the heart's reasons

The book of Job, a work of the wisdom literature of the Jews, is both majestic and difficult. The story itself is simple, but what does the author really want to teach in this narrative? It all begins when "one day the angels came to present themselves to the LORD, and Satan also came with them". Then God said to him, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." (Job 1:6-8).    Satan then spoke to God: "Does Job fear God for nothing?... You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face" (Job 1:9-11). So God gave Satan permission to do so and Job lost all his wealth and children. But Job's reaction was as follows: "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised. In all this,

Chapters five, six and seven of Matthew constitute the so-called "mountain sermon". In this discourse, Jesus presents a new vision of spiritual life, contrasting with the notion of legalistic and formal spirituality that the religious of his time taught the people. Because they were very focused on the fulfillment of the Law and the practice of religious ritual, the result of their teachings was, most of the time, the development of a dead and feigned religiosity before God and men.  Jesus then speaks, among other things, about what we call "the devotion of the heart". He says, " Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them...  So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others... And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.

As commented, in the text New Heavens and New Earth, recently posted on the blog, the great beneficiary of the serious problem that humanity is going through, in these days of the covid - 19 pandemic, is nature, the world ecological system or, to speak in theological terms, Creation. The planet, the human habitat, is recovering from the aggression that the world system causes to it. Therefore, it is relevant to expand a little more the reflection on the question, little treated in the Church, of the cosmic redemption.  The fact that the planet's ecosystem recovers due to the reduction of human activity on it reveals the strict relationship between matter, the physical world and man. The human being and the universe are both entities of the same creation. The fall of one also corrupts the other and that is what happened in Eden. The Adamic decision to disobey the Creator not only changed his personal nature but also subjected the whole creation to sin, leaving it under a curse. 

There are many reasons for Christians to abandon their faith in Christ and become secular these days. The first of these is the feeling of power, self-sufficiency and autonomy that scientific advancement and technological development, marks of today's world, produce in people. The consequence of this is the emergence of a strong atheist mentality that prints, in contemporary man, the idea that he no longer needs God, because he is able to solve his problems and direct his destiny alone. Today, there is talk of a "post-Christian" world, in which God is just an outdated idea. Identifying yourself as a follower of Jesus means being an alienated.  This new world, dominated by science and rationalism, caused the emergence of a materialistic worldview that resulted in the appearance of new ideas about the human person, causing transformations of a social nature. Gender ideology, for example, promotes changes in the way people see themselves, reflecting directly on the configu

The world lives days when millions of people around the world are in social confinement to contain the coronavirus pandemic. One of the consequences of this is the considerable reduction in the level of carbon dioxide in the planet's atmosphere. The air is purer and cleaner and the landscapes sharper because of the decrease in pollution as a result of reduced industrial activity and the human system. This is reminiscent of a theological theme little talked about in the Church, but which constitutes the consummation of the divine plan of redemption of humanity and the cosmos: "a new heaven and a new earth". According to Scripture, after completing the creation of the world and man, "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good...” (Genesis 1:31). Not only was man created perfect, but also the cosmos itself. However, it turns out that man in Eden was in a state of trial and came to fall. Thus, after his sin, both human nature and Creation were unstructured. "

The synoptics, that is, the gospels that present the same vision of Jesus Christ, narrate an episode in which Jesus and his disciples decide to cross the Sea of Galilee. At a certain point in the crossing, a strong gale arose, so much so that the evangelist Matthew: "they were in great danger" (8:23). But according to Mark, "Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion" (4:38). The disciples went to Jesus, who waking up, "rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completly calm" (Matthew 8:26). This brief narrative, contained in the first three gospels, points to three theological questions of greatest relevance to the Christian faith. The first question that stands out is the mystery of Christ. After Jesus' action calming the storm, the disciples asked themselves: "what kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him?” (Matthew 26:27). The second is the human condition. The three narratives show the disciples dominated by the fear

Psalm 117 is the smallest Psalm in the Bible. All its content is this: "Praise the LORD, all your nations extol him, all your peoples. For great his love toward us, and the faithfulness  of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD". Although small, it is a psalm that refers to two questions of the greatest theological relevance: the reason for human existence and the universality of divine action in the world.  Man, after original sin, losted himself and God. He lives to build a world that gives him meaning. But after millennia, he still does not know the reason for existence. The psalmist, however, begins by speaking exactly about this subject. He says: "Praise the LORD, all your nations extol him, all your peoples”. He says this because he understands that peoples and nations, that is, man exists for the praise of God's glory. In fact, the Apostle Paul says, in his letter to the Ephesians, that God, in Christ, is separating a people for "the praise of His g

"When I consider your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?" (Psalm 8:3,4). These verses from the wisdom literature of the Hebrews show the amazement of the human being as he becomes aware of himself before the immensity of the universe. This perception leads him to discover the mystery of himself and to formulate the great question of humanity: "what is man? Throughout the centuries man has tried to answer it, but without success. Even today, man is a mystery to himself. He does not know what he is, what his origin and his destiny are, what is the reason for his existence.  For two and a half millennia, Philosophy has studied this question. However, in the middle of the 20th century, for not reaching a conclusion, the French philosopher, an existentialist, Jean Paul Sartre said that, as far as man is concerned, "existence precedes

It is a fact that humanity has reached a degree of scientific and technological development unprecedented in history. In the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), for example, the use of technologies in areas such as health, astronomy, industry, economy, culture, politics, war is already being observed. Robotics is already present in operating rooms of hospitals and has helped people with reduced mobility or even paralysis to walk. But one fact that had an impact on human relations was the creation, in 2016, of the humanoid robot Sophia, by the company Hanson Robotics, which is able to recognize faces, reproduce 62 facial expressions, learn, talk and work with human beings.  This field of science, Artificial Intelligence, has been the object of philosophical reflection, since it presents implications, among others, of an ethical and moral nature. It is remotely linked to the studies of the French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650), who was the first to formulate the mind-body pr

"Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord Almighty, and I will accept no offering from your hands" (Malachi 1:10). The year was probably 433 B.C. Israel had returned from Babylonian exile, the temple had been rebuilt, but life was not as majestic as before. They knew they were only a peripheral province of the Persian Empire. The cult, which they offered to God, consisted only of discouraged repetitions of a formal ritual and no longer took the Law seriously.   To whom had God addressed such harsh words? The text answers: "to you priests" (Malachi 1:6). Priests no longer gave due honor to God. The text says that they despised the name of the LORD when they allowed blind, crippled, stolen and sick animals for the sacrifice, which was the centre of worship in Old Testament times (Malachi 1:6-9). The sacrifice was a ritual that pointed to the death of, no less than,