Fifth Sunday of Lent
Anniversary of Ezia’s death – March 18, 2018.
Missionarie sacerdozio regale di Nostro Signore Gesù Cristo.
Jesus, resurrection and life
1. Jesus is not where people are waiting for him.
Jesus is late. Jesus is accused of being late. “If you had been here, my brother would not have died: you came late. Now your friend is dead and buried! “; “He who opened his eyes to the blind man, could not even make him die? Now it’s late, death is the irremediable! “.
It’s not uncommon for God to be accused of being late, of not being present or at least of not revealing himself as a presence that saves exactly where he’s most needed.
The devotees pray and expect rescue, protection, the an happy outcome for their businesses and therefore complain to the Lord when their expectations are frustrated and the results are disappointing and they protest: “Where have you been, Lord? I was waiting for you and you didn’t come: here, now the situation is irremediable! “.
The troubled, if they pray, expect that the storms will calm down, that the problems will be resolved, that the diseases will be healed and therefore they resent, they protest when things go from bad to worse: “Lord, where have you been? Why didn’t you take care of me: here, now there is nothing left to do, the situation is irremediable! “.
2. The “now” as a vision of life.
Accumulating disappointed expectations, events that inevitably slide towards the worst, hopes mortified by a ruthless reality, some render the “now” a vision of life. The irremediable is the definition that the past imposes on the present. Personal life, the history of institutions, world styles are described with the desolate observation of the now: the nostalgia of a more gratifying past, the memento of dreams and youthful purposes, the diagnosis of well-documented developments lead yourself to think that we are marked by an ineluctable destiny and trapped in a path that doesn’t allow any way out or a possibility of going back, remedying errors and avoiding disasters.
Perhaps, even a secular institute can know the temptation to celebrating more the memory of an irremediably lost past, according to the resignation to the “by now” of the inevitable decline.
If you really insist on hoping, it’s necessary to postpone to a beyond consolatory and indefinite, in a “resurrection of the last day” that is placed in an impalpable distance, since transcendence has become trivialized in an abstraction or rather in an absence.
3. ”I am resurrection and life”.
In the midst of the general disapproval towards the disciples, the Jews, the grieving sisters, Jesus visits his friends and questions about the “philosophy of the now”.
Jesus makes himself present so that the Son of God may be glorified, he reveals himself as the Christ, the Son of God, who comes into the world: his visit isn’t reduced to the consolatory gesture of a loving presence. Rather it’s the revelation of the glory of God. It claims the conversion of thoughts and imagination about God: Do you believe this? Do you believe in this one, do you believe that this is the presence of God? That is not the transcendent and lost strangeness in the indefinite, but the friend who is moved, the proximity that takes care, the loyalty that doesn’t get tired of protests, of criticism, the Man, flesh and heart that feels horrified in the face of death: do you believe in this?
Jesus reveals that God doesn’t cause some favor to rain from someone who is dear to him, but makes himself present in the man Jesus, Son of God and Son of man, to follow the same path of all men and all women in the tragic precariousness of history recalls that the irremediable condition of slavery was visited by God to write a history of freedom “in the land that he had sworn to our fathers of giving us “. Personal events are visited by the person who frees because even sin is forgiven and no one can say of himself “by now I am what I am”. Even the storms and tribulations are visited by the Resurrection and the life because the tribulations of life also welcome the seed of consolation and the experience of the proximity of Jesus, so that no one can say of his situation: “Now it’s over for me.” Even institutions that are worn down by history, which seem weakened to insignificance, are visited by the Son of God, who comes into the world, because nothing of what is good, virtuous, noble can be marked by the seal of the irremediable from who says: “Now your story is over”
The presence of Jesus who defeats the prejudice of the “by now” is surprising and disconcerting: it doesn’t operate according to expectations, it doesn’t cancel the difficult paths and the tragic passages. His way of drawing from the grave the one who has been there for four days doesn’t satisfy a worldly curiosity, nor a wait for revenge, nor a sweet, happy temporary end. Instead, he asks for faith to follow him, to trust him more than worldly forecasts and prejudices: Jesus asks to entrust himself to him, resurrection and life, rather than pretend that spontaneous expectations are satisfied.
Do you believe in this?
The prayer which sums up the charism of the institute and outlines a synthesis for a rule of life continues to offer points of light and encouragement for the journey, in particular in the comment that Ezia wrote and which is published again. We continue to pray with the faith of those who know that the Lord hears and answers in ways that we can ignore, but which certainly are resurrection and life.