Happy Easter to all!

This Sunday we are also offered a passage of the discourse that Jesus addressed to the disciples during the Last Supper and that, therefore, is part of his testament. To understand his words, we must try to identify ourselves with the dramatic moment in which he pronounced them. The group of disciples that follows him is wounded. Judas had recently left the cenacle to go and make an agreement with the high priests on how to deliver Jesus to them. John points out in his Gospel that when Judas came out of the upper room it was night. He saw him shrouded in darkness because Judas had preferred darkness to light.

The eleven who remained with Jesus were frightened and troubled. Twice he says to them, "Do not be troubled, do not be discouraged." Under what conditions are these eleven? They have cultivated great dreams and hopes, and now they realize that their Master is about to leave them. If when Jesus was with them, they were so hesitant, so unsure, what can we expect now when they are left alone?

According to human criteria all the requirements for this lost group to start a new world history are missing. We can also guess today, after two thousand years that if this convulsion of the world has taken place, we must suppose that this group has acted with a force that is not of this world.

And it is precisely this divine power that Jesus now wants to speak to the disciples about to prepare them for the moment when they will no longer be able to count on his physical presence with them. At this dramatic moment, four disciples ask Jesus questions; they present their uncertainties and perplexities to him. The number four, as we know, indicates multitude, the whole of humanity; and concretely, on the lips of these four disciples, we find the questions that we ask ourselves today because we are like them, and at a certain moment, the physical presence of the Master is no longer there.

The first one who asks the question is Peter. He says, 'Lord, where are you going, I would like to follow you. and you say I can't follow you now... why can't I follow you?' Jesus says to him, 'No, you will follow me later.' Peter insists, and so Jesus says to Peter: "Before a cock crow you will deny me three times." That is: 'Peter, I understand you, you are frail, one day you will follow me, but let me now reach my goal, the purpose of my life. And then you also will follow me.' It's our question. We would like to follow Jesus, but we realize our frailties. and Jesus understands us in these frailties.

The second question is the one asked by Thomas (Thomas is a very concrete person). Jesus had said: "Where I am going, you know the way." And Thomas says: "We don't know where you are going; how shall we know the way?" The question is precisely that of the path of our life; many paths open before us, as many as life proposals that are made to us: from friends, from people we admire, from the media... there are many paths open before us; which one is the right one that leads us to the joy, to the peace we are looking for? In the face of all these options, we often remain disoriented. This is what Jesus says: 'I am the way, seek no other way, you will not be happy.' We are made for this way, the only way that leads to the Father.

Now Philip intervenes and says to Jesus: "Master, show us the Father." and Jesus says to him: "Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." This is another question that we ask Jesus. You can verify that on the lips of these disciples are our questions. How to see the Father? The only way is to look, to contemplate Jesus, and we will see the Father. And today we contemplate Jesus in the Gospel. The four gospels, from four different perspectives, make us see Jesus, the Son of God whom we must resemble; we must unite our lives to his to be like the heavenly Father.

Now Judas intervenes, the fourth one; he is not Iscariot who had left the upper room. He is the other Judas. Judas was a widespread name in Israel. And he says to him: 'Lord, why are you are about to manifest yourself to us and not to the world? We would like you to manifest yourself to the world with extraordinary signs and wonders, that is, we would like to witness a manifestation of yourself raised by the clamor of the multitude.' This is also what even the relatives of Jesus wanted. In these words of Judas, the disappointment of the eleven is perceived. They seem to say, 'We have been with you for three years, we have believed in you, we've had a wonderful adventure, and now you're leaving, it's all over, and we're going back to the life we had before, nothing has changed. You announced the kingdom of God, the kingdom of justice, of love, of peace, But, in reality, the world is still the same as before.'

The moment of discouragement that these eleven live is the same that we experience today when we do not see our dreams and hopes realized and when we are tempted to resign ourselves to evil. I think of many young people who, in the early years of their youth, nurtured hopes, wanted to see the birth a new world, a more evangelical Church; they even worked hard for this to become a reality. At one point, disappointment overcame them, and they concluded, 'patience; we believed in a beautiful dream, but the kingdom of God will never come true.'

This is the context in which we must place the words of Jesus that we are about to hear. They are the answer to these questions. Let's listen to what Jesus says:

"Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me."

