to be watchful
– present floods

24. CAIN AND ABEL.
The crime against the brother

1. In the Bible, the world coming out from God´s hands is good (Gn 1 – 2), but between God´s original project and our own experience a breakdown is evident: the presence of evil. It is a constant of human history, which is evocated in the first chapter of Genesis (from 3 to 11): the pretension of being “like gods”, the crime against the brother, the corruption of those contemporary of Noe, the tower of Babel. To begin with, these chapters are independent narrations, diverse oral and written traditions. Among them there is the story of Cain and Abel (4, 1 – 16). Drafted in its present form about de tenth century b. C. , the passage presents some problems: which are these?, is it a forgotten passage?, is it convenient to recall it?, what do we listen?

2. “Adam had intercourse with Eve his wife; she became pregnant and gave birth to a child. She named him Cain, for she said, “I have got a man with help from Yahweh. She later gave birth to Abel, his brother.” Cain means “spear”, missile, projectile. Abel means “exhale”, breath; it also recalls how brief is life (Ps 103). Their occupation was different: “Abel was a shepherd and kept flocks, and Cain tilled the soil”. It is not said that there were any conflict between them, for instance, due to the water

3. “It happened after a time that Cain brought fruits of the soil as an offering to Yahweh. Abel for his part brought the firstborn of his flock, and some fat as well. Now Yahweh was well pleased with Abel and his offering, but towards Cain and his offering he showed no pleasure. This made Cain very angry and downcast.” Two sacrifices, two worships, two reactions on the part of God. It is said in psalm 24: “Who will ascend the mountain of the Lord?  Who will stand in his holy place? Those with clean hands and pure heart, who desire not what is vain, and never swear to a lie.”

4. The problem is to behave well or not. It is noticed in the face. That who behaves well, can go with the face very high. That who does not behave well, can be dominated by the evil. It is like a beast watching. The Lord asks Cain: “Why are you angry and downcast? 7 If you do right, why do you not look up? But if you are not doing what is right, sin is lurking at the door. It is striving to get you, but you must control it”. John Steinbeck’s work, To the East of the Eden (1952), has this crucial message, resumed in the Hebrew word with which it ends, Timshel, “you can dominate” the evil.

5. Cain says to his brother Abel: “Let us go to the field”. And when they were in the field, Cain pounces on his brother and kills him. It is not said how it is made. The Lord comes out to his encounter, and asks him: “Where is your brother Abel?”. He answers: “I don’t know. Am I perhaps my brother’s keeper?”. The Lord questions him: “What have you done? Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.”. Cain tries to deceive to God himself, but the blood of Abel claims to heaven. Human life is sacred. It belongs to God. Jesus says that “account shall be requested to this generation” of the blood of the prophets, “ from Abel’s blood to Zachariah´ blood” (Lk 11, 51)

6. It is the Lord’s judgement: “Now be cursed and driven from the ground that has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood that your hand has shed. 12 When you till the soil, it will no longer yield you its produce. You will be a fugitive wandering on the earth.” The relationship of the criminal with the land changes deeply. The land will be inhospitable for him. He will live wandering and vagabond. The land is a God´s blessing. To be expulsed from it is a curse. Like it is usually said, “he went through Cain sufferings”

7. Then Cain told the Lord: “My punishment is greater than I can bear. See! Today you drive me from this land. I must hide from you and be a wanderer and a fugitive on the earth, and it will so happen that whoever meets me will kill me.” The Lord answered him: “Well then, whoever kills Cain, will suffer vengeance seven times”. And Yahweh put a mark on Cain to prevent anyone who met him from killing him. Cain’s life also belongs to God. That who kills hi will pay it seven times. Here it appears the law of the dessert, the vengeance of the blood. Well then, the question is obvious: if it is soused that Adam and Eva have only two sons and Abel is dead, ¡who can kill Cain? To begin with, the narration in independent and, to follow on, it is placed (with a degree of incoherence) in the frame of the first chapters of the Genesis. The universal declaration of human rights (1948) is a signal recognized by the Church like an action of God´s spirit in our time. However, when in many nations the death penalty is being suppressed, the Catechism of the Catholic Church admits it, “if it were the only possible way to efficacy defend human lives from the unjust aggressor” (num. 2226). The death penalty is a “definitive, cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, that violates the right to life” (Amnesty International, 1977). The Church must correct her position.

8. “Cain then went from Yahweh’s presence and settled in the land of Nod, to the east of Eden”. That country is not known, but its name means “fugitive”. Cain can be the remote ancestor of the Kainite (Nm 24, 21), a nomad people who lives in the borders of the fertile land about the time of the Judges (centuries XI – XII b. C). The Kainite were a mysterious enigma for the Israelites: they had the same God, but they did not belong to the people of the Alliance; they joined the Israelites in the journey through the dessert (Nm 10, 29 foll.), but they did not reached a sedentary type of life. They were nomad, they wandered through the regions near the cultivated lands, resorting to the mugging. They had a tribal distinctive, a kind of tattoo (1 R 20, 41). On the other side, Eden means “garden”. It is not easy to locate it: it can refer to the fertile land, irrigated by large rivers (Gn 2, 10 – 14)

9. “Cain had intercourse with his wife; she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. As he was building a town, he called it by the name of his son, Enoch.” (Gn 4, 17). In its present form, the narration talks about Cain’s wife, but the question arises: if it is supposed that Adam and Eve only have two sons, from where does Cain’s wife come from? It is another incoherence. The narration presents a genealogy of eight generations, Cain’s descendants. There is a cultural progress: cities are built (see 1 Sm 30, 29) and, together with those who grow cattle, appear those who play musical instruments, and the iron and copper blacksmith. More than 2.000 years before Christ, bronze metallurgy and the urbanisation are developed (in the map, previous settlements, Atlas of the Bible)

10. Among Cain’s descendants violence grows. Protection signal given to Cain is not enough for Lamech. On his own risk, the brutal vengeance is launched and, besides, he boasts of it: “I killed a man for wounding me and a boy for striking me. If Cain will be avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times”. (Gn 4, 23 – 24). In this context, the Talion law means a progress (Ex 21, 24), However, Jesus says: “You have heard that it was said: An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. 39 But I tell you this: do not oppose evil with evil; if someone slaps you on your right cheek, turn and offer the other”. (Mt 5, 38 – 39). And also: Not only you shall not kill but you shall love your enemy (5, 21 y 43). You shall forgive the brother “seventy times seven” (18, 22), “that who hates his brother is an assassin” (1 Jn 3, 15)

11. “Adam again had intercourse with his wife and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth; for she said, “Yahweh has given me another child in place of Abel since Cain killed him. To Seth also a son was born and he called him Enoch. He was the first to call on the name of Yahweh.” (Gn 4, 25 – 26). In Seth’s descendants a new human type appears, who invokes the name of the Lord and who results in the figure of Noah (6, 9). Further on, Abraham appears (12, 1 – 3), father of all the believers, “he is our father in the eyes of Him who gives life to the dead, and calls into existence what does not yet exist, for this is the God in whom he believed”. (Rm 4, 17).

