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(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 22.08.2024).- Commentary on the Gospel of Sunday, August 25, 2024. XXI Sunday in Ordinary Time.

1) Hard words that give eternity.

During the previous Sundays of the month of August, the Liturgy proposed to our meditation the discourse on the «Bread of life», which Jesus pronounced in the synagogue of Capernaum after having fed thousands of people with five loaves and two fishes. The Gospel of the Mass of today presents the reaction of the disciples. This reaction of disbelief is not anymore only for the common people or the Jews but it also involves the circle of the disciples. They «murmur» like Israel in the desert and like the Jews, who are scandalized by Jesus, who claims to be descending from heaven and to be the salvation for the world.

What is the reason for their unbelief? Here it is: «This saying is hard! Who can listen to it? «(Jn 6:60) a phrase that we could rewrite as follows:» This discourse is difficult; how can we accept it? » The difficulty does not only concern the faith in the Eucharist, namely, in the real presence of Christ in bread and wine, a presence judged impossible. The hardness and the difficulty of the discourse refer to the whole content of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of St. John: the offering of salvation that overcomes the narrow expectations of the common people and of the leaders of the Jewish people, namely, the presence of the Son of God in the person of the carpenter’s son and the need to share his existence as a gift.

This revelation was incomprehensible even to his disciples because they understood it in a material sense. On the contrary, in those words it was announced the paschal mystery of Jesus in which he would give himself for the salvation of the world: the new presence in the Holy Eucharist.

Therefore, «from that moment many of his disciples went back» (Jn 6:66). Going backwards is precisely the opposite of the sequela, which is a forward movement reaching out towards ever deeper sharing. Faced with the unbelief that has now reached the heart of his community, Jesus does not change his words or re-explain them. Instead, he encourages reflection at the root of faith, in that mysterious depth in which the grace of the Father and the responsibility of man are called to meet.

Then Christ asks: «Do you also want to leave?» (Jn 6:67). In this case too it is Peter who answers in the name of the Twelve: «Lord, to whom shall we go? You alone have words of eternal life and we have believed and known that you are the Holy One of God «(Jn 6,68-69).

Let us make ours the answer of the First of the Apostles and let us help ourselves to understand it with this comment from Saint Augustine of Hippo: «See how, by the grace of God and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Peter understood? Why did he understand? Because he believed. You have words of eternal life. You give us eternal life by offering us your body [resurrected] and your blood [ yourself]. And we have believed and known. He does not say: we have known and then believed, but we have believed and then known. We believed in order to know. If, in fact, we wanted to know before believing, we would not have succeeded in knowing or believing. What did we believe and what did we know? That you are the Christ Son of God, that is, you are the same eternal life and, in the flesh and in the blood, you give us what you yourself are «(Commentary on the Gospel of John, 27, 9).

2) The encounter with the Truth to eat.

How to strengthen our faith and believe in what St. Augustine reminds us in the paragraph just mentioned? First, we must have a heart that is not dull but tense. Secondly, do not listen to words but hear the Word that we encounter in silence.

The words of the Word, of the Word of God, do not just inform or narrate or instruct but give true life and nourish it for eternity.

The important thing is our adherence of faith, which has its roots in the heart. St. Paul writes: «It is with the heart that one believes to obtain justice» and adds: «and with the mouth one makes the profession to have salvation» (Rom 10:10). It is from the roots of the heart that the profession of faith arises (see St. Augustine, Comm in the Gospel of John, Om. 26, 12) and it is with the heart nourished by the true Bread that we are rooted in the community of saints, of the people who dwell in Christ and in whom Christ dwells steadily.

A community that today presents again the Person of Lord Jesus, who comes to teach every man how to listen to the Father, how to love him, how to worship him in spirit and truth, how to give one’s life to him in full so that He makes it an instrument of his love and of his truth forever (as the Gospel of the Ambrosian Rite indicates today: Matthew 10, 28-42). One can say about the Church and the Eucharist: «Sacrament of piety, sign of unity, bond of charity. Those who want to live have where to live and where to draw life from. May they let themselves be approached, may they believe, then they will be included, they will be vivified «(St. Augustine, Comm. To the Gospel of John, Om. 26, 1). In his Providence God not only supports us in being but gives us day by day a strength that makes us stay in his Love to proceed on the Way of Life.

Paul Claudel said that «the great truths are communicated only in silence». I would like to add that they are caught in adoration and are understood by eating the Bread of Heaven.

The attitude that summarizes the words of Peter is to stand before the Holy Sacrament in humble and silent adoration, cultivating in the heart not the doubt but the desire of those who desire full communion with him.

The Amen, which the Church makes us say when we receive Communion gains a profound meaning because it repeats the same profession of faith as Peter: «Not without reason you say Amen recognizing that you take the body of Christ; when you present yourself to receive it, the Bishop tells you: the body of Christ! And you answer: Amen! That is: it is true. May your soul keep what your word recognizes «(St. Ambrose).

May our Lady, who has said her yes, let us obtain the humility of heart to recognize the desire and the greatness of the divine Gift given to us in the Bread of Life.

Even St. Peter, with the answer on which we are meditating, renews his yes to Christ. How can we imitate it? Entrusting ourselves completely to Christ, renewing our yes with prayer, with Eucharistic adoration, and with communion to receive which we say: «Amen», that is, «Yes».

The basic problem is not to go and abandon the work undertaken because the words are «hard», “but it is to whom to go. From Peter’s question we understand that fidelity to God is a question of fidelity to a person with whom one binds oneself to walk together on the same path. This person is Jesus. Everything we have in the world does not satisfy our hunger for the infinite. We need Jesus, to be with him, to feed us at his table, and at his words of eternal life «(Pope Francis) To believe in Christ, the incarnate Truth, means making him the center of our life.

A particular example of how to put Christ at the center of life is given by the consecrated Virgins in the world. These women understood that the Lord is the one whose words make life alive, and with their consecrated life they bear witness that Christ is the heart of the world.

Every day, each of them says to Christ: «You have words of eternal life» (Jn 6:68) not so much with words but with their own life fully offered to the Bridegroom. In fact, their virginal life, referring to Christ, is fed by His Word of life and nourished by His Bread that does not perish.

