miniZibaldone

This is the first condition of salvation: feeling oneself in danger. It is the first condition of healing: feeling sick. Feeling sinful is the first condition of receiving this gaze of mercy. Christ looks at him, and says, “Follow me. And Matthew got up and followed him, as the Gospel tells us today.  Recalling Caravaggio’s famous depiction of the scene, Pope Francis spoke of Matthew’s “sidelong look” with one eye on Our Savior and the other on his purse: a look that was even stand-offish, if not outright aggressive.   Then, there was the merciful gaze of Jesus, which communicated such overwhelming love that the resistance of the man who wanted the money, “fails”: Matthew got up and followed Him.   But let us think of the look of Jesus, so beautiful, so good, so merciful. And we, too, when we pray, we feel this look upon us; it is the look of love, the gaze of mercy, the gaze that saves us. Do not be afraid. The door to meet Jesus is recognizing oursel...

Being struck and overcome by the beauty of Christ is a more real, more profound knowledge than mere rational deduction. [...] Of course, this is not just, or principally, a theological problem, but a problem of pastoral life, that has to foster the human person's encounter with the beauty of faith. All too often arguments fall on deaf ears because in our world too many contradictory arguments compete with one another, so much so that we are spontaneously reminded of the medieval theologians' description of reason, that it "has a wax nose': in other words, it can be pointed in any direction, if one is clever enough. Everything makes sense, is so convincing, whom should we trust? The encounter with the beautiful can become the wound of the arrow that strikes the heart and in this way opens our eyes... — Joseph Ratzinger Paintings for Holy Week Christ Washing the Apostle's Feet (Dirck van Baburen)   Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci)   The Last S...