“Do you want to make me happy? Read the Bible!”. Pope Francis wrote this in his letter serving as a preface to “Bibel – Jugendbibel der Katholischen Kirche”, the Bible dedicated to young people, to which they contributed by writing some commentaries. In the letter, published in the latest number of “La Civiltà Cattolica”, the Pope says he often reads his old Bible: “I often take it and read it for a while, then I close it and let the Lord look at me”. “It is not I who look at Him, it is He who looks at me: God is really there, He is present. And I let Him observe me and I feel – this is not sentimentality -, I feel deep within me the things that the Lord tells me”. “Sometimes – the Pope continues – He does not say anything: so I don’t hear anything, only emptiness, emptiness, emptiness… But I remain there patiently, and so I wait, reading and praying. I pray sitting because it hurts me to kneel down. Sometimes, while I pray, I even fall asleep, but it does not matter: I am like a child with His Father, this is what truly matters”. “I want to tell you something: there are more persecuted Christians today than in the early days of the Church. Do you know why? They are persecuted because they wear a crucifix and bear witness to Christ; they are condemned because they have a Bible”. It is clear, Pope Francis says, that the “Bible is an extremely dangerous book, so dangerous that in some countries those who have a Bible are treated as if they were hiding hand grenades in their closets!”. Then he goes on to cite Mahatma Gandhi, who once said: “You Christians have in your hands a text containing enough dynamite to make human civilization explode into a million pieces, to turn the world upside down and to bring peace to a planet torn apart by war”.