12. Due to diverse motives, every 20th –N the Civil War is recalled, a fratricide war. This year, as it is usual, a franquist group has attended to the Valley of the Fallen to pray for the dictator. Another group, the Federation of Forum for the Memory, has also attended to claim for the demolition of the large cross of the mausoleum , like an amend to the victims of the franquism. “These want to gain now the Civil War. We may be obliged to take out again the shotguns to the street”, says one of the first group. On his part, the president of the Federation tries to restrain his supporters: “Don’t provoke them, that is what they want. We have come to ask for justice, truth and reparation for the victims of the franquism”. In the transition to the democracy, the official withdrawal to the vengeance was essential condition for the political change.
 
*Dialogue:
– Is it a forgotten passage? Which problems does it present? What do we listen?

23. THE EVIL’S ORIGIN
You will be like gods

1. –    The problem of the evil seems to pall the first biblical teaching, id est, that the world and the life are a gift of God, and that the evil constitutes an objection directed to the faith’s heart itself, that confesses: “God is love” (1Jn 4, 8.16). If this is so, why is it possible the evil?. The experience of the evil frequently provokes similar affirmations: “There is no God” (Ps 10,4; 13.1), he is not just, he does not exist. Before the evil scandal, a second biblical teaching takes place (Gen 2-3): God is not guilty of the world’s evil
2. –    According to the first pages of the Genesis, there is no perfect continuity among the world of our experience and the original creation: in a certain moment a series of breakdowns is produced. In a world, which is good when coming out of God’s hands (Gen 1 and 2), a disturbing element comes in: the human sin (Gen 3). Everything is affected: the relationship with God, the relationship with the others (home, work), the hope of an eternal life (with the death as final). The narration, which redaction is placed about the tenth century before Christ, shows not only how the evil came to the world, but also how it continues living to day. The responsible is not God but the man.
3. –     According to God’s project, husband and wife are called to become “only one flesh” (Gen 2,24). Such is the paradisiacal and original figure of the marriage in a world that, as far as it came out of God’s hands, is good, very good, a human and habitable world, “a garden” (2,8). The relationship between husband and wife is harmonious, the communication is transparent: “Both the man and his wife were naked… but they were not ashamed one of the other” (2,25). Nevertheless, something very deep provokes the loss of this figure, the malediction, the disaffection, the abandonment.
4. –    With several images, the narration of Gen 3 describes (unmasks) the radical temptation. This presents the features that for the Israelites had the Canaanite cults in Palestine: a life project without the God of Israel. The serpent is the life, wisdom, fertility, eternal youth symbol. First it hypnotizes with her look, then it captures. It can not be looked front to front. That is what happens with the temptation. The “forbidden tree” is only one (3,3), but all of them look like that (3,1). It is the limit that, according to God’s word, should not be surpassed.
5. –      The narration is applicable to any singular couple, it shows the hidden reality of each person, it discovers what perhaps leaves obscured the happiness of the first feeling of love, what the conjugal living together will discover later on. The narration puts out that the man and the woman, in its deepest mistake, avoid God’s presence. They hide. God uses to take a walk through the garden of human life. But the man and the woman believe that God is not interesting to live, that God is envious, enemy of their happiness and of their life: “Your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil” (3,5). God appears, not like an illusion anymore, but like a lie, an oppression of which it is necessary to get free. They themselves will know (and will decide) on their own accord what is good and what is bad.
6. –    The primordial lie (see Jn 8,44) captivates because of its false appearance of goodness. The forbidden fruit seems “good to eat, desirable and excellent to reach wisdom” (Gen 3,6). The pretension of being like God, but without God, which implies the Canaanite life project, presents itself like realizable and desirable. The man and the woman eat of the forbidden fruit, and from there on a series of ruptures follow: with God, with the others, with oneself.
7. –     The rupture with the living God, the God of the Covenant, is radical, the foundation of all the rest. God’s steps are heard in this world’s garden, but the man withdraws from his presence, he hides. The contrary to the conversion takes place. The man refuges himself in the darkness, for “whoever does wrong hates the light for fear that his deeds will be shown like evil” (Jn 3,19-20).
8. –   The rupture between husband and wife already manifests in the accusation:  “The woman… “(Gen 3,12). God’s original project, which wants to make husband and wife only one flesh, cracks. Own responsibility is not assumed. On her part the woman says: “The serpent… “(3,13). In the future, the humanity “will step over the head of the serpent, but this will lurk her heel” (3, 15). So, it is important to be watchful.
9. –   The main human functions and activities become affected. According to the cultural scheme of the old world, the woman will remain at home and the man at work. The woman is not anymore the home queen, but the slave: “You will give birth to your children in pain. You will be dependent on your husband and he will lord it over you” (Gen 3, 16). The communication becomes discussion, selfishness opposition, mutual judgement, aggression. The love relationship becomes dominion and strength relationship. Maternity is lived without illusion, like a weight, with pain.
10. –    The rupture influence the work world too. The work is not anymore a creative, satisfactory and stimulant activity, but a hard, spiny, slaving reality: “Curse be the soil because of you… Thorn and thistle will produce… With sweat in your front you will eat your bread” (Gen 3,17-19). The work relationship degenerates in an exploitation relationship.
11. –    Without God, the man has no future, no hope, abandoned to the, natural in itself, process of the death: “You are dust and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3,19). The image of powder expresses the end of the man separated from God. Nevertheless, according to God’s project made evident in Christ, the death is a step from this world to the Father’s home (Jn 13, 1).
12. –    So, the couple rejects God, but with this, the only thing they do is to lock themselves the way that takes to the life’s tree (Gen 3,24). They remain “out of the garden”, out of the wonderful world, full of happiness and life, which God had created for them. Like the Babylonian “karibu” (half human shaped sentinels, that, placed at the temples gate, locked the separation between the sacred and the profane), the “cherubs”, with their “vibrant spade flame”, express in a symbolic form the situation in which stays the sinner man, a situation from which he cannot get out by himself
13. –    In the first chapters, the Bible also denounces big sins: Cain’s crime (Gen 4), the corruption of Noe´s contemporaries (Gen 6), the construction of the Babel’s tower (Gen 11). It is even questioned if the creation could have been worthy (Gen 6,7).  Conscience is progressively taken that sin is a universal event: “Jews as well as Greeks are all under the sin” (Rm 3,10; Ps 14,1-3;51,7). Nature, created for the man, participates in his destiny: she is submitted to the corruption servitude (Rm 8,21). If, as a hypothesis, all evil introduced by man could be suppressed, this world would be a garden. Jesus proclaims the need of a new birth to go into God´s kingdom (Jn 3,5). In relation to God we are blind from birth, which need to cure our original blindness in the envoy’s  swimming pool, in the community (Jn 9).
14. –    The original sin has not only been a bad example (Pelagianism, century V). It has hurt human nature, but it did not corrupt it (protestant reformation, century XVI). It has changed the man y has placed him “in a worse state” (Second Orange Council, DS 371; Trent Council, DS 1511). “Because of that all human life, individual and collective, is presented to us like a fight, dramatic over and above, between the evil and the goodness, between the darkness and the light. Even more, the man finds himself unable to efficiently resist by himself the evil´s attacks, until feeling himself like if he were chained and put away. And, certainly, the sin, makes the man smaller, and puts him away of the own plenitude consecution (Second Vatican Council, GS 13). To orient ourselves toward God with “plain efficacy, we necessarily must be supported by God´s grace” (GS 17). As Saint Paul says: “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rm 5, 20). According to the Catholic Church Catechism, the original sin, although proper of each one, does not have in itself, “a personal fault character” (num. 405). And Jesus says to the man born blind: “Neither this man, nor his parents sinned” (Jn 9,3).
* Dialogue: Is the narration of Gn 3 present? Does it help to discern situations
 

