Dear brothers and sisters:

In the course of the catechesis on the Fathers of the Church, I would like to speak today about a very mysterious figure: a theologian from the sixth century, whose name is not known, and who wrote under the pseudonym of Dionysius the Areopagite. With this pseudonym, he alluded to the passage of Scripture that we just heard, that is, the case narrated by St. Luke in the 17th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, where he tells how Paul preached in Athens, in the Areopagus, addressing an elite group of the Greek intellectual world. In the end, the greatest part of those who heard him were not interested and they left making fun of him. Nevertheless, some, just a few, according to what St. Luke tells us, approached Paul and opened themselves to faith. The evangelist gives us two names: Dionysius, member of the Areopagus, and a woman named Damaris.