miniZibaldone

We are being asked not to tire of keeping the key message of the faith front and centre: the Lord is risen.  Nothing is more important;  nothing is clearer or more  relevant than this.  Everything in the faith becomes beautiful when linked to this centrepiece. From the homily It is by loving that the God-who-is-Love is proclaimed to the world: not by the power of convincing, never by imposing the truth, no less by growing fixated on some  religious or moral obligation.  God is proclaimed through the encounter between persons, with care for their history and their journey.  Because the Lord is not an  idea, but a living person: his message is passed on through simple and authentic testimony, by listening and welcoming, with joy which radiates outward.  We do not  speak convincingly about Jesus when we are sad; nor do we transmit God’s beauty merely with beautiful homilies.  The God of hope is proclaimed by living out the  ...

Inferno by Dante Alighieri  Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri  Paradiso by Dante Alighieri  By What Authority Robert Hugh Benson  Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes  The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky  The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni Apologia Pro Vita Sua by John Henry Newman The Portal of the Mystery of Hope by Charles Peguy The Five Wounds of the Church by Antonio Rosmini  Hamlet by William Shakespeare  Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare  Kristin Lavransdatter I: the Bridal Wreath by Sigrid Undset

What Every Woman Knows James Barrie A Choice of Christina Rossetti's Verse  Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead Anne Morrow Lindbergh  The Normal Child and Some of His Abnormalities C. W. Valentine  Restless Pilgrim: Spiritual Journey of Bob Dylan Scott Marshall  Without Feathers, Getting Even, Side Effects Woody Allen By What Authority Robert Hugh Benson  The Way of the Bull Leo Buscaglia The New Jerusalem G. K. Chesterton  The Monk's Tale Kathleen Hughes  Great Choral Works Nicholas Kenyon  Charming Billy Alice McDermott An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine John Henry Newman  Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson Home Witold  Rybczynski  The Globalization Myth Alan Shipman The Stories of Muriel Spark Vasilii Rozanov and the Creation Adam Ure   Ursa Major: A Study of Dr. John...

In fact, sometimes our exhaustion is caused by having put our trust in things that are not essential, because we have distanced ourselves from what is really valuable in life. The Lord teaches us not to be afraid to follow Him, because the hope we place in Him will not be disappointed. From the audience Jesus projects to His disciples a path of knowledge and of imitation. Jesus is not a teacher who imposes on others with severity burdens that He does not carry: this was the accusation He made to the Doctors of the Law. He addresses the humble and little ones, the poor and the needy because He Himself made Himself little and humble. He understands the poor and the suffering because He Himself is poor and tried by sorrows. Jesus did not follow an easy way to save humanity; on the contrary, his path was painful and difficult. As the Letter to the Philippians reminds: “He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (2:8). The yoke that the poor and the oppr...

The more we allow ourselves to be taken up by this love, the more our life will be renewed. We should say with all our being: I am loved, therefore I exist! —Pope Francis