22. FROM THE OLD MAN TO THE NEW MAN
Conversion

1. The faith experience means a deep change, a step from the old man to the new man. That change places the man in a new relationship respect to God, respect to the others and, even respect himself. The believer feels himself in relation with God and with his brothers. He is the man of the Alliance. In the accomplishment of this Alliance consists the whole law and the prophets.

2. This deep change is called conversion. From the beginning, the Christian community distinguishes between first conversion, second conversion and continuous conversion. The first conversion is the one of that who embraces the Gospel (Acts 2, 38). The second conversion is that of those who made a grave fault and they are reconciled (Jn 20, 22 – 23), it is “the second board after the shipwreck” (Trent, DS 1542). The continuous conversion is that of the believer who must often ask with humbleness: “Forgive us our offences” (Mk 6, 12; DS 1536)

3. The sin configures the man like old man. However, the man does not recognize by himself that he is a sinner. He needs the spirit to come and to convince the world of the sin (Jn 16, 8). Looked things from God, all human facts are under the sign of the grace and the dis-grace. Rupture of man with God is the root of all the other ruptures: “Often refusing to acknowledge God as his beginning, man has disrupted also his proper relationship to his own ultimate goal as well as his whole relationship toward himself and others and all created things blocking his path to fulfilment” (GS 13)

4. Sin appears like drought and parching of a land designed by God to be fertile and productive: “For my people have done two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, to dig for themselves leaking cisterns that hold no water!” (Jr 2, 13). Sin leaves man with a thirst that nobody can turn off. The call to conversion invites to turn off that thirst: “Come here, all you who are thirsty, come to the water!” (Is 55, 1). It is the call that Jesus makes to the female Samaritan: “If you only knew the Gift of God! If you knew who it is that asks you for a drink, you yourself would have asked me and I would have given you living water.” “those who drink of the water that I shall give will never be thirsty; for the water that I shall give will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (Jn 4, 10 – 14). Conversion is a step from the thirst to the water of life.

5. Sin also appears like a blindness that impedes to see God´s action in the nature and in the history. In this sense, all of us are blind from birth. Our original blindness must be cures clean ourselves in the pool of the Messenger, id est, in the Christian community: “As Jesus said this, he made paste with spittle and clay and rubbed it on the eyes of the blind man. Then he said, “Go and wash in the Pool of Siloam.” (This name means sent.) So he went and washed and came back able to see.” (Jn 9, 6 – 7). Conversion is a step from blindness to light.

6. Sin also appears as death that hampers the true life. As in the passages of the Samaritan and the born blind, the passage of Lazarus belongs to the old catechumenal liturgy and, inside it, to the third, forth and fifth Easter Sundays. The man that is born to the faith is, like Lazarus, a man to whom Jesus makes to go out of his tomb and that he returns to life: “Lazarus, come out” (Jn 11, 43). Conversion is a step from death to life.

7. From the thirst to the living water, from the blindness to the light, from the death to the life. The step from the old man to the new man is a deep change, a new birth by the strength of the spirit. As Jesus says to  Nicodemus: ““Truly, I say to you: No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Because of this, don’t be surprised when I say: ‘You must be born again from above.’ The wind blows where it pleases and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. It is like that with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  (Jn 3, 5 – 8)