The words of Jesus that we have heard are the answer that he gives to the question posed by Judas Thaddaeus: 'Why do you manifest yourself to us and not to the world?' Jesus says: 'If anyone loves me...' 'The revelation that I give is that of love, and the world is not interested in this revelation; the world is interested in the manifestation of power, dominion, glory, riches. These revelations the world appreciates, admires, it grasps immediately. My revelation is not of this kind; I do not work miracles; the prodigies happen because of the faith that you give to my word. Whoever believes in my Gospel is a witness of wonders; wonders happen in the world; I do not do miracles.'

Never in the Gospel does it say that Jesus did miracles. The word θαύμα - fauma - miracle, is not in the Greek text to present what Jesus performs. The world expects these revelations, but this is not the revelation Jesus gives. Jesus says, 'I am speaking of giving one's life, of forgetting oneself, of humble service to the poor, of putting one's own goods at the service of the needy. I am speaking of the gift of life even to the enemy.'

The world does not understand this revelation; the world appreciates the one who has many servants, not the one who serves. There is an episode in Luke's Gospel that shows very well why the world cannot understand the revelation of Jesus. At a certain point in the trial, Pilate finds himself in trouble because he realizes that Jesus has not made anything wrong, but he can't displease Annas and Caiaphas, and he doesn't know how to get out of this mess, so he sends Jesus to Herod Antipas, who happened to be in Jerusalem because it was the Passover and when Herod saw Jesus coming he rejoices because he has wanted to see him for a long time. He was expecting a revelation of Jesus, a manifestation of his glory; he had heard that he did wonders; he wanted to see miracles. These would have convinced him to follow Jesus.

The evangelist Luke says that Jesus didn't even speak a word to him, and so what did Herod do? He despised him. The Greek term, the verb used, is ἐξουθενήσας = exouthenesas, which means he annihilated him; said to him: 'You are nobody, you are worthless, your revelation counts for nothing, go away, you are a freak.' I believe that many disciples today are also victims of Judas Thaddeus's misunderstanding. The same with the relatives of Jesus who expected these manifestations. Many disciples today expect miracles, wonders. Wonders are done by faith; if we adhere to the Gospel, wonders happen in the world; let us not expect these miracles to come down from heaven.

Nowhere in the Gospels does it say that Jesus performed miracles but σεμείο = semeion = signs and wonders when faith is given to his word. And, indeed, Jesus calls wicked and perverse people those who expect these glorious manifestations. Jesus says: "Whoever loves me will keep my word." Jesus explains what it means to 'love.' It means to be in tune with his life, as the wife joins her life with the husband. This is love, not a vague feeling. To love Jesus means to carry him in one's heart.

What happens to those who let themselves be involved in this love? Jesus says, "my Father will love him." It is not a reward that you receive at the end of your life, no; you immediately enter into communion with God; in you is manifested the life that is the life of God because you love. And Jesus continues: "we shall come to him and make our dwelling with him." God dwells in the one who loves. Jesus is now saying something extraordinary. When one loves, God is present in him. Jesus was God with us because he was totally moved by the Spirit, by the divine life, which is love. Now this love, this Spirit, has been given to each of us.

When this love is manifested through us, it is given to each one of us, the glory of God is manifested, that manifestation which, unfortunately, the world does not grasp. This is one of the real presences of Jesus in our midst. Jesus is present in the broken and shared Eucharistic bread; he is present in the poor, and present where two gather in his name, he is present in the word of the Gospel, and he is present in every loving disciple; in them is revealed the Son of God who is present in the world.

"Whoever does not love me does not keep my words," says Jesus. If you do not love, if you do not accept his word, you still belong to the world which is not able to grasp the true revelation that Jesus gives. "Yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me." The authorities tended to divide Jesus from the Father; they did not accept this manifestation of the face of God because of the religious structure of the scribes, of the Pharisees and the priests of the temple still belonged to the world that did not accept the revelation of the Father. that Jesus had come to give.

Jesus insists, saying, 'the word which I proclaim, my revelation, is not mine, it is the revelation of the heavenly Father.' Jesus knows that at this point, the disciples are afraid. They are afraid of the gift of life, they are scared of this love, and what frightens them now is the fact that they are left alone; the Master will no longer be with them. To instill courage in them, Jesus makes a promise. Let us listen:

"I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name, he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you."

Shortly before Judas Thaddaeus raised his question, on which we have dwelled, Jesus made a promise to the disciples there in the upper room. He had said, "I will not leave you orphans; the Father will send you another Paraclete." What does Jesus say? In ancient tradition, the word 'paraclete' was translated as 'comforter.' Then they realized that it did not translate well the idea of the Greek term παράκλητος (parakletos), then this transliteration of the Greek term 'parakletos' was preserved. It means the one who is near, the one who is near as a helper, the protector.

