The day before yesterday I was waiting in the waiting room of the sixth district of the Municipality of Rome (Tor Bella Monaca) for the call to present myself at the counter and renew my expiring identity card.
To spend my time well, as I usually do in similar cases, I was reading a section of an interesting and useful book on the small screen of my iPhone.
Let me say that the author, Giuseppe Ricciotti (Click), a priest of the Catholic Church, like Saint Jerome deserves the title of Doctor of the Church because of the completeness of the exposition and the indication of the sources and origins that leave no doubt.

        St. Peter heals the paralytic        In his works, in general, very detailed and in-depth information is given, which without fear of denial make they seem very naive and a little ignorant - as a Christian I do not say anything else even if I really would like to do it - certain knowledgeable Marxist professors and perhaps Masons, who write books full of nonsense and falsehoods about the canonical scriptures.

In particular, I was reading Ricciotti's book on the origins of the text whose passage I am commenting today, the first reading of this morning's Mass.
Undoubtedly there is no doubt that the text of the Acts is authentic and that it was written by Luke, a doctor, the same author of the Gospel of the same name, starting shortly after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

In today's passage the story unfolds with a naturalness and a perfect style that good journalists should use even today, in our days. Luke the Evangelist - it is understood that he is accustomed to synthesis, albeit combined with the efficacy and completeness of information - in fact uses the so-called 5W1H rule.
Using this rule means giving the essential description of any fact, saying the where -what -when -why - who and the how, i.e. simply letting speak the fact itself without frills, as it happened.

Reading a passage from the Acts is always fascinating, so much so that you could read the whole book from top to bottom without getting bored, even if in some parts, especially if you read it as if it were just a novel, it can be a little less compelling.

But doubt can always and in any case lurk and one can find fantasy explanations for any fact. In me the thought of the origins of this book and of the organic whole of the Scriptures in which the coherence of everything proves the truth, strengthens the faith.

Here the account of the miracles that St. Peter performs should convince anyone that Jesus Christ lives in him and wants him to be the foundation and head of his faithful.

In order not to be assailed by the doubt that Satan is always ready to instill, I realize that reading the Gospel or some spiritual book is fundamental.
As far as I am concerned, in addition to the daily reading of the Gospel, that of the Acts is also the ideal.
Since these are other readings, sometimes I am afraid that some mistake in the choice, or even some exaggeration or some excess of zeal by the writer, cause me to come up with dangerous doubts.
For this reason, in the 'Spirituality' section of this site there is a list of readings that are worth doing without fear.

I would like to suggest here a reading that has deeply involved me: It is the 'Decenary to the Holy Spirit' of Francisca Javiera del Valle.

HISTORICAL NOTE

Ricciotti, Giuseppe. (Rome, February 27, 1890 - Rome, January 22, 1964) - He was a Biblical semitist and archaeologist, a profound scholar of Christianity and its origins.
Exemplary citizen and military chaplain. he earned a gold medal for military valor in World War I.

 Sac. Giuseppe Ricciotti From this dramatic experience he decided and matured, as he himself recounts in the presentation, to give birth to his most significant work: Life of Jesus Christ.
The text, published in 1941, subsequently had numerous other editions edited by himself.
Abbot of the regular Lateran canonics he was a scholar of the Old Testament and the origins of Christianity, and since 1950 he was professor of History of Christianity at the University of Bari.
Among his vast production, characterized by traditional Catholic positions, in addition to critical studies and versions of various biblical books, versions from Greek (Josephus, 1937) and Syriac, stand out:
History of Israel (2 vols., 1932-34); Life of Christ (1941); Paul the Apostle (1949); Acts of the Apostles (1951); and a monograph on Julian the apostate (1956). He was also an editor of the Italian Encyclopedia.

Decenary to the Holy Spirit by Francisca Javiera del Valle
Ed Ares - Milan

The poor seamstress Francisca (1856-1930) lived in the Castilian village of Carrión de los Condes, near Palencia, a dark existence spent in the sewing workshop that served the Jesuits of the 'Colegio del Sagrado Corazón'.
Do surprises her profound spirituality and the subtlety of her works, and the strength that many theologians might envy with which the reader is helped to know, love and pray to the one God in each of His persons.
The book outlines in ten 'days'; an itinerary of prayer which is also an itinerary of holiness in all human situations.
It is a meditation on the life of the Most Holy Trinity and on our life in relationship with Him, of such depth and wisdom that it can only be explained with the gift and illumination that God grants to the souls who frequent him with intimacy: the gift of wisdom.