Book of Genesis 9,8-15. God said to Noah and to his sons with him : "See, I am now establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you: all the birds, and the various tame and wild animals that were with you and came out of the ark. I will establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all bodily creatures be destroyed by the waters of a flood; there shall not be another flood to devastate the earth." God added: "This is the sign that I am giving for all ages to come, of the covenant between me and you and every living creature with you: I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, I will recall the covenant I have made between me and you and all living beings, so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all mortal beings."
Psalms 25(24) 4bc-5ab.6-7bc.8-9.
Your ways, O LORD, make known to me; teach me your paths, guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my savior.
Remember that your compassion, O LORD, and your love are from of old. In your kindness remember me, because of your goodness, O LORD.
Good and upright is the LORD; thus he shows sinners the way. He guides the humble to justice, he teaches the humble his way.
First Letter of Peter 3,18-22. Beloved: Christ suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the Spirit. In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison, who had once been disobedient while God patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water. This prefigured baptism, which saves you now. It is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 1,12-15. The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him. After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel."
Last Wednesday, with the penitential rite of the ashes, we began our Lenten journey. Today, the first Sunday of this liturgical season, the Word of God shows us the path to living fruitfully the 40 days that lead to the annual celebration of Easter. It is the road Jesus travelled, which the Gospel, with Mark’s essential style, summarises by saying that before he began his preaching, he withdrew into the desert for 40 days, where he was tempted by Satan (cf. 1:12-15). The Evangelist emphasises that “the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness” (v. 12). The Holy Spirit descended upon him immediately after the baptism he received from John in the River Jordan. The same Spirit now impels him to go into the desert, to face the Tempter, to fight against the devil. Jesus’ entire existence is placed under the sign of the Spirit of God, who animates, inspires and guides him.
But let us think of the desert. Let us pause for a moment on this natural and symbolic environment, so important in the Bible. The desert is the place where God speaks to the heart of humankind, and where the answer of prayer flows from, that is, the desert of solitude, the heart detached from other things and alone, opens itself to the Word of God in that solitude. But it is also the place of trial and temptation, where the Tempter, taking advantage of human frailty and needs, insinuates his lying voice, as an alternative to God’s, an alternative voice that makes you see another road, another road of deception. The Tempter seduces. Indeed, during the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert, the “duel” between Jesus and the devil begins, which will end with the Passion and the Cross. Christ’s entire ministry is a struggle against the evil one in its many manifestations: healing from illnesses, exorcisms of the possessed, forgiveness of sins. It is a struggle. After the first phase in which Jesus demonstrates that he speaks and acts with the power of God, it seems that the devil has the upper hand, when the Son of God is rejected, abandoned and finally captured and condemned to death. The devil appears to be the winner. In reality, death itself was the last “desert” to cross in order to definitively defeat Satan and free us all from his power. And in this way Jesus won in the desert of death, so as to win in the Resurrection.
Every year, at the beginning of Lent, this Gospel of the temptations of Jesus in the desert reminds us that the life of the Christian, in the footsteps of the Lord, is a battle against the spirit of evil. It shows us that Jesus willingly faced the Tempter, and defeated him; and at the same time it reminds us that the devil is granted the possibility of acting on us too, with his temptations. We must be aware of the presence of this astute enemy, who seeks our eternal condemnation, our failure, and prepare to defend ourselves against him and to combat him. The grace of God assures us, with faith, prayer and penance, of our victory over the enemy. But I would like to underline one thing: in the temptations, Jesus never enters into dialogue with the devil, never. In his life Jesus never had a dialogue with the devil, never. Either He banishes him from the possessed or He condemns him, or He shows his malice, but never a dialogue. And in the desert it seems that there is a dialogue because the devil makes three proposals and Jesus responds. But Jesus does not respond with his words. He answers with the Word of God, with three passages of Scripture. And we should also all do this. When the seducer approaches, he begins to seduce us: “But think of this, do that…", the temptation is to dialogue with him, as Eve did. And if we enter into dialogue with the devil we will be defeated. Keep this in your mind and in your heart: you can never enter into dialogue with the devil, no dialogue is possible. Only the Word of God.