Jesus made this promise to the disciples in the upper room, but it applies to us. We need to have someone by our side. One of the most challenging tests of our faith is the feeling of isolation amid a world that thinks, reasons and acts according to very different criteria to those of the Gospel.

If we speak of forgiveness, love for the enemy, meekness, chastity, of self-control, of unconditional conjugal love; if we speak of eternal life, we shall be taken as people of the Gospel who speak out of this world, not fashionable; and those who behave according to the criteria of the evangelical morality are considered a rare person, and I would say somewhat moribund because they behave in an incomprehensible way for those who reason according to the criteria of this world. They can also be considered medieval, backward, and obscurantist. The types of families that are built today are not those proposed by the Gospel; the family of the future will be an extended family, free.

The Paraclete is called to be at the side of those who want to live in an evangelical way because the Paraclete makes you feel that you are not alone. If you hear a voice telling you that you have made evangelical choices, what you are doing is right, are life choices that will bring you joy. When you hear this voice, it is the voice of the Paraclete who is at your side. Listen to it.

But the Paraclete also means defender. What does he defend us from? It is enough to think of our own experiences. He defends us from so many voices that we hear; when you hear the reasonings that invite you to conform with what everybody does, to enjoy the present moment, to think about yourself. or to be disinterested in others; then, inside, you hear a voice that tells you that things are not like that; it tells you that those are speeches of death that you should not listen to them. That is the Spirit that defends you and defends your life from the poison that spreads the worldliness, from the pagan logic that so many media preach.

When you listen to the reasoning of those who tell you that the Beatitudes preached by Jesus are a dream, that the kingdom of God is a dream; that you can forget about the new world because it will never come true, that you should live as everybody else does; that for two thousand years, the Church has been preaching the Gospel and what has changed? Resign yourself, live like everybody else. But then you hear a voice inside you that tells you, 'Look, that's not the way things are. It pays to live by the Gospel. The kingdom of God will come to pass.' When you hear this voice, it is the Spirit that defends your life so that you do not lose it; but when someone withdraws about the life of this world as if it were the only one, and invites you to behave in this way, 'enjoy it, don't give it away '... it is then that you hear a voice saying to you, 'donate your life if you want to keep it.' That is the Spirit speaking to you.

Now Jesus identifies this Paraclete: "The Holy Spirit that the Father will send." And he will have two tasks to perform; the first, "he will teach you everything." Teach all that Jesus said; he adds nothing but teaches them to you. The Spirit leads us to understand better the message of Jesus. It is a promise that we see fulfilled in the life of the Church and our personal life. Today we understand the Gospel more and better than yesterday, better than a few centuries ago. In the past, the studies that exist today did not exist; the deepening of the Bible that we have today. How many times I hear people say when I explain the Gospel: 'Here everything is changed'; no, nothing has changed; the Gospel does not change at all. What happens is that today we understand it better than yesterday.

It is a sin against the Spirit to reject this new light. Sometimes I also hear it said, 'Why were these things not said before?' Because before, we had not yet understood it. It was a sin within the Church to close the heart to the light of this Spirit and his voice. And the Spirit teaches us something else. Not only does he make us understand better what Jesus said, but he also teaches us to reformulate the word of the Gospel in a new language to make it understandable to every culture and age.

The Spirit is not a theoretical teacher; he does not give us external instructions; the Spirit acts in our hearts; is a new life; if we listen to the Spirit, we live as Jesus lived, always obedient to his divine life. This is our new nature; the grape produces grapes not because it receives external instructions but its nature; thus the Christian has the divine nature given to him, and when he loves, he manifests this nature which is the Spirit; therefore, the norm that we must follow comes from within; it is the voice of the Spirit.

Then, "and remind you of all that I told you." Besides teaching, he helps you remember; he keeps the memory alive. The verb remember is very important in the Bible. God does not want his people to forget the works he did for his people. It is easy to lose the memory of one's own identity as sons and daughters of God and to go back to reasoning, speaking and live like everybody else. The Spirit constantly reminds us that Jesus is right.

And now the promise of a gift that Jesus gives us. Let's listen to it:

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. You heard me tell you, 'I am going away and I will come back to you.' If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe."

