Today, we face one of the most pernicious consequences of the heart’s unbelief and obstinacy: the deformation of Jesus’ face. The episode of today’s Gospel reaches absurdity: to attribute to Jesus a demonic power to explain the devil’s expulsion. Regrettable and malicious error!

This coarse error of the scribes has been repeated in a materialistic version in modern times. Shouldn’t the Saviour of the world show His identity by feeding everybody? Marxism would have satiated everybody’s hunger and converted the desert into bread. However, history showed that when the hierarchy of goods is not respected there is no more justice; on the contrary destruction and disruption are produced within the material goods. When God is denied or simply given a secondary place (left aside), then those allegedly most important things precisely fail.

—O Lord: Bread is important, freedom is more important, but fundamental is the lasting fidelity and adoration never betrayed.