-->During the Season of Lent, the Holy Spirit drives us too, like Jesus, to enter the desert. It is not, as we have seen, a physical place, but rather an existential dimension in which to be silent and listen to the word of God, “so that a true conversion might be effected in us” (cf. Collect, First Sunday of Lent, B). Do not be afraid of the desert, seek out more moments of prayer, of silence, in order to enter into ourselves. Do not be afraid. We are called to walk in God’s footsteps, renewing our Baptismal promises: renouncing Satan, and all his works and all his seductions. The enemy is crouching there, beware. But never dialogue with him. Let us entrust ourselves to the maternal intercession of the Virgin Mary.
ANGELUS 26 February 2012 Dear Brothers and Sisters,
On this First Sunday of Lent we meet Jesus who, after receiving Baptism from John the Baptist in the River Jordan (cf. Mk 1:9), is subjected to temptation in the wilderness (cf. Mk 1:12-13). St Mark’s concise narrative lacks the details we read in the other two Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The wilderness referred to has various meanings. It can indicate the state of abandonment and loneliness, the “place” of human weakness, devoid of support and safety, where temptation grows stronger.
However, it can also indicate a place of refuge and shelter — as it was for the People of Israel who had escaped from slavery in Egypt — where it is possible to experience God’s presence in a special way. Jesus “was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan” (Mk 1:13). St Leo the Great comments that “The Lord wanted to suffer the attack of the tempter in order to defend us with his help and to instruct us with his example (Tractatus XXXIX,3 De ieiunio quadragesimae).
What can this episode teach us? As we read in the book The Imitation of Christ, “There is no man wholly free from temptations so long as he lives... but by endurance and true humility we are made stronger than all our enemies” (Liber I, C. XIII, Vatican City 1982, 37), endurance and the humility of following the Lord every day, learning not to build our lives outside him or as though he did not exist, but in him and with him, for he is the source of true life.
The temptation to remove God, to arrange things within us and in the world by ourselves, relying on our own abilities, has always been present in human history.
Jesus proclaims that “the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mk 1:15), he announces that in him something new happens: God turns to the human being in an unexpected way, with a unique, tangible closeness, full of love; God is incarnate and enters the human world to take sin upon himself, to conquer evil and usher men and women into the world of God.
However, this proclamation is accompanied by the request to measure up to such a great gift. In fact Jesus adds: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15). It is an invitation to have faith in God and to convert all our actions and thoughts to goodness, every day. The season of Lent is a favourable moment for renewing and reinforcing our relationship with God, through daily prayer, acts of penance and works of brotherly charity. Let us fervently beg Mary Most Holy to accompany us on our Lenten journey with her protection and to help us to impress the words of Jesus Christ in our hearts and in our lives so as to convert to him. In addition, I entrust to your prayers the week of Spiritual Exercises which I shall begin this evening with my co-workers in the Roman Curia.