These women show that Christ has «words of eternal life» not only because he heals the soul and body, but because Christ is the meaning of human life and its polar star. They must profess the proud conscience that Christ is the new man. His plan of life is the way and the truth of human experience because it is its life in fullness. They can say it by showing first of all that this makes them grow, hope and love. If Christ is the doctor, he is so because he is the gift of the Father for every man and every woman. If Christ is the truth, he is so because he asserts himself as an attractive truth for everyone’s heart. If Christ is the way, he is so because He has given us the Spirit of love that leads us into the heart of God. If Christ is all of this, then he is life; yes: the good and full life. In short, they witness that only Christ «word of life» gives life and peace and joy: they have given themselves to Love and receive love to be spread in everyday llife.

We can do the same in front of the Sunday Eucharist, in front of this gesture that sometimes appears harsh and distant. The temptation to suspend the practice while waiting to understand it better, indicates an illusory perspective: in fact, only by practicing the sacrament can we deepen its meaning. Only by listening to Christ and entrusting ourselves to him, who entrusts himself to us in communion, we will understand that only the Lord has words that make life alive.

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The Disciples are the called ones.

In today’s Gospel, Saint Mark explains the essential traits of the physiognomy of the disciple who is a chosen, separate, and holy person. In fact, the word «saint» comes from the correspondent Latin word that means «separated», separated from the world and from evil to enter the sphere of God. He or she is «set aside» for a special task, that of carrying the announcement of salvation to the whole world.

The disciple is the one who listens, believes and detaches himself or herself from the crowd to stand beside Christ and carry the announcement of his presence that has amazed him or her. The crowd listens to the words of Christ but then returns home. The disciple, on the other hand, remains with Christ and with him faithfully leads a life of communion and pilgrimage. He or she lives the choice and the separation not as distance from the others, but as proximity and familiarity with Christ. The life of communion with him becomes a mission.

What are the essential features of Christ ‘ disciples (those of that time and the ones of today)? They are: 1. complete abandonment in following, 2. loving trust, 3. being a missionary that carries joy.

In this Sunday’s Gospel passage, Saint Mark speaks of Jesus who sends his disciples on a mission. The disciple is the one who has left everything to follow Christ and become a missionary with such a confidence to use only poor means: a pair of sandals, a dress and a walking stick.

Therefore, the disciple is one who listens, believes, detaches from what is dear to him and places himself in the wake of Jesus, who has become the dearest to him: Jesus is the precious pearl.

The disciple remains with Christ and leads a common and itinerant life with him, who sends him on a mission. There is also another aspect of the disciple: he is sent on a mission. Indeed, St. Mark tells us that Christ sent his disciples to fulfil the mission of proclaiming to all not only that salvation is near but that the Savior can be encountered through the presence of his disciples of new life.

This is also true today because Christianity lives as a fact and communicates itself as a real encounter.

However, it must be kept in mind that the Christian disciple is first of all a person called by God who has become an encounter. Properly speaking, a person does not become a Christian by autonomous choice; he or she becomes so by answering to a call. In fact, there is a love that precedes our response. This is what Christ taught us when he said: «You did not choose me, but I chose you».  Saint Paul writes «In Christ (the Father) has chosen us before the creation of the world to be holy and immaculate in his presence in charity «(Eph 1: 46). Already the Old Testament, from Abraham onwards, places God at the origin of every call; the initiative to start the history of salvation of the people of Israel is entirely by the Lord. «Abraham, called by God, obeyed» (Heb 11: 8).

Even in the narratives of the prophetic vocations, the primacy of a God that calls is clearly revealed. Exemplary is the story of Amos, which we hear in the first reading of this Sunday’s Mass. This prophet is driven by his vocation to a hard confrontation with the injustices of the political power. Furthermore, he must clash with the cold considerations of the «court chaplain», the priest Amaziak, who exhorts him to prudence. Amos replies to the priest that at the root of his words there is not a personal choice linked to his own perspectives. It is God himself who forced him with a very specific call: «I was not a prophet, nor a son of a prophet; I was a shepherd and a collector of sycamores; the Lord took me from following the cattle, and the Lord said to me, «Go, prophesy among my people Israel» (Am 7: 14-15).

Disciples, namely missionaries.

Not only the prophet is called to be a missionary.  The disciple too is sent on a mission, as the today’s Gospel passage[1] (6: 7-13) makes us meditate. In fact, the evangelist Mark underlines that Jesus «sent them» and this involves at least the awareness of being sent by God and not by one’s own decision. They are sent for a project in which the disciples are involved but of which they are not the owners.

Today, as then, Christians, who as such are disciples of Christ, are sent as Missionaries of the Merciful Truth. Today, as then, the disciples invite people to conversion and give relief to suffering.

The message, which in the name of Christ they announce, is an invitation to conversion: «Turn towards the light because the light is already here. Pure and holy are our hands on the sick with which we announce: God is already here, is close to you with love, and heals life. Turn towards him «.

It is important to understand Jesus’ evangelical insistence on poverty as an indispensable condition for the mission: neither bread nor bag nor money. It is a poverty that is faith, freedom and lightness. First of all, freedom and lightness: a disciple weighed down by a baggage becomes sedentary, conservative, unable to grasp the novelty of God and very skillful in finding a thousand convenient reasons to judge the house in which he is accommodated and that he no longer wants to leave. Moreover, poverty is also faith: it is the sign of those who do not trust in themselves but rely on God.

There is also another aspect that cannot be forgotten: the «dramatic» atmosphere of the mission. Rejection is foreseen (Mk 7:11): the word of God is effective, but in its own way. The disciple must proclaim the message and get completely involved in it, but he must leave the result to God. A task has been assigned to the disciple, but success is not guaranteed.

Moreover, it is important not to forget that the disciple is not only called to be a teacher, but also a witness who engages in the struggle against Evil because he is on the side of truth, freedom and love,

Finally, we must not forget that to be missionaries we must first be disciples of Christ and listen always again to the invitation to follow him imitating him: «Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart» (Mt 11,29). A disciple, in fact, is a person who listens to the Word of Jesus (cf. Lk 10:39) recognized as the Master who loved us up to the gift of life. Therefore, for each of us, it is a matter of letting ourselves be molded each day by the Word of God. It will make us friends of the Lord Jesus and able to bring others into this friendship with Him. This fraternal friendship with Christ, the center of our life, allows us to go to the human peripheries to carry to everyone the truth of Christ, incarnate Love.

A particular way of being «disciples-missionaries» (Pope Francis) is the one of the consecrated virgins who, living and working in the world, meet the people who live and work in the existential peripheries. There is a feminine style in living the mission, a way of being disciple-missionary like the Virgin Mary, the Disciple-Missionary par excellence. More than to Mnason of Cyprus, who hosted St. Paul on his journey from Caesarea to Jerusalem, it is to Our Lady that the title of «disciple of the first hour» competes (Acts 21: 16) because she believed in the Son of God the Most High at the very moment in which he was incarnated in her womb by the work of the Holy Spirit.

