A CHURCH MORE ACCORDING TO THE GOSPEL When he wrote the Beatitudes, Matthew takes a different tack than Luke as he tries to trace the lines that should characterize Jesus’ followers. That’s where its importance lies for us in these times when the Church needs to go about finding her a

SOMETHING NEW AND GOOD The first writer who gathered up Jesus’ actions and message summed it all up by saying that Jesus proclaimed the «Good New of God». Later on, all the Gospel writers use the same Greek term (euaggelion) and express the same conviction: in the God announced by Jes

WITH THE FIRE OF THE SPIRIT The first Christian communities were concerned about clearly differentiating John’s baptism that immersed people in the Jordan River from Jesus’ baptism that communicated his Spirit in order to cleanse, renew and transform the heart of his followers. Withou

A NEW STAGE Before relating Jesus’ prophetic activity, the Gospel writers talk about an experience that will radically transform his life. After being baptized by John, Jesus feels himself a beloved Child of God, inhabited fully by God’s Spirit. Jesus sets out announcing to everyone,

RESPONDING TO THE LIGHT According to the great theologian Paul Tillich, the great tragedy of modern man is to have lost the dimension of profundity. We’re no longer capable of asking where we’re from and where we’re going. We don’t know how to ask ourselves about what we do and ought

MOTHER Many could wonder that the Church makes the first day of the new year coincide with the feast of Holy Mary, Mother of God. And yet it’s important that since the 4th century, the Church, having solemnly celebrated the birth of the Savior, wants to begin the new year under the ma

GOD CLOSE TO US Christmas is much more than all the superficial and manipulative things going on around us these day in our neighborhoods. A feastday much deeper and joyful than all the fads of our consumer society. We believers must recover again the heart of this feast and look behi

INNER EXPERIENCE Matthew the evangelist has a special interest in telling his readers that Jesus should be called «Emmanuel». He well knows that this could end up jarring us and seeming strange. Who can be called by a name that signifies «God with us»? However, this name contains with

HEALING WOUNDS What Jesus was doing left the Baptist confused. John was waiting for a Messiah who would wipe out sin from the world by imposing God’s rigorous justice, not a Messiah dedicated to healing wounds and alleviating suffering. From the prison of Machaerus he sends a message

WALKING NEW PATHS Around the year 27 or 28, there appeared in the desert of the Jordan a prophet both original and independent, who made a big impact on the Jewish people: the first generations of Christians always saw him as the one who prepared the way for Jesus. His whole message c