miniZibaldone

T he biggest threat to growing up well comes from thinking that no one cares about us - and that is always a sadness - from feeling that we are all alone. The Lord, on the other hand, is always with you and he is happy to be with you. From the homily Dear young friends, at this stage in your lives you have a growing desire to demonstrate and receive affection. The Lord, if you let him teach you, will show you how to make tenderness and affection even more beautiful. He will guide your hearts to “love without being possessive”, to love others without trying to own them but letting them be free. Because love is free! There is no true love that is not free! The freedom that the Lord gives to us is his love for us. He is always close to each one of us. There is always a temptation to let our affections be tainted by an instinctive desire to “have to have” what we find pleasing; this is selfishness. Our consumerist culture reinforces this tendency. Yet when we hold on too tightly to so...

It’s good for the Christian heart to memorize my journey, my personal journey: just like the Lord who accompanied me up to here and held me by the hand. From the homily We must look back to see how God has saved us, follow – with our hearts and minds – this  path with its memories and in this way arrive at Jesus’s side. It’s the same Jesus, who in the greatest moment of his life – Holy Thursday and Good Friday, in the (Last) Supper - gave us his Body and his Blood and said to us ‘Do this in memory of me.’ In memory of Jesus. To remember how God saved us.... And the times I said to our Lord: No! Go away! I don’t want you! Our Lord respects (our wishes).  He is respectful. But we must memorize our past and be a memorial of our own lives and our own journey.  We must look back and remember and do it often. ‘At that time God gave me this grace and I replied in that way, I did this or that… He accompanied me.’ And in this way we arrive at a new encounter, an encounter of...

Today’s world, overcome by convenience, needs to learn anew the value of gratitude! From the homily In this expression, one hears the yearning to live in freedom, there is a longing which contemplates a promised land where oppression, mistreatment and humiliation  are not the currency of the day.  In the heart of man and in the memory of many of our peoples is imprinted this yearning for a land, for a time when human corruption  will be overcome by fraternity, when injustice will be conquered by solidarity and when violence will be silenced by peace. Our Father not only shares this longing,  but has himself inspired it and continues to do so in giving us his son Jesus Christ.  In him we discover the solidarity of the Father who walks by our side.  In him,  we see how the perfect law takes flesh, takes a human face, shares our history so as to walk with and sustain his people.  He becomes the Way, he becomes the Truth,  he becomes the Li...

When he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, Albert Camus wrote a letter to his elementary school teacher. I have just been given far too great an honour, one I neither sought nor solicited.  But when I heard the news, my first thought, after my mother, was of you. Without you, without the affectionate hand you extended to the small poor child that I was, without your teaching and example, none of all this would have happened. I don’t make too much of this sort of honour. But at least it gives me the opportunity to tell you what you have been and still are for me, and to assure you that your efforts, your work, and the generous heart you put into it still live in one of your little schoolboys who, despite the years, has never stopped being your grateful pupil. I embrace you with all my heart.

This is the essence of Christianity: to spread the regenerating and gratuitous love of God, with the attitude of acceptance and mercy to everyone.  From the angelus Simon Peter fell at Jesus’ feet, and said: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” It was a miraculous sign that convinced him that Jesus is not only a terrific teacher, Whose word is true and powerful, but that He is the Lord, the manifestation of God. And this close presence arouses in Peter’s a strong sense of his own pettiness and unworthiness. From a human point of view, one could think there should be distance between the sinner and the saint. In truth, his own sinful condition requires the Lord to not distance himself from him, the same way a doctor cannot create distance from he who is sick.  [full text]

From the homily “How is my faith in Jesus Christ?” When Jesus shows up with a power greater than that of a man, “To give that forgiveness, to give life, to recreate humanity, even His disciples doubt, and [some of them] go away.” Jesus asked a small group, ‘Do you also want to go away?’”: “Faith in Jesus Christ: how is my faith in Jesus Christ? Do I believe that Jesus Christ is God, the Son of God? And has this faith been life-changing? Does my faith make this year of grace begin in my heart, this year of pardon, this year of growing in nearness to the Lord? Faith is a gift. No one ‘deserves’ faith. No one can buy it. It is a gift. Does ‘my’ faith in Jesus Christ, bring me to humiliation? I do not say humility: humiliation, repentance, prayer asking: ‘Forgive me, Lord. You are God. You ‘can’ forgive my sins.” [...]  “Praise: the proof that I believe that Jesus Christ is God in my life, that He was sent to me to ‘forgive me’, is praise; if I have the ability to praise God. Prai...