Mary is the first missionary because she first brought Christ on the roads of the world to go to her cousin Elizabeth. She was a missionary who brought not a speech, but the Gospel incarnated. The consecrated Virgins in a special way imitate Our Lady through vigilance and prayer, that is, through the custody of the heart offered to Christ with the gift of their virginity and docility to the Holy Spirit. Through a discreet life in the world, the consecrated virgins live a personal focus, thanks to which they dedicate themselves to listening to the Word of God. On their example, may our heart and mind keep alive the maternal love that animates all those cooperating in the apostolic mission of the Church for the regeneration of men (cf. Lumen Gentium, 65). Every Christian is called to take up Mary’s attitude to motherly animate the evangelical proclamation of Christ, and to exercise the «power» of serving the Lord in the brothers and sisters in humanity, living in one’s own situation the virginal fruitfulness of the Church, as the consecrated Virgins witness.

[1] “Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits.  He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick— no food, no sack, no money in their belts.  They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic.  He said to them,
“Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave.  Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them.”  So they went off and preached repentance.  The Twelve drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.” ( Mk 6,7-13)

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(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 23.05.2024).- Commentary on the Gospel of Sunday, May 26, 2024. SS. Trinity

God is love.

Today we celebrate the Most Holy Trinity that dwells in our hearts.

The dogma of the Trinity is not the result of mythological fantasies or of abstract philosophical meditations. Neither it is a cold theological formulation which offers the pretext of saying that the Trinity is a mystery so detached from our life that more than one Christian feels empowered to ignore it. The Trinity is a great Mystery, which overcomes our mind, but that speaks deeply to our heart, because in its essence it is nothing else than the explication of the expression of St. John: «God is love» (1 Jn 4, 8. 16).

It is the heart that supports the mind in believing that God is

–  the Creator and the merciful Father,

–  the Only Son, eternal Wisdom incarnate, dead and risen for us,

–  the Holy Spirit that moves everything, cosmos and history, towards the full final recapitulation. Three Persons who are one God because the Father is love, the Son is love and the Spirit is love. God is all and only love, pure, infinite and eternal love.

By revealing this mystery of God-Love, Jesus, the Son of God, made us know the Father who is in Heaven and has given us the Holy Spirit, the Love of the Father and of the Son. Therefore, «the Trinity is a communion of divine Persons who are one with the other, one for the other, one in the other. This communion is the life of God, the mystery of love of the Living God» (Pope Francis).

In addition to the teaching of the Pope, I am also helped by an image taken from Saint Catherine di Siena. This great holy woman uses a simple and illuminating image: that of the fish that lives and moves in the waters of the boundless sea. The fish lives in water and of water, and the water enters in it. This little creature does not know how big, powerful and beneficial is the element in which he lives; however, it is in in the sea that the fish lives, plays, grows and multiplies.

Similarly, the same thing happens to man in front of the Mystery of God Trinity. The human being is too small to understand it, however, by grace, the life of God flows in him, by grace God bends over him and speaks to him with the tenderness of the Father, the confidence of the Brother, and the strength of Love. While remaining mysterious, the reality of love of the One and Triune God envelops the person who lives in it and lives of it. Therefore, the liturgy of this solemnity, while making us contemplate the stupendous mystery from which we come and towards which we are going, renews for us the mission of living in communion with God and in communion among us on the model of divine communion.

This entails accepting and witnessing together the beauty of the Gospel and living with one another, one for the other, one of the heart of the other. In this way, we will reflect the splendor and love of the Trinity and we will be missionaries of charity with the power of God’s love that dwells within us.

The Church as a missionary pilgrim of love.

Indeed, the Christian is missionary by nature. The Gospel of this Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity also reminds us of this. In the third reading (the Gospel) the Church makes us listen to the passage that tells of the risen Jesus who appears on a mountain to his disciples and says: «Go therefore and make disciples all peoples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything what I have commanded you «(Mt 28, 19-20).

Let us take seriously the invitation that Christ renews to us today, accepting and taking the Gospel of love into the world.

In fact, Christians are not so much proclaimers of a discourse as they are of the One who has words of eternal life in Love.

The God/ Love revealed by Jesus is not a philosophical-theological principle to be believed. He is not the most perfect God who, from his cold isolation, commands precepts to be observed. He is not even the «god» of a religiosity put at our service to get out of our failures, our incapacities or our fears. God is a mystery of relationship, of communion: an infinite relationship of love, of true love, of love that gives itself totally. We have been created by this love and out of love, «we were created in the image of divine communion» (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 178). We are called to be missionaries of this communion of love. This mystery of love is concrete and close to us more than we think, and we live it in practice when, especially in the most important or critical moments in which we mostly need God, we make the sign of the cross. Marking ourselves with this holy sign, almost without being fully aware of it, we invoke God One and Triune saying: «In the name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit». Not only do we invoke God Trinity to help us, but we praise him with the prayer «Glory to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit … Amen» that Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Missionary of Charity in name and in fact, often said in this way: «Glory to the Father-Prayer, and to the Son-Poverty, and to the Holy Spirit-Zeal for souls. Amen-Maria. »

 The Trinity and the Consecrated Virgins.

Saint Teresa of Avila describes the understanding and the existential value of this Mystery speaking of her spiritual journey that has developed in the direction of «loving tenderness». Christ has led her to the Father and has entrusted her to the Holy Spirit, and Teresa has «experienced» the mystery of the three divine Persons: a paternal person who attracts, embraces, comforts and solicits; a spiritual person who warms her and captivates her inwardly while the filial person of Christ continues to invite and prepare Teresa for the mystical marriage that was celebrated in the Carmel of Avila during Mass on November 18, 1572.

The lives of the consecrated Virgins in the world continue in their own way the experience of this great Spanish Saint. With a complete gift of themselves in the hands of the Bishop, these women testify in a special way the Trinitarian dimension of Christian life.

In fact, virginity is in some ways the deification of man: «One cannot make better praise of virginity except by showing that it deifies those who participate in its pure mysteries to the point of making them in communion with the glory of God, the only truly holy and immaculate, admitting them in his own familiarity through purity and incorruptibility «(Saint Gregory of Nyssa, De Virginitate, 1, 1-2, 256 s.).

