Tuesday, 3 March

Reading from the Book of Isaiah 1:10, 16-20
for 3 March 2026

How does one learn to do good?

Right now, in whatever you happen to be doing, you can learn to do good. The first thing is to raise your attention and listen to the voice of your own conscience… Ask yourself: what would doing good mean right now, in this thing I have in hand?

It may be that you have to run a company with a thousand employees, or take the rubbish bags out a few metres from your house. Perhaps read a book or make a phone call to someone. Within yourself, without anyone telling you, you imagine the right way to do it. Well then, following that inner voice, which leaves you in inner agreement, will give you peace. In this way you are realigning yourself with the good; you are learning to do good.

Sustaining this over time purifies us; that is, it will accustom us to a new way of doing things and will gradually erase the bad habit of doing them badly, or selfishly, or inattentively. Our greatest errors or faults stem from negligence of attention. This simplicity nevertheless has great power to change the course of daily life, and in a certain way it implies a conversion.

To do well is to do good, and it can be done as an act of love towards the One who has given us everything; practising the beauty that lives in the good is the trail for finding the meaning of life as experience and not as theory.

Reading from the Gospel of Saint Matthew 23:1-12
for 3 March 2026

… «Your guide is Christ alone.»

Can I not be guided by other references as well?

Yes, of course you can. However, what is being spoken of here is the supreme reference for our life. In that sense, becoming unified is fundamental. Much of our confusion arises from the fragmentation of references, and today more than ever. One difficulty we have in taking Jesus Christ as a real reference in our behaviour and in our feeling is that we take Him for granted.

We believe we know what Christ teaches, and in general it is not true. Do you know why? Because we will know it when we live it. I understand a teaching when I live it. Since we have heard the Gospel many times, or read the texts many times, it seems to us that there is nothing new in Jesus any more, that, well… it is something already known. When I dispose myself to listen to Jesus as a master, to follow Him truly, to obedience (ob-audire), I begin to discover what He really teaches. And a very complete synthesis of the Good News is: Treat others as you would like to be treated. (Luke 6:31) If I do not apply that in my day-to-day life, I am lying to myself.

That maxim can serve us as a universal criterion in relationships, whether occasional or frequent. Nor would it hurt to make a plan for reading the Gospels with fresh eyes; that is, as if from scratch, taking notes, reviewing them in the light of my present life, with the heart open to their resonance in my today… it is essential. One chapter a day, for example. However you like best. But there is much unknown richness in the Gospel texts. They are not just any book, nor a self-help manual; they are a mysterious arcanum that can be deciphered by whoever truly seeks for God to speak to them in the heart.

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