December 12, 2025
Second Friday of Advent
Fr. Massumo Luca
May the Lord grant you peace.
I am fr. Massimo Luca from the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum of Jerusalem.
The Gospel passage we have heard is part of a wide section characterized by the different stances that develop around the person and activity of Jesus. In this account Jesus invites all who listen to him to understand God’s action through a comparison inspired by the activity of John the Baptist and that of the Son of Man (Mt 11:16–19).
The Pharisees challenge both John and Jesus. The parallel challenge reveals that they are a capricious and contradictory “generation” in their religious demands (Mt 11:18–19), unable to read the signs of the times. It is a generation that wants to impose on God how to reveal himself, telling him what to do and how to act in history according to the principle “my (our) will be done — not yours.”
Jesus calls them “an evil and adulterous generation” (Mt 12:29). He compares the twofold reaction of his contemporaries with that of all those who listen to this Gospel passage: faced with John’s austere and penitential style, the scribes and Pharisees conclude that the prophet is not normal, that he is under the influence of an evil spirit; faced with the style of the Son of Man, who does not disdain good company at table, they conclude that he is a glutton and a drunkard who does not respect ritual separation because he is a friend of tax collectors and sinners.
But then what do they want? Matthew’s final sentence gives an answer to these contradictory reactions: the wise style of God has been recognized as just by those who take into account his way of acting. Jesus, as God’s “wisdom,” is revealed in his “works” (cf. Sir 18:1–4).
The attitude proper to the fool is not knowing how to do what is appropriate at the right time, as written in the wisdom books: “there is a time to weep and a time to laugh” (Eccl 3:4–6; Prov 25:20; Sir 22:6). This attitude is well described in the scene of the children sitting in the square who did not know how to dance when the wedding music was played, nor to mourn when the funeral dirge was sung.
Such is the life of “fools,” which in Matthew’s vocabulary means being blind and remaining deaf to God’s style and call.
Fools do not know how to grasp the invitation to repentance addressed by John and do not want to accept the proclamation of messianic joy inaugurated by Jesus. But for all believers, attuned to God’s style and reached by this proclamation, both attitudes belong to the single divine plan of salvation, which unfolds through successive and different times and requires each person to recognize it, receive it, and live it.