Therefore, virginity originates from the Trinity and lives in the Trinity, linked as it is to the generation of the Son by the Father and brought as a gift to men by the Word, who comes into the world in the same way as it is generated by the Father, virginally by a Virgin. This is how in the Christian, virginity produces effects like those that occurred «in Mary, the Immaculate, when all the fullness of the divinity that was in Christ shone in her (…). Jesus no longer comes with his physical presence, but lives spiritually in us and, with him, brings us the Father «(Ibid, 2).

It is clear that this ideal of life characterized by spiritual virginity is proposed to all Christians, even to the married one, as a requirement of perfection. But Saint Gregory and the other Fathers of the Church clearly see that whoever chooses virginity, abstaining from marriage and imitating Jesus and Mary, rediscovers the original integrity in which man was created or, as the holy bishop of Nyssa says, the condition of «the first man in his first life» (Ibid, 12, 4. 4; 416 s).

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(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 08.05.2024).- Commentary on the Gospel of Sunday, May 12, 2024. VII Sunday of Easter.

Certainty and joy.

In the Creed we recite: “He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father”. Which means that we believe in the fact that the humanity of Christ has entered the heart of the divinity and where there is God there is heaven, and love is heaven on earth. Therefore “ the Ascension does not indicate the absence of Jesus, but tells us that He is alive among us in a new way; he is no longer in a specific place in the world as he was before the Ascension; now it is in the lordship of God, present in every space and time, close to each of us.” (Pope Francis, General Audience , 17 April 2013).

It is therefore correct to say that one of the teachings that come to us from the fact of the Ascension is that we too can rise high, but only if we remain tied to Jesus. If we entrust our life to Him, if we let ourselves be guided by Him, we are certain of being in safe hands, in the hands of our savior, of our defense lawyer. “In our life we are never alone: we have this lawyer waiting for us, who defends us” ( Ibid .).

Another teaching is that we must be clear that entering the glory of God requires daily fidelity to his will, even when this requires sacrifice and accepting our daily cross, because : «the elevation on the cross signifies and announces the elevation of the ascension into heaven” ( Catechism of the Catholic Church , n. 661). In this ascent “the crucified and risen Lord guides us; with us there are many brothers and sisters who in silence and in hiding, in their family and work life, in their problems and difficulties, in their joys and hopes, live the faith every day and bring, together with us, to the world lordship of the love of God, in the risen Christ Jesus, who ascended into Heaven» (Pope Francis, General Audience , 17 April 2013)

A third teaching comes to us from the first reading of today’s Mass, which proposes the fact of the Ascension as told by Saint Luke in the Acts of the Apostles. It concerns how to have within us the joy of the Apostles, caused by the certainty of the constant presence of the risen Jesus in personal and community life.

This certainty and this joy can be ours if with a sincere mind and heart we ask for the blessing that Jesus gave to the Apostles as he ascended to Heaven.

In this way we too, like the Apostles, will experience the fact of the ascension of the Risen One not as a detachment, a permanent absence of the Lord.

In this way we too will have confirmed and increased the certainty that the Risen Crucifix is alive and that in Him the doors of God, the doors of eternal life, have forever been opened to humanity.

In this way, on the day of the Ascension, we too can have in our hearts the pain of leaving, but also the certainty and joy of the constant closeness of Christ, even if in a different way compared to his earthly life. “He, who two thousand years ago was a single man in history, still continues to live in history today as the soul of the Church” (HU von Balthasar).

  Ascension and Mission.

In the short story (third reading this Sunday) that Saint Mark gives of the Ascension, we see that, more than on the fact of the Ascension, the risen Jesus invites us to draw the consequences of his ascension to the Father: the Apostles and with them all Christians of all times we are his mandates, his missionaries sent to bring the Gospel throughout the world: » Then they set out and preached [1]everywhere, while the Lord worked together with them and confirmed the Word with the wonders that accompanied them» ( Mk 16, 20). Jesus ascends to heaven and the disciples go into the world. But Jesus’ departure is not a true absence, but rather another mode of presence: «The Lord worked together with them and gave foundation to the Word» (see ibid. ). “ Ascension is not a cosmic geographical path but it is the navigation of the heart that leads you from closure within yourself to the love that embraces the universe” (Benedict XVI, 10 March 2010).

This invitation of Christ to embrace the universe, announcing the Gospel to all men: «Go into all the world» ( Mk 16, 15), was not perceived as madness, but as a mandate of charity to bring salvation to everyone.

With ascension there is a turning point in the path of redemption. From Jerusalem where the mission of Christ was accomplished, who on the Cross said: «It is finished», the redemptive mission entrusted to the apostles expands into a universal dimension. The until then compact group dissolves physically speaking, but not emotionally. While the Redeemer «departs» towards heaven, the apostles each depart in a different direction from a geographical point of view, but deeply in communion with each other and with Christ. Tradition specifies what each person’s destination would have been: for Peter Antioch and Rome, for Matthew Ethiopia, for Thomas India and so on. But our thoughts go in particular to the apostle about whom we are informed with a wealth of detail, Paul of Tarsus, the tireless traveler who brought the gospel to present-day Turkey, Greece and Rome. And after him we thank the innumerable group of missionaries who for twenty centuries, with the heroism often expressed by martyrdom, continued and continue the work of the apostles, to make as many people as possible participate in the good, holy, true life and happy that the Gospel of Jesus has been announcing and realizing for two millennia. Like them, we become missionaries of joy, announcing to the world that God is a communion of eternal love, it is infinite joy that does not remain closed in itself, but expands in those whom He loves and who love Him.

It is truly miraculous that from eleven men it was possible to develop an «organism», the Mystical Body, in which millions and millions of believers found themselves and continue to find themselves. Humanly impossible; the explanation lies in the words reported: “The Lord acted together with them”. And with a very specific purpose. The compact group, made up of Jesus with the first apostles, did not dissolve, it spread throughout the world. They have not dispersed: they are united in faith, love and hope. The hope, in particular, of recomposing ourselves in unity, in the presence of Him who has preceded us all to His Father and our Father.

The verbs used by Christ to send him on a mission maintain their relevance:

– ‘go’ indicates the dynamism and courage to immerse yourself in ever-new situations in the world;

– ‘proclaim the Gospel’ , so that people become followers not so much of a doctrine, but of a Person;

– ‘believe’ in the announcement of a faith, which certainly includes a knowledge of its truths and the events of salvation, but which above all is born from a true encounter with God in Jesus Christ, from loving him, from trusting in him, so that all life is involved.