FAUSTI - "The Spirit drives Him into the desert" says Mark of Jesus. His Baptism, like the crossing of the Red Sea, marks the end of slavery. Now, however, it remains to cross the desert, snared by the enemy who wants to disperse us, blocking us or making us turn back. Once the choice has been made, the cost of maintaining it until the end must be paid. Adam had not listened to the Word of God and was driven out of Eden into the desert. The Spirit now casts there the new Adam, the Son who listens to the Word. There He meets all His brothers and sisters, and leads them back to the lost paradise. The Baptism of Jesus presents us a God in solidarity with our evil and our death. Christ, who emerges from the water dripping with the Spirit in inner, recalls Moses, the shepherd who led God's flock in Exodus (IS 63:11). Like him, He walks the path of Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land, when they were all tempted and fell, and victoriously retraces the history of every man, who has always fallen and therefore does not reach the homeland of his desire. Jesus is tempted in the desert to realize the Kingdom of the Father in a more effective and comfortable way. For the other synoptic Gospels, temptations are part of the "hunger" (Mt 4:2- Lk 4:2), that is, the need that man has in relation to things, people or God. There is a constant danger of satisfying this hunger with possession instead of gift - the only food that satisfies - and of not discerning priorities and false alternatives from the true ones. Matthew and Luke also expressly say that He is tempted, as Son of God, to use those instruments that our common sense considers obvious: having, power and religious prestige.But this would mean taking back his solidarity with his brothers and sisters - the only choice of the Son approved by the Father. Jesus was tempted, like each one of us since Adam, for the sake of good. But it is not necessary to act for the sake of good, but to act well. Because good is good only if it is good at the beginning, in the middle and in the end. It is never true that the end justifies the means! In Jesus tempted, all humanity was tempted. In Him Victorious, all humanity has already c overcome evil. He is the new Adam. The Gospel is Jesus Christ, Son of God. Jesus, therefore, by proclaiming the Gospel, proclaims Himself. He speaks the Word and is at the same time the Word spoken. For this reason it is alive and effective, capable of moving us as the first disciples did. The decisive moment in history has come, because the Kingdom of God has appeared. The Kingdom of God, overturning the kingdom of man, which we already know well, as it arouses our hopes, also challenges our freedom. Jesus' proposal immediately becomes the responsibility of my response. The Kingdom has already come by His initiative, but the entrance is reserved to my freedom. Conversion is turning to Him, starting behind Him on His own path. In all religions man seeks God, but in Christianity it is God who seeks man. His proposal is direct and personal: He Himself, through the initiative of His Love, asks me to follow Him. His question and our answer are the two constitutive elements of faith, both immediate and non-delegable. No one can call me in His place and no one can answer in my place. He commits Himself first to be with me, and I commit myself to be with Him. Others can be of help or prior mediation, the same announcement must lead me to meet Him. This is why we must beware of Christianity as an ideology. Faith is a concrete relationship with Him, a loving mutual belonging, a joyful being of one another.
DIACON LODOVICO Eng.GIARLOTTO Gospel. We notice that the Spirit, immediately after having descended upon Jesus like a dove, pushes Him into the desert, where He will be tempted by Satan, because God tests those who are pleasing to Him (Sir 2,5). The whole life of Jesus is depicted in the forty days passed in the desert because during His whole life He was subjected to the test. He entered the desert immediately after the baptism that He had received from John: He began His exodus, He undertook the struggle against Satan (the personification of all the forces of evil), a struggle that lasted until the moment when He emerged victorious from the desert, that is, at the moment of His death. In the narration, which has a clear symbolic value, the evangelist introduces two other figures: the beasts and the angels who are at Jesus' side throughout his stay in the desert. Mark alludes to the Book of Daniel (ch. 7) where the beasts represent the oppressive powers of the world (the Babylonians are represented by the lion, the Medes by the bear, the Persians by the leopard, the Macedonians by an undefined beast). The beasts with which Jesus was confronted are the holders of political, economic and religious power (Sadducees, high priests, Sanhedrin), the spiritual guides (the scribes), the preachers of a justifier God and enemy of sinners (the Pharisees). Angels are the mediators of God's salvation (Moses is called an angel in Ex 23:20,23 as is the Baptist in Mk 1:2) and all those who cooperate with God's plan. Jesus met several "angels" during His public Life: the apostles, the disciples, the women who served Him by collaborating in the work of salvation ....Jesus did not stop in the desert but moved to meet anyone who needed His understanding and help. He did not go directly to Jerusalem but stayed in Galilee, a land of pagans and therefore despised. He met the fishermen, Matthew at the tax booth, He entered the house of the publicans. He had Words of consolation for all the marginalized, announcing that the Kingdom of God is near. Not a kingdom of domination but of service, not for self-interest but for sharing, not for revenge and implacable justice but for unconditional forgiveness and love for the enemy.
Book of Genesis
RispondiElimina9,8-15.
God said to Noah and to his sons with him :
"See, I am now establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you
and with every living creature that was with you: all the birds, and the various tame and wild animals that were with you and came out of the ark.