21. IN ONLY ONE SPIRIT
God´s mystery

1. From the beginning, Christians felt the need of a formula expressing the essential and ensuring its unity in the faith confession: “Only one Lord, only one faith, only one baptism, only one God, the Father of all” (Eph 4, 5-6). The gospel’s summaries (Acts 2, 14-39; 1Co 15, 1-7) and the faith confessions accomplish that function. But, how do we express the essence of our faith? Which questions do we have about God’s mystery? Really, “no one knows well the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Mt11, 27). It is a mystery revealed to the ordinary people (11, 25).
2. At the beginning, Christians considered Christ’s confession the essence of their faith. Faith in God is assumed and common with the Jews. When we talk about announcing the focal point of Christian faith, faith in Christ in proclaimed. This central confession is expressed in concise formulas: “Jesus is the Lord” (1 Co 12, 3), “Jesus is the Christ” (1 Jn 2, 22), “Jesus is the Son of God” (1 Jn 4, 15). Most faith confessions in the New Testament have only one article: “the confession of Jesus like Lord and Christ.
3. Together with the faith in Christ, God’s confession in relationship with the Jewish faith is often announced: “Yahweh, our God, is Only one” (Dt 6, 4). This faith in God, fundamental for the Jews, is also fundamental for Jesus (Mt 22, 37) and for the newborn church, which confidently repeats Jesus’ prayer: “Abba”, Father! (Rom 8, 15; Gal 4, 6). This is the reason for the frequent appearance in the New Testament of faith confessions with two principles. They are binary formulas that include both God and Jesus. For instance: “May God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, give you grace and peace”. (Rom 1, 7).
4. In Saint Clements’s first letter to the Corinthians (1st century) we find this initial greeting: “May the grace and the peace coming from omnipotent God by Jesus’ mediation be multiplied among you”. And this final greeting: “Our Lord Jesus Christ grace be with you and with all those that everywhere are called by God, through his mediation” (LXV, 2). In the same manner, we find similar salutations en Saint Ignatius of Antioch’s letters (about the year 107): To the Church of Magnesia “blessed by Jesus Christ, our Saviour, in the grace of God the Father” And also: “I send you my farewell with God’s blessing, being you in possession of an inseparable spirit, who is Jesus Christ” (Magnesius XV)
5. In the light of these two-fold formulae, it can be explained that, about the middle of the 2nd century, the Jew Trifón accused the Christians of  believing in two gods (Saint Justin, Dialogue with Trifón, 11, 64 and following). Or that the pagan Celsus made a similar accusation to the Christian Origen (about years 185-254). Celsus says: “If they did not serve more than the One God, they would perhaps have a doctrine that we would find beyond reproach. However, they venerate beyond measure this one, who only recently appeared, and they, nevertheless, believe that no offence is committed against God even though his servant is also venerated.” (Origen, Against Celsus, VIII, 12). In Tertulian writings (about year 200) we find this double formula: “Let us take a look at what was learnt by this blessed Church (of Rome), what she has taught, what she has shared with the African Churches: she acknowledges only one God and Lord, creator of the universe, and Jesus Christ, Son of God, creator (born) of the Virgin Mary, as the flesh resurrection acknowledges” (De praescriptione haereticorum, 36).
6. In the New Testament, are few the formulae with three articles. The clearest one (although it appears later on) is that appearing at the end of  Saint Mathew’s evangel, like a resurrected Lord command to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28,19). It is also usual to cite this: “The grace of Christ Jesus the Lord, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all”. (2 Co 13, 13; see 1 Cor 12, 4-6; Acts 19,1-7). Besides the passages in which Jesus announces the promise of the spirit are also cited: “When this helper comes, who I shall send you from the side of the father, the spirit of truth who proceeds from the father, he will testify about me”. (Jn 15, 26). “I will ask the Father and he will give you another Helper to be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth”. (14, 16-17; see Lk 24, 49).
7. German theologian M. Schmaus comments on the formula of Mt 28,19 in this manner: “Since at the beginning, according to what we can read in the Acts of the Apostles (2,38; 8,16; 10,48; 19,5), and in Paul (1Cor 1,13;6,11;Gal 3,27;Rom 6,3;Ef 4,5), baptism was administered in Jesus’ name, thus the later origin of the formula contained in Mt 28,19 would be demonstrated”. So we can ascertain that this formula “was not configured by any particular evangelist but that it was part of the Church’s tradition”. About the formula contained in 2 Co 13,13, the same author says: “In relation to the Spirit, the objective genitive is used, while the subjective genitive is used when talking about God and the Lord”. (M. Schmaus, El Credo de la Iglesia Católica –The Creed of the Catholic Church– Ed. Rialp, Madrid. 1970, 581 y 589).
8. In the Apostolic Tradition, a book written by Saint Hippolytus about 215, Roman liturgy from the end of the 2nd century and the beginning of the 3rd is probably recorded. There the third baptismal question appears, after the two initial ones (“Credis in Deum Patrem omnipotentem? Credis in Christum Iesum, Filium Dei” …?): “Credis in Spiritu Sancto, et sanctam Ecclesiam et carnis resurrectionem?” It says “in Spiritu Sancto” which recalls the formula: “No one can say: Jesus is the Lord! except in holy spirit” (1Co 12, 3). According to the Greek original of the New Testament, the word spirit appears always in lower case letters.
9. A speculation about the Trinity was formed from the threefold formulas of faith and from the texts in which Jesus promises the Spirit. The word triad appears for first time in Teofilus of Antioch (about 181); the triad is this: God, Word, Wisdom (Ad Autolycum 2, 15).  The word trinity appears by first time in Tertulian (about 217); the Spirit is “the third person” (Adversus Praxean, 12; De pudicitia, 21). “It is well known the Hellenistic formula that, after an extremely complex, speculative process, contradictory in part and, y any case, long and pitiful, received its classic profiles from the three Cappadocian Fathers (Basil, Gregory Nacianceno and Gregory of Nyssa) in the IV century: God is a triad in “persons” (hypostasis, subsistence, ancestry) and, nevertheless, one in “nature” (physis, ousia, essence, substance)” (H. Küng, Being Christian, Ed. Cristiandad, Madrid, 1977, 601). From Antioch’s desert, Saint Geronimo (about 376) expresses his perplexity to Pope Damasus: “The Arian’s branch named Campenses requires from me, a Roman citizen, that brand new name of the three hypostasis (persons). Tell me which apostles left us such things?” (Epistolary 15, 3). And also: “No tradition of secular letters understands anything else for hypostasis than substance (ousía)” (15, 4). At the end, leaving the Bible far behind and entering into philosophic speculations, they try (fearlessly) to explore the secrets of God that “no one but the spirit of God knows” (1Co 2, 11).
10. St Augustine is conscious of the impossibility of wishful thinking about the ineffable and to answer what things are those three: “The fact that there are three is ensured by the true faith when it says that the Father is not the Son, and that the Holy Spirit, God’s Gift, is neither the Father nor the Son” (About the Trinity VII,4,7). And in another passage he adds: “The Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, coequal to the Father and the Son and belonging to the trinity unit” (I, 4, 7). Besides, “only the Father is father and he is not Father of two sons, but of only one Son” (VII, 4, 7). And finally, “We did not find either that the Scripture speaks about three persons”, but it does not deny it (VII, 4, 8). St. Augustine tried to frame the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in an anthropological form in analogy with man’s faculties: memory, understanding and will (About the Trinity I, 3, 5-6). In the XIII century Saint Thomas of Aquinas insisted along this line (Theological Sum I, c, 27, a, 3).
11. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “Following the apostolic tradition, in the first Ecumenical Council of Nicea, year 325, the Church confessed that the Son is ‘consubstantial’ to the Father, that is, only one God with him. The second Ecumenical Council congregated in Constantinople in the year 381, maintained this expression in its formulation of the Nicea Creed and confessed ‘the Only Son of God, conceived by the Father before all the centuries, light of light, true God from true God, conceived not created, consubstantial with the Father” (n.242). The faith in the Spirit was formulated in Constantinople in this manner: “We believe in the Holy Spirit, Lord and giver of life, which proceeds from the Father (n.245).
12. M. Schmaus comments: “To manifest the faith, the Council uses as key concept that designated with the word homousios (consubstantial), taken from the Gnostics”, He also says: “the fight to impose the council doctrine filled the fourth and fifth centuries. At the beginning the matter was the relationship of the Son to the Father, without pondering the relationship of the Holy Spirit to these two. From about the year 360 the Holy Spirit was introduced in the discussion, ascribing also to Him the homousios, that is, the equality in the possession of the unique essence” (o. c., 600).
13. To complicate things more, politics get involved. The emperor Constantine, who intervened personally in the sessions, convoked the  Council of Nicea. The council was presided by the bishop Osio of Cordoba, who resides in the imperial court. Pope Sylvester sends two presbyters like delegates; about 300 bishops were present, one forth of the existing, most of them from the East. Many of them left discontent; in general they were against Arrio (+336), who denied Christ’s divinity, but they did not like the expression “homousios”; they were afraid of an interpretation of it in the sabelian sense. According to Sabelio (3rd century), the same God appears successively in different modes. Besides, the origin of the Nicene- Constantinopolitan creed has not been totally cleared; we have neither the acts of Nicea nor  that of Constantinople; this council was called for by emperor Theodosius; no Pope’s delegates attended; the council defined the divinity of the Holy Spirit, closing so definitely the Trinitarian question; the bishops disagreeing with the imperial theology were dismissed and exiled.
14. In the council of Caledonia (year 451) the Nicene Creed was read and approved by acclamation; the imperial delegates then ordered that “the faith of the one hundred and fifty Fathers” formulated in Constantinople be equally read. At the end, all the bishops signed the Constantinopolitan creed, in the presence of the emperor Marciano. This creed (that later on is found in Rome, in the eleventh century) develops the third article on the Holy Spirit more than the previous one. According to the original Greek version, Nicea´s council creed merely said: “And (we believe) in the holy spirit. The so called creed of the apostles, which comes from the old Roman creed, was imposed by Emperor Charlemagne in all his dominions (year 769) and becomes Rome’s official creed in the twelfth century.
15. The liturgy of the Trinity is propagated in France from the eighth century in spite of strong Roman opposition. Pope John the XXII introduces it in Rome in the year 1334. Nevertheless, in ordinary predication, Trinitarian doctrine is usually silenced, although the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are mentioned. It is true that in popular Christian faith, perhaps as a consequence of the change in the meaning of the terms, the Trinity is often understood in a triadic sense (three persons, three gods), which is not what the Bible says. It does not match either the monarchism or modalism (one person with two or three successive ways of manifestation). Through speculation, they arrived to a sterile controversy between Latin and Greek churches. St Augustine had affirmed that the Spirit comes from the Father and from the Son (Filioque). This doctrine was introduced in the Constantinopolitan creed by Pope Benedict VIII in 1014. Nevertheless, the Orientals followed the doctrine that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. At the end, both interpretations are compatible.
16. The formula “glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit” appears in the anti-Aryan controversy in the 4th century. However, the oldest formula (which adapts to the classic roman way of praying) is this: “Glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit”. This is the perspective of the New Testament. The key problem is not the question of how three can be one, but how the relationship of Jesus with God in the light of the Spirit can be determined in accordance with the Scripture. Attempts of interpretation based on philosophical concepts (so outdated, so changeable, so controversial) cannot be imposed on believers as a binding expression of faith.
17. Leaving aside Jesus’ word, they began speculating. They forgot the warnings given by Saint Cyril of Jerusalem to his catechumens (4th century): “In regards to nature and hypostasis, don’t get mixed up in it!. If the Scriptures had said something about this matter, we would speak about it. But not being in writing, we should not have such audacity” (Catechesis 16, 24) Jesus says that the Spirit “will not give his own message” (Jn 16, 13), “he will remind you all that I have told you” (14, 26; DV 10). Disregarding his word, nobody can claim the Spirit of Christ for himself.
18. During the Last Supper, Jesus says to his disciples that after his death they will not stay alone, without a defender. They will be defended in another way, in the Spirit, since Christ’s resurrection is accomplished in the dynamics of the Spirit (2 Co 3, 17). “I will not leave you orphans: I am coming back to you…. On that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me, and I in you.” (Jn 14, 18- 20), And also: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my Father will love him; and we will come to him and make our home in him” (14,23; see 17,3; Mk12, 35-37; Lk11,2-4; Jn 8,17-18;10,30; 1Jn 2,1). And finally: “When you are arrested…… it is not you who will speak, but it will be the spirit of your Father in you” (Mt 10, 19-20; see Is50,9).
19. –         According to the experience of the first disciples, before Easter the Spirit is only in Jesus, but after Easter it is poured over the whole people (Acts 2,15; Jl 2,28-32). God and Christ Jesus give themselves in the Spirit: “The Holy Spirit is God’s Spirit: it is God himself as far as strength and the power of grace the one who conquers the interior, the heart of the man … As God’s Spirit, it is at the same time Christ Jesus’ Spirit exalted to the right of God”. (H. Küng, 599). God´s finger is God´s spirit (Lk 11, 20; Mt 12,28), The good things that God gives is the holy spirit (Mt 7,11; Lk 11,13). Both formulas “spirit of God” and “spirit of Christ” mean the gift of the Spirit given to the believers (Rom 5, 1-5; 8,9-10;15,18-19;1 Co 3,16; 2,20). Christ is the Son of God and God is given to us by Him: “Through him we approach the Father in one spirit” (Eph 2, 18). St. Hilarious (about the year 356) says: “All of us are spiritual if the Spirit of Christ is inside us. But this is the spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. And if the spirit of Christ is inside us, inside us also is the spirit of the One who raised Christ from the dead (Rom 8, 11)” (Adversus Aryans 8,21). The Holy Spirit is gift, present (2,1) a thing from the nature of the Father and of the Son, power operating in God and in Christ (8, 23.25.26.31.39).
20. –   The Spirit of God has become so identified with the glorified Lord, that He does not only give “holy spirit” (Jn 20,22), but through his resurrection becomes “spirit that gives life”. (1 Co 15, 45). Paul even says: “The Lord is the spirit” (2 Co 3, 17). Raised to God´s life, He exists in the way of being and acting of the spirit, that is: “of the Spirit as power by which the glorified Lord continues present in world’s history, as an initiation of a new history and of a new world. From that, a decisive consequence is reached: the faith in the Spirit and the faith in the Church came so to coincide, since both were the same faith in the presence and in the action of God in the world, in the life and in men’s history” (J. M. Castillo).
* Dialogue:
–  some questions about God´s mystery
–  it is a mystery revealed to the simple people: “If someone loves me, says Jesus, he will follow my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and we will make our home in him
–  it is necessary to revise own tradition in the light of Scriptures