– ‘baptize’ indicates the sacrament that transforms and inserts people into Trinitarian and ecclesial life. Baptism, the sacrament that gives us the Holy Spirit, making us become children of God in Christ, and marks entry into the community of faith, into the Church: one does not believe on its own, without the prevention of the grace of the Spirit; and you don’t believe alone, but together with your brothers. “With Baptism, we are immersed in that inexhaustible source of life which is the death of Jesus, the greatest act of love in all of history; and thanks to this love we can live a new life, no longer at the mercy of evil, sin and death, but in communion with God and with our brothers» (Pope Francis, General Audience , 8 January 2014).

The missionary nature of Virginity.

It is beautiful to reflect on the last words of Jesus, as he sends His people to preach in the midst of this world which, even if it does not appear, needs the infinite, the truth, the love, the hope, the joy that Heaven is and has.

It is a task that makes us tremble today, it is so big.

It is a task that seems not for poor human beings such as we are, but for Angels, which is why Jesus ensures His Presence «by working with us and confirming His Word with the miracles that accompany it» (see Mc 16,20) .

It is a task for all the baptized, because thanks to Baptism all Christians become missionary disciples and are called to bring the Gospel to the world.

But what is the missionary modality of the consecrated Virgins in the world?

It is that of being icons, living images of the virgin, poor and obedient Christ (see Second Vatican Council, Decree on the renewal of religious life, Perfectae Caritatis , 1) before the ecclesial and human community.

And how can I not «paint» Christ alive?

Through a communion with God and with our brothers and sisters in humanity, which is not diminished but increased by the solitude in which they are called to live. Virgins are such and are missionaries if they «use» their affection and their body as Christ used it: not to possess or be possessed, but to give communion to all those they encounter.

In short, the singular vocation of consecrated virgins in the world indicates a clear mission: to exalt the dignity of women by bearing witness, in the life of the world in which they remain immersed, to the full sense of the love they have received from Christ Jesus to give it to their brothers and sisters in humanity.

[1] The task is to «preach», a term that deserves an explanation. It does not simply mean giving an instruction or an exhortation or an edifying sermon. The verb «preach» indicates the announcement of an event, of news, not of a doctrine. This is decisive news: it is not just information, but an appeal. The Gospel preached becomes credible and visible from the signs that the disciple performs. But these must be signs that reveal the power of God, not that of man.

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(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 02.05.2024).- Commentary on the Gospel of Sunday, May 5, 2024. VI Sunday of Easter. 

The name of Christ’s disciples: «Friends».

On this sixth Sunday of Easter, Jesus, who continues to invite us to «abide» in Him, reveals to us who He is: the Beloved, and that his life is a relationship of Love. This is why He calls us to be a community of people whose vocation is to share His Love.

After having exhorted his followers to remain in him like the branches in the vine (see last Sunday’s Gospel), today Jesus asks us to remain in his love, not to distance ourselves from the source of life, to open ourselves to him who, in the gift total of himself, he included us in his relationship with the Father.

The love of Christ is the greatest love because he gives his life for us, his friends : : “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. And you are my friends» ( Jn 15:13) .

Let’s not forget that among the friends Jesus addresses in the cenacle there is Judas (who has just come out and called him «friend»); there is Peter (who will deny him three times) and there are the others, who will leave him alone during his passion). And he calls them “friends”. Today we are in the cenacle of the church and we too are called by him : «friends», even if we are fragile and sinners.

In fact, at the Last Supper, but not only, Jesus calls his friends, his equals (the love of friendship is between equal people and is reciprocal ), those who will betray him by denying him and going away from him. Why? Because he loves them with a free love and knows that they will respond to his love, that even if they do not love him fully, at least they want to love him, grateful for the love he has for them.

When they see him raised up, when they discover his boundless love, they will believe in this «excessive» love.

We too are called to become his friends by knowing his love for us. And this statement is beautiful: «I do not call you servants, but friends» ( Jn 15, 15), because » servants» (in the Greek text it says «slaves») is in itself an honorific title and indicates the ministers of the king . Minister is a word of Greek origin which means servant. Therefore Ministers are the most important people after the King. The greatest, after God, are the servants of God, the prophets, the saints. But today Christ teaches: “You are not “servants”, not even the greatest. You are something more. You are equal friends with each other and with Him. We are called to become equal with God. Why? Because the love that the Father has for the Son, the Son has given to us and we can love with the same love as God and we become like God who is love. So we are friends, equals. It is precisely this love of brothers in Brother Jesus that makes us equal to God. In the final part of v. 15 of the chapter. 15, continues: “the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” Jesus explains what he means by “friends”. Christ recognizes the disciples as friends because they do what He asks of them, that is, if they believe and love. Faced with the King of Kings, the condition of the disciple is in itself that of the «servant», a term which in the Bible (but not only) represents an important title , because it characterizes the relationship with God: it indicates a faithful person available to the Gentleman. It does not have the meaning of slave, except when it indicates a man subjected to a master of this world or (see John 8:34) to the power of sin. The title of «servant» is already important, but the title «friend» indicates that at the center of the life of God and man, there is friendship, the most perfect form of Love, the free and non-possessive relationship which brings about the communion of people.

Friends of Christ.

Today Christ reveals to us that we are not just servants and disciples, but friends.

If we were nothing but ministers (=servants), we would in any case be subjected to the King. Even if we were happy to serve a good cause, we would always be subjects forced to observe the law. If we were nothing but disciples, we would have to go to school with the Master, happy to learn the truth and receive words of eternal life.

But we are also «friends», we are «subjects» to the law of freedom generated by the Love to which He has entrusted himself and of which he makes us participants if we remain in his word: «This I command you, that you love one another».

This, more than a command, is an imploring that Jesus addresses to us, because He first loved us and He gives us the strength so that we too do the same. It is the novelty of the ecclesial community: being a school of friendship, where we learn the logic of gift and faith.

Remaining in the friendship of Christ means entering into a new relationship with God. With the God of the new Covenant, who is not so much a supreme legislator who asks us to observe the Law, but rather a Father who implores us to believe in a Love that he came to give his own Son.

In this friendship with Christ, He – who is the shepherd, the way, the truth and the life – becomes the door through which the Love of the Father becomes our home. Because today Christ repeats that we are at home in the love that the Father has for Him, the Son. And how do we live in this house? We are in the house of love if, in turn, we love. Therefore “Love one another, as I have loved you”. By loving our brothers, we are in the Father’s House. This fraternal love makes us friends of Christ. By loving our brother we become like God, like the Son, who is such because he loves our brothers with the love of the Father.

