Here is a translation of the homily given this morning at the synod of bishops by Bishop Jan Vokal of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic.
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“For lo, he who forms the mountains, and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought; who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth – the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!” (Amos 4:13).
Every now and then we need to pause, raise our eyes to Heaven, and remind ourselves that we are not the masters of the world and of life. We need to contemplate the sky, the mountains, the sea; to feel the force of the wind, the voice of the great waters, as Saint John Paul II loved to do, whose Memoria, in fact, we observed yesterday. We need to feel little — as in reality we are — in the great universe that God created and continues to create and to vivify every instant.
Living always in the mist of artificial things, made by us, little by little it changes our perception of reality and of ourselves. Without realizing it, we forget where we are and who we are; we lose the sense of our true dimension. Sometimes we feel omnipotent, while we are not so; sometimes we feel impotent, while we are not so.
As the prophet Amos reminds us, we are like a blade of grass, it is true, but our heart is capable of the infinite. We are “almost nothing,” it is true, but we can ask “why?” and feel within us a mysterious bond, sometimes painful, with Him who created the world, the sun, the moon, the stars … (cf. Psalm 8).
Among all the creatures – that, in their own way are more humble and obedient than we are to the Creator – we humans are the only ones to recognize, and sometimes to feel, that God’s omnipotence, His incomprehensible greatness, is wholly and only love, and merciful, tender, compassionate love, as that of a mother for her small and fragile children. We are the only ones to intuit that the whole of creation groans and suffers as with the pangs of birth (cf. Romans 8:22).
Saint John Paul II left us in legacy the prophecy that this is the time of mercy. He dedicated the Second Sunday of Easter to the Divine Mercy and he breathed his last, in fact, on the eve of that Sunday. May he continue to intercede for us, that we may become ever more merciful, as our Heavenly Father is merciful (cf. Luke 6:36).
[Original text: Italian] [Translation by ZENIT]