THE TEMPTATION, THE EVIL

1. –      Jesus prayer ends with this request:  “Do not let us to fall into temptation” (Lk 11,4). Saint Mathew adds to it: “but deliver us from the Evil One” (Mt 6,13). What are we asking in these sentences? Is it something we say in a hurry and routinely? Do we know actual situations in which it is really necessary to ask for light and strength before the temptation and the evil?.
2. – According to the Bible, human existence finds itself in a crossing between the good and the evil, between the grace and the disgrace, in a fighting field. In that combat, human being feels himself like being “flesh”, id est, weak: “All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field …. . The grass withers, the flower wilts, but the word of our God will forever stand” (Is 40,6-8). In a special way, human weakness is evident before the fact of the temptation, before the presence of the evil. Jesus prayer assumes these situations.
3. –      Humanity is tempted from the beginning. God’s plan is to stay near the man, to dialogue with him, but the man suspects that he does not need God to live, that God is envious, enemy of his happiness and of his life: “Your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil” (Gn 3,5). Under the image of the forbidden fruit, temptation appears “desirable to the sight and excellent to get wisdom”. Temptation appears camouflaged and needs to be unmasked. Its effects can be seen in the various aspects of quotidian life: family, work, politics, religion. In this manner came the evil to the world, and in the same manner it continues coming today. If all the evil introduced by man in the world disappeared, this world would be a garden.
4. –      Jesus was tempted, too. Before the temptation of the bread, Jesus answers that “people cannot live on bread only, but from every word that God speaks”. Before the temptation of the doubt that demands a miracle here and now to go on, Jesus answers: “You shall not challenge the Lord, your God”. Before the temptation of power that promises efficacy, but that demands submission, servility and worship, Jesus answers that man only must kneel before God: “Worship the Lord your God and serve him alone”.
5. –      The dessert is the temptation place. More than a geographic location, it is a deep experience, lived there where the man experiments the exodus difficulties and the liberation process. Nevertheless, dessert is also a meeting place of man with God. Looking back, we can acknowledge with amazement God’s action before the destroyer dessert’s menace: “Neither your garment even fray, nor your feet swelled” (Dt 8,4). God takes care so that his people do not collapse underway: He sends them the manna, dessert’s food, he opens ways where there was none.  Abraham, father of all believers, said it: “The Lord will provide” (Gn 22,14)
6. –      The dessert is a test that reveals what there is in man’s heart. Paul recalls it to Corinth’s community. Dessert’s experience opened up a people greedy of evil, who does not confide in God, and falls down in several sins: idolatry, fornication, intent to tempt God, murmuring. All this was written down like a warning for us: “He who thinks that he stands beware, lest he fall”. And taking into account this: “God is faithful and will not let you be tempted beyond your strength (1Co 10, 12-14).
7. –      God tempts nobody: “Each of us is lured and enticed by his own evil desire” (Jas 1,14). So, it is necessary to watch the movements of the own heart, from where the evil intentions come out (Mk 7,21-22). It is also necessary to watch the accomplishment of the own mission, like the faithful administrator to whom the Lord placed as the head of his servants to feed them on time (Lk 14,42). Before harassment of the close death, Jesus finds his last refuge in the prayer in the orchard. It is something that the disciples need to be able to resist in middle of the difficulty. Because of that he tells them: “Keep watch and pray, all of you, so that you may not sip into temptation” (Mk 14,38). He prays for them to the Father in the last supper: “I do not ask you to remove them from the world but to keep them from the evil one” (Jn 17,15). And he infuses them confidence: “Courage! I have overcome the world!” (Jn 16,33). The disciples know that Jesus is “the strongest” (Lk 11,22)
8. –      It is necessary to watch, because the adversary is in action: he takes off the word seeded in the heart (Mt 13,39), he sows weeds among the wheat (Mt 13,25), he is “a murderer from the beginning; he is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8,44), he enters into Judas´ heart  (Jn 13, 27), he sift the disciples (Lk 22,31). It is even advised to avoid the occasion, don’t allow the watch to go down: “lest you give the devil a foothold” (Eph 4, 27), “he prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour” (1 P 5, 8).
9. –      It is, besides, necessary to pray in the test (Ps 31), with our own words, with the psalms, like the first communities, having Jesus´ prayer like a model: we find in it a scheme for our prayers (Tertullus), it includes our requests and supplications (Cyprians). In our case, the model is the last request: “Do not let us fall into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One”. It is important to take into account that in Jesus´ prayer the believer is not alone, he is in the middle of “us”, id est, in a brotherhood community. His prayer is plural: Our Father.
10. –    The believer knows that his own strength is not enough and that the evil overflows him. Like the second Vatican Council says: “All human life, individual and collective, is presented like a fight, certainly dramatic, between the goodness and the evil, the light and the darkness. Even more, the man feel himself unable to tame with efficacy by himself the evil attacks, to the point to feel himself ironed in chains.” (GS13) That is why, the believer refers to the Lord: “I called upon the Lord in my distress, I cried to my God for help, and from his temple he heard my voice (Ps 18,7), “instruct me in your statutes” (Ps 119,12), “let me not my heart be drawn to evil” (Ps 141,4), “set a guard at my mouth” (141,3), “guide me in your truth” (25,5), “teach me to do your will” (143,10), “create in me, o God, a pure heart; give me a new and steadfast spirit” (51,12), “prove me, o Lord, put me to the test; examine my soul, and search my heart” (26,2).
11. –    The situations can be very diverse: crossings in which the sense of life, illness, accidents, deaths, injustices, persecutions, great deceits (false Christ’s and false prophets, Mk 13,12) are involved. Although the situation is humanly desperate, the believer places himself in God’s hands: “You, o Lord, are my refuge” (Ps 7,12), “in you I take shelter” (7, 2), “into your hands I commend my spirit” (Ps 31,6), “I wait for the Lord, and I put my hope in his word” (Ps 130,6), “my help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip …. Neither the sun will harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will guard you from any evil, he will protect your soul; the Lord will watch over your coming and going, both now and forever”. (Ps 121)
12. –    The enemies place traps, like it is made with the animals following his track: “along the way I walk they have hidden a trap for me”. (Ps 142,4), “free me from the snare they have set for me” (31, 5), “they dug a pit” (35,7), “O lord, deliver me from men of evil, protect me from violent people, forever plotting evil and stirring up strife; they have tongues sharp as a serpent, and fangs poisonous as a viper’s under their lips” (140,2-4). The believer, watching and praying, confides in the Lord: “No enemy shall outwit him” (89,23), “the Lord supports me” (3,6), “the Lord will rescue me” (55,17), “for he will keep me safe in his shelter in times of misfortune” (27,5), “those who hope in you will never be humbled” (25,3)
*Dialogue: Over situations in which we pray before the temptation and the evil

