Vatican City, May 15, 2002 (ZENIT.org).- Confidence in the merciful justice of God who seeks to save the faithful from the arrogance of their oppressors is the best antidote against all fear, assures John Paul II.
«When one is at the side of the Lord, he no longer fears nightmares and obstacles, but advances with surety and felicity on the most difficult path of life,» said the Holy Father.
The Pope spoke these words in the general audience this Wednesday, attended by three thousand pilgrims. He continued by reflecting on the canticles of the Jewish people recorded in the Old Testament, now converted into daily prayer by Christians.
The chosen passage was the Canticle of Habakkuk (3:2-4,13 and 15-19), a prophet who lived at the end of the 7th century B.C., dedicated as a judge of God. The first tones are of lamentation, but the work eventually ends with a hymn of happiness.
In the poetic language, the prophet presents a grandiose image of God who is presented as light: «His splendor spreads like the light.» «I will rejoice in the Lord, and exult in my saving God.»
The Holy Father observed it as the intimate experience of God, which has remained architecturally in the Cathedrals of the Middles Ages, and in the artistic creations of the Orthodox spirituality, in particular, the Church of St Sofia of Constantinople and Mt. Athos in Greece.
In these places, he explained, «the transcendence of the divine reality is penetrated in every community until arriving to the marrow of the bone and at the same time, it invites us to overcome ourselves and submerge ourselves totally in the ineffable character of mystery.»
The Holy Father continued, saying that this eruption of God into human history has one object: «to judge and make better, the vicissitudes which we face in a confused way and on different occasions.»
In the face of this possibility, the first reaction of one praying can be that of «a shiver,» but «the God of justice is infallible, the difference between him and earthly judges.»
Moreover, God, who scorns evil, «does not forget his merciful clemency.» His justice seeks not only «to destroy the arrogance of the impious; he also wants to be the liberator of the oppressed, to make hope spread in the heart of the victims, to open a new era of justice.»
