{N}1,{/}1 The words: {C}in{/} {C}Ephesus{/}, were missing in the best ancient manuscripts. Since this letter is related to the other sent to the Colossians, without a doubt around the same time, and since Col 4,16 mentions a letter to the Laodiceans, some have thought that the present letter to the Ephesians was primitively destined for the Christians from Laodicea. This question about the lost letter to the Laodiceans preoccupied some people centuries ago and there was even someone who "found" a letter to the Laodiceans, actually fabricated by plagiarizing the letters to the Colossians and to the Ephesians.

{N}1,{/}3 With the words: {C}in the heaven{/} (or supernatural) and before the {C}creation{/} (or the foundation) of the world, Paul firmly establishes the opposition between the divine world, which is stable, eternal, from which everything proceeds, and an earthly world that only has one time, in which beings must conquer a destiny that has already been, or better yet, that IS granted in God: your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

{N}1,{/}23 He unfolds his fullness in the Church. The text says: "she he his fullness". That word means: the whole of a collection, or the totality of a thing, or its complete fulfillment. Here, Christ acquires his full stature when he incorporates those who were given to him.

{N}2,{/}2 {C}Which reigns between heaven and earth. {/}The text says "the prince of the power of the air". Paul is expressing himself according to his own culture. Between the world "above the heavens", meaning the supernatural world, further than the celestial vault, and the earth, domain of humans, there is an intermediate world where the spirits, especially the evil spirits, do their business.

{N}2,{/}20 Let us take note of this affirmation: the Church is a reality given by God (1Tim 3,15), to which we become integrated. We can and we must evangelize and make disciples, but we do not have to invent the Church, whose bases are the apostles and the prophets: see Lk 22,30; 1Cor 3,10; Rev 21,14.

{N}5,{/}32 This beautiful paragraph about the meaning of the christian marriage should not make us neglect the {C}great mystery{/} of which matrimony is no more than a sacrament. The problem of the couple and the fundamental place that this occupies in the modern culture, the love that has taken its distances with regard to the constraints imposed by the laws of the life, the family and of the procreation in the previous generations, the aspirations of happiness and mutual joy, the contradictions that confront the projects of love and faithfulness, the two components of any true love, all of this should not make us neglect the evocation made by Paul about the great mystery. When Jesus presented himself as the bridegroom (Mt 9,15), it was no more than a very discreet way to enter into the role of the Messiah. Because the Bible kept the image of the Messiah bridegroom, awaited by the believing community, a bit like it is developed in the Songs. But here Paul goes farther. After having placed Christ in the center of the divine plan of creation and of salvation of all of humanity, he sees that role of Christ with regard to the human world that he has saved, an ultimate reality, which is inscribed in the eternity. Humanity is called to a covenant that is no less intimate than matrimony with God, thanks to his descent to our flesh.