19. ONLY ONE IS YOUR FATHER
He addresses us his word

1. –      The father’s figure evokes life’s origin and source, confidence and support, benevolence and tenderness, safety and care, wisdom and counsel, orientating guide, a model to follow. Even being evil, the fathers know how to give good things to their children (Lk 11,13). But, in our times, the psychoanalysis, the Marxism, and the existentialism have impregnated the contemporary society with their analysis and fatherhood appears like synonymous of regressive and childish illusion, of a non-solved complex of imaginary faults, of alienation, that takes dignity out of man and converts him in a mild instrument of his terrain masters; it suggests a servile dependence, coward submission, fear to freedom, blind obedience, dreadful authority. In this context, can we really call Father to God?, how?, in which sense?.
2. –      Almost in every religion we attribute fatherhood to the divinity, but this remains in the vaguely religious stage. “No one has ever seen God”. (Jn 1,18). In the world of the philosophy God’s idea is not even established; besides this, alarm lights are switched on: illusion – fault – alienation – slavery. In ordinary life God’s reality like father is very little experienced, although in principle is given like truth (Jn 8,41). In the Bible is God who calls himself father more than any one else. When he talks, he acts, and when he acts, he talks: he is with us (Ex 3.15) and reveals the sense of history and of creation. In a special way, in the Gospel, God alive appears in a dialogue with man, he addresses us his word, he treats us like his children (Jn 1,11; see Gn 3, 8-9), he manifests himself to his disciples: “Father, Lord of heaven and earth, I praise you, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned people and revealed them to the little (Mt 11,25).
3.- Genesis chapter 22 narrates the most painful time in Abraham’s life. While involved in the test obscurity, he perhaps has the sensation of finding himself absolutely alone. But in the hardest instant the Lord’s angel calls him, liberating him of such a terrible test. And Abraham calls that place “the Lord provides” (Gn 22,14). He makes himself conscious that he is under God’s watch and providence. It is God who is looking to us, who is taking care of us. We can not see most things existing in the world, since they are very far to be able to reach them with our eye. And there are things so small that we cannot perceive them. God sees every thing. His regard penetrates the warp, the man’s heart. He distinguishes the authentic from the false; the expression from the thinking, the mask from the original. For Him the roots, the bottom, the origin are evident.
4. –  Providence is a reality that we can live. We receive some news: things have happened in this and that way. Around us a circle is forming, a block of things, of facts, of exigencies. And this entire circle is looking at us. But, is it something or is it Somebody?. Let you wake up your deepest comprehension!. It is Him!. You only have to keep yourself awake and alert, and someday he will show himself to you, and you will feel guided by his Word. You will then go into that reality, like into an alive and active being: “Providence is not an already made machine that simply works, but it is accomplishing and realising, with a novelty that springs from the divine’s freedom and also from our insignificant human freedom. And not everywhere, but even here. And not in a general way, but now. Providence is the mystery of the living God, and the more you are immerse in it, the more you will notice it, like a living being. You will notice when you do not allow it to pass away, and when you take part in it. It is calling you. God is calling you to take part in his work performance, foreseen from all the eternity. Your conscience must understand what is up in this moment. Your own freedom must convert it into reality. You must place yourself like a living man in the middle of God’s living activity” (R. Guardini).
5. –      Israel experiments in its history God’s tender action. In the exodus, God shields them, supports them cares for them like the apple of their eyes (Dt 32,10). Hosea recalls and proclaims his immense tenderness: “I loved Israel when he was a child;  …. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them in my arms; yet little did they realize that it was I who care for them. (Hos 11,1-3). Isaiah compares Lord’s love with a mother’s love: “Can a woman forget the baby at her breast? … Though she may forget, I will not forget you” (Is 49,15). God is love: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him” (Ps 103,13). That love is in the own being’s origin: “It was you who formed my inmost part” (Ps 139,13). The believer lives with infancy’s spirit: “like a weaned child on its mother’s lap” (Ps 131,2); with confidence: under his divine wings (Ps 91). And he is invited to invoke him: “You are my Father” (Ps 89,27). To place his own destiny in his hands: “Into your hands I commend my spirit” (Ps 31,6).

6. –      Only Jesus reveals us who is really God: “No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Mt 11,27). It is a vital acquaintance. Every event of his life opens up the true God’s face. Jesus founds his mission in his Father decisions, that he gradually manifests to him: “My food is to do the will of the One who sent me” (Jn 4,34). That who is son of God listens Jesus word (Jn 8, 42-43). In a special way, He is “the son” (Lk 3,22; Ps 2,7; Mt 21,17). He invites us to accept like children, God’s plan (Mk 10,15), a plan prepared from ever and progressively manifested in history. Really, “we know that in everything God works for the good of those who love him” (Rom 8,28).
7. –      Jesus invites us to confide in the Father and not to be slaves of worries about food or dress: “Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. Set your heart first on the kingdom and justice of God and all these things will also be given to you” (Mt 6, 32-33). Nevertheless, the man needs the Spirit’s strength to live before God the Father with a son’s heart: “And because you are sons God has sent into your heart the Spirit of his sons which cries out: Abba!”. (Gal 4,6; see Rom 8, 14-16). With the Spirit’s strength, hope in God maintains firm before the death’s fact: “In my Father’s house there are many rooms” (Jn 14,2; see Heb 2,15).
8. –      To live with confidence in God as father it is not possible if we don’t live fraternally with the rest of the men (Is 58, 9-10). If God is our father, then the world is the home of everybody and we all are brothers, even the enemies: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your father in Heaven. For he makes his sun rise on both the wicked and the good, and he gives rain to both the just and the unjust” (Mt 5, 44-45).
9. – Jesus manifests God´s heart in an incomparable way in the prodigal son parable. (Lk 15,11-32). The main figure is really the father.  God appears as a light that lightens, as a compass orienting the man in his options, who does not leave him in the dangerous practice of his freedom and that creates new liberation perspectives, renewing the episodes that were or looked like disastrous. God’s fatherhood is neither oppressive nor reduces the man to passivity, to a childish dependency,  to the abrogation of his own personality. According to the Gospel, it helps us to be more responsible, more free and more conscious.
10. –    God’s revelation like father is in the centre of Jesus message. Denouncing to scribes and Pharisees like false fathers, Jesus exhorts us to avoid calling father to anyone in the earth: “You have only one Father, he who is in Heaven.” (Mt 23,9). He invites us to call him father, to ask him to manifest his action and his presence, that his name be known and respected, that his kingdom come, that his will be accomplished: “our Father of Heaven, holy be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven” (Mt 6,9-10). Jesus teaches us that the man can always turn to the father, such as he is in the deepest of his life and with what he needs more: “Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are in debt to us. Do not bring us to the test but deliver us from the Evil One”. (Mt 6,11-13).
Dialogue: About what seems most important to us.
 