I will establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all bodily creatures be destroyed by the waters of a flood; there shall not be another flood to devastate the earth."
God added: "This is the sign that I am giving for all ages to come, of the covenant between me and you and every living creature with you:
I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds,
I will recall the covenant I have made between me and you and all living beings, so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all mortal beings."
Psalms 25(24)
4bc-5ab.6-7bc.8-9.
Your ways, O LORD, make known to me;
teach me your paths,
guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my savior.
Remember that your compassion, O LORD,
and your love are from of old.
In your kindness remember me,
because of your goodness, O LORD.
Good and upright is the LORD;
thus he shows sinners the way.
He guides the humble to justice,
he teaches the humble his way.
First Letter of Peter
3,18-22.
Beloved: Christ suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the Spirit.
In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison,
who had once been disobedient while God patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water.
This prefigured baptism, which saves you now. It is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
according to Saint Mark
1,12-15.
The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert,
and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.
After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God:
"This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel."
WORD OF THE LORD
POPE FRANCIS ANGELUS 21 February 2021
EliminaDear Brothers and Sisters,
Last Wednesday, with the penitential rite of the ashes, we began our Lenten journey. Today, the first Sunday of this liturgical season, the Word of God shows us the path to living fruitfully the 40 days that lead to the annual celebration of Easter. It is the road Jesus travelled, which the Gospel, with Mark’s essential style, summarises by saying that before he began his preaching, he withdrew into the desert for 40 days, where he was tempted by Satan (cf. 1:12-15). The Evangelist emphasises that “the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness” (v. 12). The Holy Spirit descended upon him immediately after the baptism he received from John in the River Jordan. The same Spirit now impels him to go into the desert, to face the Tempter, to fight against the devil. Jesus’ entire existence is placed under the sign of the Spirit of God, who animates, inspires and guides him.
But let us think of the desert. Let us pause for a moment on this natural and symbolic environment, so important in the Bible. The desert is the place where God speaks to the heart of humankind, and where the answer of prayer flows from, that is, the desert of solitude, the heart detached from other things and alone, opens itself to the Word of God in that solitude. But it is also the place of trial and temptation, where the Tempter, taking advantage of human frailty and needs, insinuates his lying voice, as an alternative to God’s, an alternative voice that makes you see another road, another road of deception. The Tempter seduces. Indeed, during the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert, the “duel” between Jesus and the devil begins, which will end with the Passion and the Cross. Christ’s entire ministry is a struggle against the evil one in its many manifestations: healing from illnesses, exorcisms of the possessed, forgiveness of sins. It is a struggle. After the first phase in which Jesus demonstrates that he speaks and acts with the power of God, it seems that the devil has the upper hand, when the Son of God is rejected, abandoned and finally captured and condemned to death. The devil appears to be the winner. In reality, death itself was the last “desert” to cross in order to definitively defeat Satan and free us all from his power. And in this way Jesus won in the desert of death, so as to win in the Resurrection.
Every year, at the beginning of Lent, this Gospel of the temptations of Jesus in the desert reminds us that the life of the Christian, in the footsteps of the Lord, is a battle against the spirit of evil. It shows us that Jesus willingly faced the Tempter, and defeated him; and at the same time it reminds us that the devil is granted the possibility of acting on us too, with his temptations. We must be aware of the presence of this astute enemy, who seeks our eternal condemnation, our failure, and prepare to defend ourselves against him and to combat him. The grace of God assures us, with faith, prayer and penance, of our victory over the enemy. But I would like to underline one thing: in the temptations, Jesus never enters into dialogue with the devil, never. In his life Jesus never had a dialogue with the devil, never. Either He banishes him from the possessed or He condemns him, or He shows his malice, but never a dialogue. And in the desert it seems that there is a dialogue because the devil makes three proposals and Jesus responds. But Jesus does not respond with his words. He answers with the Word of God, with three passages of Scripture. And we should also all do this. When the seducer approaches, he begins to seduce us: “But think of this, do that…", the temptation is to dialogue with him, as Eve did. And if we enter into dialogue with the devil we will be defeated. Keep this in your mind and in your heart: you can never enter into dialogue with the devil, no dialogue is possible. Only the Word of God.