In this friendship

• the way is not a road to follow, it is a person to follow: Christ;
• the truth is not an abstract concept, it is a man to associate with: Christ;
• and life is not simply a biological fact, life is loving as one is loved, he who loves us is loving Christ.

“Friends” is the truest name of Jesus’ disciples. We are no longer servants, forced to observe a law, but free friends of that freedom generated by the Love to which He entrusted himself and of which he makes us participants if we remain in his word: “This I command you, that you love one another.”

 The consecrated virgins, witnesses of friendship with Christ.

The vocation to friendship with Christ for consecrated virgins must be understood in the light of the Song of Songs where we read: » Now my beloved begins to say to me: «Rise, my friend , my beautiful one, and come, quickly! Because, behold, the winter is over, the rain has stopped, it is gone; the flowers have appeared in the fields, the time for singing has returned and the voice of the turtle dove is still heard in our countryside. The fig tree is ripening its first fruits and the flowering vines spread scent. Get up, my friend , my beautiful one, and come quickly” ( Song 2, 10 – 13).

These women consecrated with the gift of themselves to Christ demonstrate that they have believed in the love of God and offer themselves without reservation to Jesus, Spouse and Friend, testifying that «at the beginning of being a Christian there is no ethical or a great idea, but rather the encounter with an event, with a Person, which gives life a new horizon and with this a decisive direction» (Benedict XVI).

As brides of Christ, the consecrated virgins bear witness to the love of friendship with which God fills us and which must be communicated by us to others.

With simplicity but with perseverance these women show that friendship with Christ coincides with what the third petition of our Father expresses: ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. In the hour of Gethsemane, Jesus transformed our rebellious human will into a will compliant and united with the divine will. He suffered the whole drama of our autonomy – and precisely by bringing our will into the hands of God, he gives us true freedom: ‘Not as I want, but as you want’.

In this communion of wills our redemption is achieved: being friends of Jesus, becoming friends of God. The more we love Jesus, the more we know him, the more our true freedom grows, the joy of being redeemed grows. We thank Jesus for your friendship and let us be increasingly fraternal friends with each other. “If we do not celebrate with gratitude the free gift of friendship with the Lord, if we do not recognize that our earthly existence and our natural abilities are also a gift. We need to joyfully recognize that our reality is the fruit of a gift, and also accept our freedom as grace. This is the difficult thing today, in a world that believes it possesses something of itself, the fruit of its own originality and freedom» (Pope Francis, Ap. Ex. Gaudete et exultate , on the call to holiness in the contemporary world, n. 55) .

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(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 04.17.2024).- Commentary on the Gospel of Sunday, April 21, 2024. Four Sunday of Lent.

The Good Shepherd gives life

The passage from the Gospel of the 4th Sunday of Easter is taken each year from chapter 10 of the Gospel of John and presents Jesus to us as the good shepherd. This year, which is year B, the Liturgy has us read the central part of the chapter, verses 11-18, where it is said that the Good Shepherd gives his life for his sheep and knows them.

Unlike the mercenary shepherd who only has interested relationships with the sheep, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, knows, that is to say, loves his own. The relationships between Jesus and believers are based on knowledge, in the biblical sense of the term: on deep bonds of love. Indeed in the Bible the word “knowledge” implies intimacy and mutual trust. This is the term generally used to describe marital relations: “Adam knew Eve his wife, who conceived and gave birth…” (Gen 4:1); “Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son; you will give him the name Jesus”, announces the angel to Mary, who responds: “How will this be done since I do not know a man? » (Luke 1:31-34). So when Jesus says: “I know my sheep, and my sheep know me,” we understand the depth of his love for us and the depth that he expects from us in return.

These strong bonds of loving knowledge between Jesus and us find their foundation in the relationships that unite Jesus to the Father. These bonds are manifested by giving his life for us (Jn 10:14). This statement is similar to that found in Jn 10:11, but stronger. If in verse 11 “to give life” means to be willing to risk one’s own life for the sheep, in verse 14 it literally means to deprive oneself of life. This total gift of self is the specific attitude of Jesus, the one which characterized his entire mission on earth and not only his passion and his death.

This total gift, a sign of a love ready to give life, brings to the fore the fact that we belong to him: ‘his sheep’, lovingly guarded and guided to life. On the contrary, the mercenaries, the opportunists, treat men as ‘goods’ and not as people.

So, today, let each of us ask ourselves the questions: “Which ‘sheep’ of the flock am I? Am I the sheep ‘lost and found’ or am I still ‘lost’? Am I the sheep who lets herself be led gently, to find rest in Him, am I the ‘wounded or sick’ sheep who lets herself be bandaged or cared for by Him? » If our answer is positive, we will follow Jesus and, when we have difficulty walking, He will carry us on his shoulders.

Follow Christ the Good Shepherd

Following Christ like docile sheep does not mean being naive, foolish and blindly obedient, but means being humble, trusting and letting ourselves be held in the arms, lovingly abandoning ourselves to Him who walks with us and for us. Moreover, being humble and trusting in Jesus does not mean not using intelligence because humility is the virtue which predisposes the intelligence to faith and the heart to love.

Following Christ like sheep conscious of being loved and not rejected people means letting ourselves be guided by Him, our saint and good shepherd, to the eternal meadows of heaven. He is a “pastor” because he is a “lamb”. It is in fact written: “The Lamb will be their shepherd to lead them to the springs of the waters of life” (Rev 7:17).

But let us not forget that Jesus wanted the priest in the Church to be like the “Good Shepherd”. Not only but especially in the parish, the priest continues the mission and pastoral duty of Jesus; he must therefore “shepherd the flock”, by teaching, by giving grace, by defending the “sheep” from error and evil, by consoling but above all by loving.

Even if the way of being a priest changes according to place and time, all priests are called to imitate Christ the Good Shepherd who, unlike the mercenary shepherd, does not seek other interests, does not pursue any other advantage than that to guide, feed, protect his sheep: “so that they may have life, life in abundance” (Jn 10.10).

All pastors

By virtue of baptism, every Christian is called to be a “good shepherd” in his environment:

– Parents must be “Good Shepherds” for their children, edifying them with love;

– Children must obey the love of parents and learn a simple and coherent faith, learning to give the life they have received as a gift;

– The spouses must give an imprint to their relationship as a couple, by conforming to the good shepherd, so that family life is always at this height of feelings and ideals desired by the Creator, to which the family owes its name “Domestic Church »;

– Teachers at school, workers in factories or offices, let each of them always seek to be “a good shepherd” like Jesus.

– But, above all, must be “good shepherds” in society are people consecrated to God: religious men and women, members of a secular institute.

