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The LORD said to Moses:
Speak to Aaron and his sons and tell them: This is how you shall bless the Israelites. Say to them:
The LORD bless you and keep you!
The LORD let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you!
The LORD look upon you kindly and give you peace!
So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites, and I will bless them.

The book of Numbers, with a priestly seal, establishes norms of behavior for the people of Israel at a distance of seven centuries from the exodus, but, in a historical fiction, it imagines the people still wandering through the desert, being contemporary with Moses and aware of the presence of God that dwells in the Tent, in the middle of the camp. This very close divine presence inspires the legislation on ritual purity and the protocols of the nazirs, consecrated exclusively to God for specific times. At the end of these instructions, the official formula that the Aaronite priesthood will use in the future to bless the convened assembly is mentioned: The Lord bless you and keep you, illuminate his face upon you and grant you his favor, the Lord look upon you with compassion and grant you peace.

Blessing meant invoking God's protection over the people or over a particular person. The king who acted in the name of God did it, this is what David and Solomon did. Later, Deuteronomic and priestly literature extended this function to priests, as part of their mission as mediators between God and the people. The text, a synthesis of authentic religion, has been preserved and used with permanent piety in Israel and in the Christian world; It shows that God is the source of all good because he has that continuous attitude of concern, benevolence and compassion that the people need in their earthly pilgrimage. At the beginning of the year we ask that good God to bless us and protect us through the mediation of the Virgin Mary.

For the leader; with stringed instruments. A psalm; a song.
May God be gracious to us and bless us;
may his face shine upon us.
So shall your way be known upon the earth,
your victory among all the nations.
May the peoples praise you, God;
may all the peoples praise you!
May the nations be glad and rejoice;
for you judge the peoples with fairness,
you guide the nations upon the earth.
May the peoples praise you, God;
may all the peoples praise you!
The earth has yielded its harvest;
God, our God, blesses us.
May God bless us still;
that the ends of the earth may revere him.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption. As proof that you are children, God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.

The writings of the NT bear witness to a rapid theological evolution about Jesus Christ, which implied a simultaneous understanding of the figure of Mary in the mystery of Christ and the Church. At the beginning, Mary's presence in the post-Easter community did not require writings since the memories were recent, but the expansion of the Church and the passage of time made it necessary for the testimonies about the mother of Jesus to be preserved in writing.

When the time was up. Paul, around the 50s, provides us with the first mention of Mary (4, 4) which, in fact, is the only one in his extensive epistolary. It is a short phrase, but it contains the essential of the mystery of Mary in the incarnation: Paul alludes to a divine project of salvation developed over time thanks to the pedagogy of God who has chosen a people and has led them through mediators and keeping hope lit until the arrival of the Messiah. Paul says: When the fullness of time arrived (hóte dè êlthen tò plêrôma toû chrónoû), announcing that the divine project was finally fulfilled.

Born of a woman. The messenger of God belongs to our race that an obedient woman has brought to him in her virginal womb (genomenon ek gynaikós). This birth makes the Messiah our brother who participates in the glory and fragility, the capacity to grow and learn, to suffer and die, typical of the human condition.

Under the Law. Paul informs us that this Messiah born of a woman belongs to a specific people: Israel, with a particular history, heir of a promise of fertility and blessing, a people who, at the moment of the appearance of the Messiah, are subject to the Roman Empire and suffers from the poor pastoral care of its religious institutions. However, God has made his face shine on his people and has fulfilled his word.

So that we could receive the adoption of children. The Apostle outlines the objective of Jesus' saving mission: to communicate to us the gift of God's superabundant grace, the reconciliation that restores every fracture between God's plan and the human heart; the possibility of being instructed and strengthened internally by the Spirit to carry out the divine will. This new creation allows the believer, now converted into a son, to call God Abba, that is, "Dear Father", the maximum expression of communion and trust between the Creator and his creature; sign of definitive freedom and sure hope. All this, Paul says, has happened in history thanks to the availability of Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth.

So they went in haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds. And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them. When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

The shepherds ran away. Luke, who narrated the birth of the Messiah in the precariousness of the manger in Bethlehem, informs us of the resonance of the event in the modest audience of the shepherds. If Luke integrates the shepherds into the story of Jesus' birth, he does not do so to idealize them or to give the scene a bucolic tone. The author knows that for the official religion, shepherds, because of their typical tasks, are considered ritually impure, permanently banned from worship and divine blessing. If the evangelist was going to present Jesus as the liberator of all human slavery and limitations, this information could not be missing from the story of childhood where all the themes that will later be developed in the body of the gospel are found in seed. The shepherds, then, are for Luke the first recipients of the Good News and the qualified witnesses of the event.