-->During the Season of Lent, the Holy Spirit drives us too, like Jesus, to enter the desert. It is not, as we have seen, a physical place, but rather an existential dimension in which to be silent and listen to the word of God, “so that a true conversion might be effected in us” (cf. Collect, First Sunday of Lent, B). Do not be afraid of the desert, seek out more moments of prayer, of silence, in order to enter into ourselves. Do not be afraid. We are called to walk in God’s footsteps, renewing our Baptismal promises: renouncing Satan, and all his works and all his seductions. The enemy is crouching there, beware. But never dialogue with him. Let us entrust ourselves to the maternal intercession of the Virgin Mary.
EliminaBENEDICT XVI
EliminaANGELUS 26 February 2012
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
On this First Sunday of Lent we meet Jesus who, after receiving Baptism from John the Baptist in the River Jordan (cf. Mk 1:9), is subjected to temptation in the wilderness (cf. Mk 1:12-13). St Mark’s concise narrative lacks the details we read in the other two Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The wilderness referred to has various meanings. It can indicate the state of abandonment and loneliness, the “place” of human weakness, devoid of support and safety, where temptation grows stronger.
However, it can also indicate a place of refuge and shelter — as it was for the People of Israel who had escaped from slavery in Egypt — where it is possible to experience God’s presence in a special way. Jesus “was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan” (Mk 1:13). St Leo the Great comments that “The Lord wanted to suffer the attack of the tempter in order to defend us with his help and to instruct us with his example (Tractatus XXXIX,3 De ieiunio quadragesimae).
What can this episode teach us? As we read in the book The Imitation of Christ, “There is no man wholly free from temptations so long as he lives... but by endurance and true humility we are made stronger than all our enemies” (Liber I, C. XIII, Vatican City 1982, 37), endurance and the humility of following the Lord every day, learning not to build our lives outside him or as though he did not exist, but in him and with him, for he is the source of true life.
The temptation to remove God, to arrange things within us and in the world by ourselves, relying on our own abilities, has always been present in human history.
Jesus proclaims that “the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mk 1:15), he announces that in him something new happens: God turns to the human being in an unexpected way, with a unique, tangible closeness, full of love; God is incarnate and enters the human world to take sin upon himself, to conquer evil and usher men and women into the world of God.
However, this proclamation is accompanied by the request to measure up to such a great gift. In fact Jesus adds: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15). It is an invitation to have faith in God and to convert all our actions and thoughts to goodness, every day. The season of Lent is a favourable moment for renewing and reinforcing our relationship with God, through daily prayer, acts of penance and works of brotherly charity.
Let us fervently beg Mary Most Holy to accompany us on our Lenten journey with her protection and to help us to impress the words of Jesus Christ in our hearts and in our lives so as to convert to him. In addition, I entrust to your prayers the week of Spiritual Exercises which I shall begin this evening with my co-workers in the Roman Curia.
FAUSTI - "The Spirit drives Him into the desert" says Mark of Jesus. His Baptism, like the crossing of the Red Sea, marks the end of slavery. Now, however, it remains to cross the desert, snared by the enemy who wants to disperse us, blocking us or making us turn back. Once the choice has been made, the cost of maintaining it until the end must be paid.
RispondiEliminaAdam had not listened to the Word of God and was driven out of Eden into the desert.
The Spirit now casts there the new Adam, the Son who listens to the Word. There He meets all His brothers and sisters, and leads them back to the lost paradise.
The Baptism of Jesus presents us a God in solidarity with our evil and our death.
Christ, who emerges from the water dripping with the Spirit in inner, recalls Moses, the shepherd who led God's flock in Exodus (IS 63:11). Like him, He walks the path of Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land, when they were all tempted and fell, and victoriously retraces the history of every man, who has always fallen and therefore does not reach the homeland of his desire.