This is why, on this Sunday, we must pray for all religious vocations, male and female, so that in the Church the witness of religious life is ever greater, lively, intense and effective. The world today needs convinced and totally dedicated witnesses more than ever.

I am thinking in particular of the consecrated Virgins who exercise a particular “pastoral minister” in the Church.

Even if their ministry is not an ordained ministry, these consecrated women do not limit themselves to bearing witness to the angelic condition of the children of the Kingdom, by living in virginity. In addition to chastity, which they are called to observe in perfect continence, consecrated Virgins practice their commitment to poverty of heart and life for a serious sharing of human suffering, as well as the obedience that they must bear to God. An obedience which presents itself in the exhortations and precepts of the Church, in the advice and pastoral directives, to meet the needs of people. The Ritual of the consecration of Virgins suggests that they fulfill their service (= ministry) with sobriety in life, with the help of the poor and through acts of penance: “The virgins in the Church are those women who, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, take a vow of chastity in order to love Christ with more ardor and serve by devoting themselves more freely to their brothers… They have the duty to respond to works of penance and mercy , to apostolic activity and to prayer” (Ritual of the consecration of the Virgins, 2). Therefore, even if they give primacy to prayer and contemplation, consecrated virgins serve the pastoral ministry of the Church by putting the gift of self at the service (ministry) of the Church, holy fold for saved sheep and in devoting itself to love towards all men and women in the ordinary circumstances of life, so that all may form one thing in Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd.

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(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 04.12.2024).- Commentary on the Gospel of Sunday, April 14, 2024. Third Sunday of Lent.

In the sea of ​the same old life there is a continuous novelty.

Easter was fifteen days ago. Work and school have started again at full speed and everyday life has started to flow as usual. The routine of everyday life leads to a vague recollection of the announcement that the Lord is risen. The unheard news that the risen Christ has definitively defeated death risks being reduced to an information on an important event far back in time. This happens because we forget that it is a news that not only informs us that our life does not end here but forms us as people who already on this Earth participate in the resurrection of Christ.

How can we intensely live the memory of Christ without letting ourselves be tossed by the waves of life?

How can we be mindful of the Risen One in daily life?

Living the memory of the Lord in the work and not despite work, in the family and not despite the family, in the Church and not despite the Church that with its rites defines what is true.

It is precisely the Church with its liturgy that helps us to remember Christ. Let us consider, for example, Holy Week. During this great and holy period, the Church has awakened in us the living memory of the sufferings that the Lord has endured for us and has prepared us to celebrate with joy «the true Easter that the Blood of Christ has covered with glory, the Easter in which the Church celebrates the Feast that is the origin of all the feasts«. (Ambrosian Preface of the Easter Mass).

On Holy Thursday, the Church recalled the Last Supper where the Lord, on the eve of his passion and death, instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist in which Christ gives himself to all of us as food of salvation and as a medicine of immortality.

Good Friday is the day when the Church recalls the passion, crucifixion, and death of Jesus. On this day, the liturgy brings us together to meditate on the great mystery of evil and sin which oppress humanity and to make us retrace the sufferings of the Lord which expiate this evil.

Remembrance needs silence, so Holy Saturday is marked by a profound silence. There is a need of a day of silence to meditate on the reality of human life, on the forces of evil and on the great power of good arising from the Lord’s Passion and Resurrection.

This Saturday of silence and sorrowful memory leads to the Easter Vigil, which introduces the most important Sunday in the history of the world: the Easter Sunday of Christ.

Remembering the mysteries of the dead and risen Christ means living in deep and supportive adherence to the present, convinced that what we celebrate is a living reality.

Remembering Christ does not mean simply remembering him as a person from the past who has left us a profound teaching, but it means making him present by letting us be drawn by his loving presence forever alive.

Remembering means to be in communion with Christ. The communion with Jesus is not a mystery that is celebrated simply in the liturgy with gestures and words. The commandment: «Do this in memory of me» has a double meaning: to remember the sacrament and to remember in life, to make Jesus present in the sacrament and to make him present in charity.

Remembrance and presence.

On this third Sunday of Easter, the liturgy helps us to remember by putting Christ’s presence before the eyes of the heart. It does this by proposing as a reading of the Gospel the account that St. Luke makes of the third meeting of the Risen Lord with his Apostles in the Upper Room.

On this Sunday the Church wants to make us understand how, after his resurrection, Christ is truly alive among us, in our days and in our daily life. Faith in Christ is precisely this: to believe that Christ is truly risen and lives every day with us as a faithful friend forever.

Remembering does not mean recalling the memory of a loved person but giving back to the eyes of the heart the true presence of the Beloved.

The evangelist Luke proposes almost an itinerary of the apparitions of Christ to make us better understand that the Crucified Christ is truly the Risen One.

After having on the previous Sundays presented, as evidence of the resurrection of Jesus, the empty tomb, the testimony of the angels, the apparition to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, today St. Luke tells of Jesus offering even more tangible evidence: He appears to the assembled Apostles, shows his wounds, and sits at the table with them. Jesus has a real body. The Risen One is not a ghost, but a real being who becomes a presence among his own to whom he asks to remember him and to bear witness to him.

This presence remains available to us in a sublime way in the Eucharistic bread, which is kept in every church in the world. Let us go and stand before the tabernacle to worship and visit the Risen Lord. Eucharistic adoration and the visit to the Blessed Sacrament must be done precisely because they have in themselves an orientation to Christ present under the species of bread.

In Greek «adoration» is called proskynesis. It means the gesture of submission, the recognition of God as our true measure, whose norm we accept to follow. It means that freedom does not mean enjoying life and considering oneself to be autonomous but orienting oneself according to the measure of truth and goodness to become real and good.

In Latin «adoration» is ad-oratio, that is mouth-to-mouth contact, kiss, hug and, therefore, love. Submission becomes union, because the one to whom we submit is Love. Submission acquires a meaning because it does not impose foreign things upon us but frees us in function of the innermost truth of our being, makes us permanently convert to Christ and have a relationship of friendship, sharing, love, confidence with Him and with our brothers and sisters: communion.

The union with Christ through the Eucharist eaten and adored, allows us to give, as Christians, a true testimony of a life lived with Him.

An example of how to live this remembrance and this presence of Christ comes to us from the consecrated Virgins. Their vocation is not identified in a specific task or in a particular function, but in «remembering» and in testifying that the essential in the Church is the love of Christ for each one and for all. It is a faithful and personal love that the Scripture and the word of the Church have translated with the image of the «Bridegroom».

