December 4, 2025
First Thursday of Advent
Fr. Gianfranco Pinto Ostuni
Peace to you, greetings to all from the General Commissariat of the Holy Land in Naples.
I am Fr. Gianfranco Pinto Ostuni, Commissioner of the Custody for Southern Italy.
The passage we have just heard from the Gospel of Matthew, is placed at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus proclaimed the Beatitudes and at the end of this discourse he adds some recommendations.
"Not he who says Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven..."
This reminder is addressed to those who have heard the Word of Jesus and have taken possession of the name, to those who have made their relationship with God a form of power before men.
Some of them had also used the "name of Jesus" to do good, casting out demons and healing the sick... But they had not adhered with their lives to the Master's teaching. They were users of Jesus' name, but they did not belong to Him.
"Therefore" - Jesus explains what the difference is between those who belong to Him and those who refer to themselves - "those who hear Jesus' words and put them into practice are like the wise man who builds his house on the rock." While "he who hears and does not put them into practice is like the foolish man who built his house on sand."
The rock is the point, the solid base on which the foundation of a building rests.
Sand or flat ground, but without a firm point, does not allow stability for a building.
The test of the validity of the construction occurs over time and in the face of the weather...
Even in the Middle East, where there is so much drought, sudden rains occur in winter, giving rise to raging torrents capable of sweeping away people and vehicles and carving valleys in the desert, so-called "wadi."
The example of house-building, brought by Jesus, relates to the building-foundation of the life of each of us.
There are those who build their lives by founding them on something "ephemeral, volatile, ethereal." Think of how many people today live bound or conditioned by social likes or follow influencers. They live without a foundation, outside of reality. No wonder if thus life "swerves" or collapses: and there the downfall is great!
Those who rest their existence on Christ, on the other hand, will have to sweat to dig and get to the rock but when you have encountered Christ, everything, even the storms of life cannot bring you down.
The example comes to us from those who have adhered to Christ and live with the certainty that everything is a gift and that the Lord is the one who generates life.
The example comes to us from Francis of Assisi. He wrote in his Testament "the Lord gave me Brother Francis" ... He makes us understand that the Lord, the one who gives, who reveals himself in giving is the rock, the basis of existence.
The Lord is the one who reveals Himself as "mercy without limits" who stoops to the last, to the poor and therefore also to Francis of Assisi and to me today, but demands that I have Him as the true foundation of my life.
I wish you and me that we can recognize Jesus as the rock on which to build our lives: in the church, in the sacraments and in the faces of so many brothers and sisters who bear the features of the poor and crucified Christ.