Jesus is tempted in the desert to realize the Kingdom of the Father in a more effective and comfortable way. For the other synoptic Gospels, temptations are part of the "hunger" (Mt 4:2- Lk 4:2), that is, the need that man has in relation to things, people or God.
There is a constant danger of satisfying this hunger with possession instead of gift - the only food that satisfies - and of not discerning priorities and false alternatives from the true ones.
Matthew and Luke also expressly say that He is tempted, as Son of God, to use those instruments that our common sense considers obvious: having, power and religious prestige.But this would mean taking back his solidarity with his brothers and sisters - the only choice of the Son approved by the Father. Jesus was tempted, like each one of us since Adam, for the sake of good. But it is not necessary to act for the sake of good, but to act well. Because good is good only if it is good at the beginning, in the middle and in the end. It is never true that the end justifies the means!
In Jesus tempted, all humanity was tempted. In Him Victorious, all humanity has already c overcome evil.
He is the new Adam.
The Gospel is Jesus Christ, Son of God. Jesus, therefore, by proclaiming the Gospel, proclaims Himself. He speaks the Word and is at the same time the Word spoken. For this reason it is alive and effective, capable of moving us as the first disciples did.
The decisive moment in history has come, because the Kingdom of God has appeared.
The Kingdom of God, overturning the kingdom of man, which we already know well, as it arouses our hopes, also challenges our freedom. Jesus' proposal immediately becomes the responsibility of my response.
The Kingdom has already come by His initiative, but the entrance is reserved to my freedom.
Conversion is turning to Him, starting behind Him on His own path.
In all religions man seeks God, but in Christianity it is God who seeks man.
His proposal is direct and personal: He Himself, through the initiative of His Love, asks me to follow Him.
His question and our answer are the two constitutive elements of faith, both immediate and non-delegable. No one can call me in His place and no one can answer in my place.
He commits Himself first to be with me, and I commit myself to be with Him.
Others can be of help or prior mediation, the same announcement must lead me to meet Him. This is why we must beware of Christianity as an ideology.
Faith is a concrete relationship with Him, a loving mutual belonging, a joyful being of one another.
DIACON LODOVICO Eng.GIARLOTTO Gospel. We notice that the Spirit, immediately after having descended upon Jesus like a dove, pushes Him into the desert, where He will be tempted by Satan, because God tests those who are pleasing to Him (Sir 2,5). The whole life of Jesus is depicted in the forty days passed in the desert because during His whole life He was subjected to the test. He entered the desert immediately after the baptism that He had received from John: He began His exodus, He undertook the struggle against Satan (the personification of all the forces of evil), a struggle that lasted until the moment when He emerged victorious from the desert, that is, at the moment of His death.
RispondiEliminaIn the narration, which has a clear symbolic value, the evangelist introduces two other figures: the beasts and the angels who are at Jesus' side throughout his stay in the desert. Mark alludes to the Book of Daniel (ch. 7) where the beasts represent the oppressive powers of the world (the Babylonians are represented by the lion, the Medes by the bear, the Persians by the leopard, the Macedonians by an undefined beast). The beasts with which Jesus was confronted are the holders of political, economic and religious power (Sadducees, high priests, Sanhedrin), the spiritual guides (the scribes), the preachers of a justifier God and enemy of sinners (the Pharisees). Angels are the mediators of God's salvation (Moses is called an angel in Ex 23:20,23 as is the Baptist in Mk 1:2) and all those who cooperate with God's plan. Jesus met several "angels" during His public Life: the apostles, the disciples, the women who served Him by collaborating in the work of salvation ....Jesus did not stop in the desert but moved to meet anyone who needed His understanding and help. He did not go directly to Jerusalem but stayed in Galilee, a land of pagans and therefore despised. He met the fishermen, Matthew at the tax booth, He entered the house of the publicans. He had Words of consolation for all the marginalized, announcing that the Kingdom of God is near. Not a kingdom of domination but of service, not for self-interest but for sharing, not for revenge and implacable justice but for unconditional forgiveness and love for the enemy.