OUR BREAD

1. –    In its first part, Jesus prayer is centred in God’s reality: his name, his kingdom, his will. In the second part, it is centred in man’s reality: the bread, the forgiveness, the temptation, the freedom from evil. For those who have everything guaranteed, it can be superfluous to ask for every day bread to God. For those who first look for the kingdom of God and its justice, it can appear unnecessary: the bread will also be given to them (Mt 6,33). Nevertheless, Jesus invites us to say: give us this day our daily bread. (Lk 11,3).
2. –    The need for bread is the symbol of all the needs. The bread is a gift from God, that feeds to every living being: “They all look to you for their food in due time” (Ps 104,27). A situation of acute need may become temptation: “They blasphemed against God saying: can God spread a table in the desert?” (78,19-20), So, in the Proverbs it is requested: “Give me neither poverty nor riches, Give me just as much food as I need lest, satisfied, I deny you and say, “Who is Yahweh”?” (Pro 30,8-9). Nevertheless, bread security can not become an obstacle, or a tramp that keeps the disciple away from his mission. So Jesus say: “People cannot live on bread alone, they need every word that God speaks.” (Mt 4,4).
3. –    In the psalms God is praised because he has what is needed to live: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.”  (23,1-2). The fruit of the earth is a God’s blessing: “The land has given its harvest, God, our God, has blessed us.” (67,7; 65,10). To be able of eating in the middle of the dessert is part of God´s freedom action: “He fed them with bread from heaven.” (105,40); it is also said: “Some strayed in the wilderness and were lost, far away from the city; they wandered about hungry and thirsty, their lives ebbing away; then they cried to the Lord in anguish, and he rescued them from their distress, he led them by a straight way to a city where they could dwell.” (107, 4-7). Nevertheless, there are need situations that are due to a permanent lack of conversion: “If only my people would listen, if only Israel would walk in my ways ….. I would feed you with the finest wheat and satisfy you with honey from the rock.” (71,14-17).
4. – Without quitting of what is in our hands, we are invited to confide in God´s providence: “It is in vain that you rise early and stay up late, putting off your rest, toiling for your hard earned bread; for he provides for his loved ones even when they are asleep” (127,2). It is also said: “I will bless her fruits, her bread and the poor will be satisfied” (132,15). All this becomes praise and thanks action motive: “Praise the Lord, my soul …. he gives bread to the hungry …. he sustains the widow and the orphan” (146, 1-9). And also: “Praise your God, O Zion … he feeds you with the finest grain” (147, 12-14).
5. –    The need for bread does not impede the prophets to proclaim God´s word. On the contrary, the prophetic mission includes the generosity, the sharing of all belongings and the multiplication of loaves. Such is the case of Elisha, who says to a man carrying twenty barley and wheat loaves: “Give the loaves to these people so that they may eat”. The man says: “How am I going to divide these loaves among one hundred men?”. Elisha attains himself to God´s word:  “They shall eat and have some left over” (2 R 4,42-44). It is the confidence of Elisha: “The jar of meal shall not emptied, nor did the jug of oil fail.” (1R17-14).
6. –    For prophet Ezekiel Israel purification, like now the purification of the Church, will have the goods multiplication like signal: “I will free you from all your uncleanness. I shall summon the wheat and make it plentiful and so keep famine away from you. I shall see that the fruits of the earth and the produce of the fields are plentiful and that you no longer suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations”. (Ez 36, 29-30).
7. –    Jesus faces the bread problem with his disciples. In the line of the prophets, he multiplies the loaves through the sharing. By this way, disciples’ community is a signal of what the society must be. The hanger is something inconceivable amongst a fraternal people: “Emaciated children are begging for alms, but there is no one to help them out” (Lm 4,4). Like in the first Christian communities, the goal is that there is no needy person among them (Acts 4,34)
8. –    Jesus went to the other side of the sea of Galilee, to the Tiberias. He climbed to the mountain and sit down there in his disciples company. Galilee is neither Judea nor Jerusalem. It is the poor people, “in the dark”, needed of redemption. Many people follow him, because they see the signals that he makes with the ill people. The Pasch is near, in the pass a feast of liberation, and now “the feast of the Jews”. In a mountain of Galilee, far from the temple of Jerusalem, Jesus prepares other feast, the feast of the shared and multiplied loaves, the feast of the community (Jn 6).
9. –    When he sees many people came, he said to Philippe: Where are we going to buy loaves for all these people to eat?. He said that to test him. To share is a test for the disciples. Philippe says him: Two hundred silver coins worth of bread are not enough so that every one can have a little. A silver coin was the salary of a worker. Andrew, Peter’s brother says: There is a boy here who has five loaves and two fishes; but ¿what is this for so many people?. We have flourishing here the community’s economy, the widow’s economy (2R4,2), the economy of the little: in this case, the sharing of a boy. The bread is made with barley, like in Elisha´s time.
10. –  Jesus says: Have the people sit down together in groups. In this feast they are not going to eat on their foot, in a hurry; they will eat sitting, with the dignity of the free people: there was much green grass in that place. Besides, they do not eat separated, each one is his home, but altogether. Jesus takes the community bread, the bread of the little ones, the freedom’s bread, and handed them among the people in a thanksgiving ambient for the received gift: “And Jesus took then the five loaves and, after giving thanks, he distributed then to hose seated, and the same with the fishes, all they wanted”. At the end there was leftovers: “They filled twelve baskets.” If we share, hunger in the whole society can be satiated. People perceives the signal, seeing in Jesus the prophet who is to come to the world. They want to make him a king, but Jesus avoids the crowd’s strategy, His kingdom does not belong to this world, although he certainly is the promised king, according with the writings: “May grain abound throughout the land, waving and rustling as in Lebanon; may cities teem with people.” (Ps 72,16).
11. –  The following day, the people looks for Jesus, but no because of the signals, but because of the fact that they had eaten to their satisfaction.  The disciples cannot stop there. The bread is a sign of the biggest of the gifts. The disciples must go farther, they must look for “the bread of life, the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”, that bread that we also need and that we must ask for: “Lord, give us always of that bread”
12. –  Jesus disciple knows that the man must earn the bread with the sweat of his face (Gn 3, 19) and does not forget Paul’s advise: Anyone who is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2 Thes 3,10). But now, who is seeking over everything the kingdom of God and its justice, apparently does not have ensured tomorrow’s bread. Like in the dessert’s experience, the food needed to live is received daily. This circumstance is assumed in the prayer, knowing that tomorrow’s worry does not fit in Jesus spirit (Mt 6,34). The disciple lives only the present day, his future is in God’s hands. The disciple does not live isolated, but in a community where sharing is the way of life and where nobody is in need. He does not ask only for his bread, but for our bread.
  *  Dialogue: Share some experiences.