Today we know that Jesus' promise was fulfilled at Passover because the heavenly Father sent his Spirit who instructs us, and at all times reminds us of what Jesus said and tells us, 'He is right when he makes his proposals of life, which is the true life.' But is it possible to have a verification of the presence of this Spirit in us?

There are two unmistakable signs that this divine life is present in us; they are peace and joy, for peace and joy can only be present in those who love. If you have not love you will always be restless, upset; you may be full of pleasures, money, or success, but you will have no joy because you are well made, you are made to love. The definitive sign that God is in us and we are in harmony with the divine life that we have been given, which is peace and joy.

And now Jesus explains what is meant by peace, what his peace consists of, which is different from the peace that the world offers. What does 'world' mean? It is used in three different senses; in the Gospel according to John, by the world is sometimes understood the creation, the earth. The Son of God was sent into the world, became one of us, when Jesus says that 'God so loved the world so much that he gave his Son,' or when he says "I did not come into the world to condemn the world but to save the world," in this case by 'world' means humanity that is to be saved and the humanity that the heavenly Father loves to the point of offering his only Son.

In our passage, when we speak of the world, we refer to worldliness, that way of thinking and living dictated by the evil one and which gives rise to a society guided by the logic of competition, domination, the desire to impose oneself on others, the society that is based on the principle of the domination of the strongest, which can enslave you. This is the world that this society creates. The world guided by this evil logic also offers its peace, but what kind of peace is it? We find this logic in the 'Pax Romana,' which was well known at the time of Jesus because the Roman empire extended over the whole world, and nobody could do anything because they were subjugated. It is the peace of dominion, of violence. The weakest cannot reveal himself and must be subdued.

We find this logic of the 'Pax Romana' in the founding myth of the history of Rome. Romulus, who traces a furrow with a plow and says to his brother Remus, 'don't cross this border because I am stronger; I decide the boundaries where you can cross and where you must stay away from, and if you do, I will kill you.' Peace lasts while the victor prevails and the vanquished has no strength to rebel, but when he has this strength, he rebels and subdues the one who ruled before. Therefore, the 'Pax Romana is simply the interval between two wars. It is the 'Pax Romana' that justified slavery.

Jesus changes the concept of peace. The peace of Jesus is based on the love that breaks the barriers; it does not trace the furrows as Romulus did; it is the peace that unites hearts, that put the strongest, the most capable, the most gifted at the service of the weakest and the neediest. The other is not a brother to be killed, as Romulus did if he was not submissive or did not serve him, but he is one to be loved. The other is a brother, a son or daughter of the heavenly Father; and the new world is no longer that of the wolves who offer their peace, which is the peace of the cemeteries, where all must be silent, but the peace of the lambs where all lay down their lives in the service of their brothers. Only this is true peace.

Jesus continues: "Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid." Do not be discouraged. The Greek verb used is ταρασσσέσθω - tarassesstho = indicating the agitation of the waves of the sea. Jesus also experienced this turmoil. It is recalled three times in the Gospel according to John. Jesus is troubled in front of the tomb of Lazarus; Jesus is troubled and he says to his disciples when his hour has come: "Now my spirit is troubled, and what shall I say? For this reason, I have come to this trance" (Jn 12:27). He is also agitated in the cenacle when at a certain moment, Jesus says, "One of you will betray me" (Mt 26:20).

The peace of which Jesus speaks is also compatible with these moments of turmoil that we must consider in our life. Jesus also experienced moments of turmoil and turbulence; we must learn to find peace within ourselves, peace with ourselves, with our conscience, with what we believe, peace according to how we have configured our life in harmony with Spirit. We cannot make peace depending on what happens outside of us. True peace comes from union with God, dialogue with the Spirit. In faith, we must learn to see things differently. The joys and sufferings are framed in the light of the Gospel, in the light of the Spirit.

Then Jesus assures us of his presence with us. He says: "I am going away and I will come back to you." His first coming was when he came to our world, conditioned by space and time. When Jesus was in Capernaum, he was not with his mother in Nazareth, and his mother felt the distance of Jesus. Now when Jesus has returned to the Father all these limits have fallen and, therefore, he is always next to us. That's why he says: "You would rejoice that I am going to the Father" because he enters into this new condition, outside all limits of space and time. Therefore, Jesus is always at the side of each one of us.

"And now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe." This is the invitation that he makes to us to give him our adhesion, our complete confidence in his proposal of love because only this proposal, when it is lived, places us in a world of peace and happiness.

I wish you all a happy Easter.