The heart of Mary. Faced with the moving presence of the shepherds, Mary's contemplative attitude stands out. Luke says that she "treasured" (synetêrei) these events: the pauper circumstances of Jesus' birth and the triumphant testimony of the angels, and she meditated on them (symbállousa) in her heart. Thus she slowly discovered the presence of the powerful God in the fragility and poverty of the child wrapped in swaddling clothes. Mary, for Luke, is from the beginning of the gospel the obedient disciple who listens to the Word of God and fulfills it (11, 28).

The name of Jesus. Through the rite of circumcision Jesus is officially incorporated into the people of the Alliance carrying on his body the mark of belonging to God and receives the programmatic name of Jesus, in fact, Yešûa means "The Lord saves." We thank the Holy Virgin for her generous availability to God's plan and we ask her to welcome us under her protection during this new year.

Here is my servant whom I uphold,
my chosen one with whom I am pleased.
Upon him I have put my spirit;
he shall bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry out, nor shout,
nor make his voice heard in the street.
A bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench.
He will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow dim or be bruised
until he establishes justice on the earth;
the coastlands will wait for his teaching.
I, the LORD, have called you for justice,
I have grasped you by the hand;
I formed you, and set you
as a covenant for the people,
a light for the nations,
To open the eyes of the blind,
to bring out prisoners from confinement,
and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.

A psalm of David.
Give to the LORD, you sons of God,
give to the LORD glory and might;
Give to the LORD the glory due his name.
Bow down before the LORD’s holy splendor!
The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the LORD, over the mighty waters.
The voice of the LORD is power;
the voice of the LORD is splendor.
The voice of the LORD cracks the cedars;
the LORD splinters the cedars of Lebanon,
Makes Lebanon leap like a calf,
and Sirion like a young bull.
The voice of the LORD strikes with fiery flame;
the voice of the LORD shakes the desert;
the LORD shakes the desert of Kadesh.
The voice of the LORD makes the deer dance
and strips the forests bare.
All in his Temple say, “Glory!”
The LORD sits enthroned above the flood!
The LORD reigns as king forever!
May the LORD give might to his people;
may the LORD bless his people with peace!

If as I suppose, you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for your benefit, [namely, that] the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly earlier. Which was not made known to human beings in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

And this is what he proclaimed: “One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the holy Spirit.” It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. On coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.

The lamp of God was not yet extinguished, and Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the LORD where the ark of God was. The LORD called to Samuel, who answered, “Here I am.” He ran to Eli and said, “Here I am. You called me.” “I did not call you,” Eli answered. “Go back to sleep.” So he went back to sleep. Again the LORD called Samuel, who rose and went to Eli. “Here I am,” he said. “You called me.” But he answered, “I did not call you, my son. Go back to sleep.” Samuel did not yet recognize the LORD, since the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. The LORD called Samuel again, for the third time. Getting up and going to Eli, he said, “Here I am. You called me.” Then Eli understood that the LORD was calling the youth. So he said to Samuel, “Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’” When Samuel went to sleep in his place, the LORD came and stood there, calling out as before: Samuel, Samuel! Samuel answered, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Samuel grew up, and the LORD was with him, not permitting any word of his to go unfulfilled.

A servant of the Word. The story of Samuel (Hebrew Šemû‘ēl: "His name is God") is a paradigm of what God does in his chosen ones to place them at the service of the community. His birth was marked by extraordinary elements: the son of Elkanah and Anna, who was sterile, he was consecrated to God from a young age by his parents and placed in the charge of the priest Eli, in the temple of Shiloh, where he learned to discern the voice of God in a time of few revelations.

The Lord called Samuel. Today's text tells us about the prophetic consecration of young Samuel who was at the service of Yahweh. It is striking that at such a young age he already uses the "linen ephod" (1 Samuel 2: 18), a typical attire of priests, and has his bed so close to the ark of God (1 Samuel 3: 3). The intimacy with God and the spiritual progress of Samuel, contrasted with the impious behavior of the sons of Eli, is expressed in a very similar way to what will be said of Jesus: He grew and became pleasing to God and to the people (1 Samuel 2: 26//Luke 2: 40). In the middle of the night the Lord awakens Samuel three times, acquainting him with his voice that will instruct him from now on in his service as a prophet throughout the land, "from Dan to Beersheba." That night the Lord revealed to Samuel his plan of restoration and continued speaking to him in the sanctuary of Shiloh. Samuel's obedient faith is shown in his absolute availability: Speak, for your servant is listening (dabbēr kî šōmēa ’’ abeddekā).

At the service of the people. Samuel's prophetic ministry is varied, ranging from the charisma of the government to the quality of "seer", he is even associated with the great intercessors of the history of Israel (Psalm 99: 6), for which his prestige and authority extended and contributed to the transition from the tribal to the monarchical system. In fact, Samuel is responsible for anointing the first two kings of Israel: Saul and David, because closeness to God never alienates, but is the source of all commitment to the service of society, and God continues today to choose collaborators in his work to accompany his people.