It is also useful to remember that «the eucharistic mystery also has an intrinsic relationship to consecrated virginity, inasmuch as the latter is an expression of the Church’s exclusive devotion to Christ, whom she accepts as her Bridegroom with a radical and fruitful fidelity. In the Eucharist, consecrated virginity finds inspiration and nourishment for its complete dedication to Christ.»(Benedict XVI, Sacramentum caritatis, n. 81). «In the Eucharist, Christ always implements the gift of himself that he made on the Cross. His whole life is an act of total sharing of self for love»(Pope Francis).

The consecrated virgin is passionate in her love for the Eucharist, receiving Christ as her inspiration and her food. She is a woman always ready to receive the intimate love of the Lord and to repay him with prayer and service. Strengthened by this food, she dares to present herself publicly as a virgin amid a hostile society, humbly recognizing that she is not only a consecrated woman but a consecrated virgin.

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The ceremony began in the atrium of the Basilica with the blessing of the new fire and the preparation of the Paschal Candle. Following the procession to the altar, with the Paschal candle lit and the singing of the Exsultet, came the Liturgy of the Word and the Baptismal Liturgy, during which the Pope administered the Sacraments of Christian initiation to 8 neophytes.

Below is the Pope’s homily translated into English:

***

The women go to the tomb at daybreak, yet they still feel the darkness of night. They continue to walk, yet their hearts remain at the foot of the cross. The tears of Good Friday are not yet dried; they are grief-stricken, overwhelmed by the sense that all has been said and done. A stone has sealed the fate of Jesus. They are concerned about that stone, for they wonder: “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” (Mk 16:3). Yet once they arrive, they are taken aback when they see the amazing power of the Easter event: “When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back” (Mk 16:4).

Dear brothers and sisters, let us stop and reflect on these two moments, which bring us to the unexpected joy of Easter. At first, the women anxiously wonder: Who will roll away the stone from the tomb? Then, at a second moment, looking up, they see that it had already been rolled back.

[Who will roll away the stone from the tomb?]

First, there is the question that troubles their grieving hearts: Who will roll away the stone from the tomb? That stone marked the end of Jesus’ story, now buried in the night of death. He, the life that came into the world, had been killed. He, who proclaimed the merciful love of the Father, had met with no mercy. He, who relieved sinners of the burden of their condemnation, had been condemned to the cross. The Prince of Peace, who freed a woman caught in adultery from a vicious stoning, now lay buried behind a great stone. That stone, an overwhelming obstacle, symbolized what the women felt in their hearts. It represented the end of their hopes, now dashed by the obscure and sorrowful mystery that put an end to their dreams.

Brothers and sisters, it can also be that way with us. There are times when we may feel that a great stone blocks the door of our hearts, stifling life, extinguishing hope, imprisoning us in the tomb of our fears and regrets, and standing in the way of joy and hope. We encounter such “tombstones” on our journey through life in all the experiences and situations that rob us of enthusiasm and of the strength to persevere. We encounter them at times of sorrow: in the emptiness left by the death of our loved ones; we encounter them in the failures and fears that hold us back from accomplishing the good we mean to do. We encounter them in all the forms of self-absorption that stifle our impulses to generosity and sincere love, in the rubber walls, the real rubber walls, of selfishness and indifference that hold us back in the effort to build more just and humane cities and societies; we encounter them in all our aspirations for peace that are shattered by cruel hatred and the brutality of war. When we experience these disappointments, do we also have the sensation that all these dreams are doomed to failure, and that we too should ask ourselves in anguish: “Who will roll away the stone from the tomb?”.

Yet the same women who bore this darkness in their hearts tell us something quite extraordinary. When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. This is the Pasch of Christ, the revelation of God’s power: the victory of life over death, the triumph of light over darkness, the rebirth of hope amid the ruins of failure. It is the Lord, the God of the impossible, who rolled away the stone forever. Even now, he opens our hearts, so that hope may be born ever anew. We too, then, should “look up” to him.

[The stone had already been moved]

The second moment: let us look up, then, to Jesus. After assuming our humanity, he descended into the depths of death and filled them with the power of his divine life, allowing an infinite ray of light to break through for each of us. Raised up by the Father in his, and our, flesh, in the power of the Holy Spirit, he turned a new page in the history of the human race.Henceforth, if we allow Jesus to take us by the hand, no experience of failure or sorrow, however painful, will have the last word on the meaning and destiny of our lives. Henceforth, if we allow ourselves to be raised up by the Risen Lord, no setback, no suffering, no death will be able to halt our progress towards the fullness of life. Henceforth, “we Christians proclaim that this history… has meaning, an all-embracing meaning… a meaning no longer tainted by absurdity and shadows… a meaning that we call God… All the waters of our transformation converge on him; they do not pour down into the depths of nothingness and absurdity… For his tomb is empty and the One who died has now been revealed as the Living One” (K. RAHNER, Wie heisst Auferstehung?).

Brothers and sisters, Jesus is our Pasch. He is the One who brings us from darkness into light, who is bound to us forever, who rescues us from the abyss of sin and death, and draws us into the radiant realm of forgiveness and eternal life. Brothers and sisters, let us look up to him! Let us welcome Jesus, the God of life, into our lives, and today once again say “yes” to him. Then no stone will block the way to our hearts, no tomb will suppress the joy of life, no failure will doom us to despair. Brothers and sisters, let us lift our eyes to him and ask that the power of his resurrection may roll away the heavy stones that weigh down our souls. Let us lift our eyes to him, the Risen Lord, and press forward in the certainty that, against the obscure backdrop of our failed hopes and our deaths, the eternal life that he came to bring is even now present in our midst.

Sister, brother, let your heart burst with jubilation on this night, this holy night! Together let us sing of Jesus’ resurrection: “Sing to him, everything sing to him: rivers and plains, deserts and mountains … Sing to the Lord of life, risen from the tomb, more brilliant than a thousand suns. All peoples beset by evil and plagued by injustice, all peoples displaced and devastated: on this holy night cast aside your songs of sadness and despair. The Man of Sorrows is no longer in prison: he has opened a breach in the wall; he is hastening to meet you. In the darkness, let an unexpected shout of joy resound: He is alive; he is risen! And you, my brothers and sisters, small and great … you who are weary of life, who feel unworthy to sing… let a new flame be kindled in your heart, let new vitality be heard in your voice. It is the Pasch of the Lord, brothers and sisters; it is the feast of the living” (J-Y. QUELLEC, Dieu face nord, Ottignies, 1998, 85-86).

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