For the leader. A psalm of David.
Surely, I wait for the LORD;
who bends down to me and hears my cry,
Draws me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the muddy clay,
Sets my feet upon rock,
steadies my steps,
And puts a new song in my mouth,
a hymn to our God.
Many shall look on in fear
and they shall trust in the LORD.
Blessed the man who sets
his security in the LORD,
who turns not to the arrogant
or to those who stray after falsehood.
You, yes you, O LORD, my God,
have done many wondrous deeds!
And in your plans for us
there is none to equal you.
Should I wish to declare or tell them,
too many are they to recount.
Sacrifice and offering you do not want;
you opened my ears.
Holocaust and sin-offering you do not request;
so I said, “See; I come
with an inscribed scroll written upon me.
I delight to do your will, my God;
your law is in my inner being!”
When I sing of your righteousness
in a great assembly,
See, I do not restrain my lips;
as you, LORD, know.
I do not conceal your righteousness
within my heart;
I speak of your loyalty and your salvation.
I do not hide your mercy or faithfulness from a great assembly.
LORD, may you not withhold
your compassion from me;
May your mercy and your faithfulness
continually protect me.
But evils surround me
until they cannot be counted.
My sins overtake me,
so that I can no longer see.
They are more numerous than the hairs of my head;
my courage fails me.
LORD, graciously rescue me!
Come quickly to help me, LORD!
May those who seek to destroy my life
be shamed and confounded.
Turn back in disgrace
those who desire my ruin.
Let those who say to me “Aha!”
Be made desolate on account of their shame.
While those who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you.
May those who long for your salvation
always say, “The LORD is great.”
Though I am afflicted and poor,
my Lord keeps me in mind.
You are my help and deliverer;
my God, do not delay!

“Food for the stomach and the stomach for food,” but God will do away with both the one and the other. The body, however, is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body; God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take Christ’s members and make them the members of a prostitute? Of course not! But whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Avoid immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the immoral person sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.

The Christian life is the continuous exercise of attentive and faithful listening to the Word of God to then translate it into constructive attitudes and behaviors. It is in this assiduous contact that the vocation is tested and renewed for the good of the human community. This was the case in Corinth where Paul had formed a Christian community in the years 50-51. Like every Greek city and even more so in the case of a port, Corinth was characterized by a licentious life. However, these circumstances were an occasion to reflect on existence in the light of faith, the first Christian morality, condensed in the epistolary set of 1-2 Corinthians that we know today. In this text Paul tells the Corinthians and us that:

We are property and members of Christ. With his Passover, Jesus Christ made us his own, members of his body and temples of his Spirit, so that we may participate in his divine life even in this earthly stage of life: He who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit (hèn pneûma) with he.

That we respond to God with life. This presence of the Spirit of God, as an inner teacher, arouses in believers a generous response that involves personal ethics and habitual commitments. Life, then, is not only the right place but the only one to respond to God.

The next day John was there again with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come, and you will see.” So they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon. Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus. He first found his own brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). Then he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

Today's gospel is also focused on the mystery of vocation. John the Baptist is presented in the Fourth gospel as the precursor and authorized witness of the new times. He comes from a priestly family, however, he chooses for himself the solitary life of a hermit, dedicated only to God and the preparation of the people for the imminent coming of the Messiah.

The vocation puts Jesus at the center of everything. The first chapter of the Fourth gospel is a synthesis of the Christological reflection of the Johannine community at the end of the 1st century. There parade the titles given to Jesus Christ, some already consecrated in the OT, others created in the NT: Word of God, Son only begotten, Chosen of God, Lamb of God, Rabbi (Teacher), Messiah (Christ), the One of whom Moses and the prophets spoke, Jesus, the son of Joseph, of Nazareth; Son of God, King of Israel, Son of man. The Baptist does not want to be the center of attention, but rather a witness to the truth, that is why he puts his own disciples on the path to Jesus and presents him to them twice, at the beginning of the second and third days of the inaugural week (John 1: 29.36), as the Lamb of God (íde ho amnòs toû theoû), in the sense of the innocent Servant of God sacrificed for others.

Vocation as a personal encounter. From the biblical text we notice that the Christian vocation is not centered on the knowledge of dogmas or the acceptance of external norms, but rather involves the vital encounter with a specific person who gives meaning and horizon to life. That is why the Baptist allows his disciples to begin a new process of search and encounter: Lord, where do you live? and let them experience the joy and fascination of the treasure found: They stayed with him that day. It was more or less four in the afternoon (John 1: 39).

The mediations. Ordinarily God does not personally call his chosen ones, but he does so through intermediaries who, with his honest word and the convincing testimony of life, invite them to embrace an ideal of contemplation and service. The Baptist guides his disciples towards the Messiah; Andrew invites Simon Peter, his brother; The next day, Philip invites Nathanael who, overcoming his prejudices, joins the group of followers.