miniZibaldone

You’ve said that at both the University of Sydney and the University of Cambridge, you were “a bad student” who consistently read off-course. To the ears of my  contemporaries, reading off-course is the sort of procrastination that qualifies being a good student. Now, with the internet, we have so many distractions that is  almost impossible to stay focused on any one thing at a time, and work is scarcely one of them. Do you worry about the future of literature in this virtual  environment? Literature will win through the way it always has, by being too valuable to be ignored. All you have to do is write something as good as  Pride and Prejudice . A  cinch. Finally, do you have any advice for young writers? When the young writers ask me for advice, I give them the same advice as I give my niece: stop right now if you can. The Meaning of Recognition by Clive James Flying Visits Clive James

From the homily At Christmas, the question is this: “Do I allow myself to be loved by God? Do I abandon myself to his love that comes to save me?” The grace of God has appeared. Tonight we realize that, when we failed to measure up, God became small for our sake; while we were going about our own business, he came into our midst. Christmas reminds us that God continues to love us all, even the worst of us. To me, to you, to each of us, he says today: “I love you and I will always love you, for you are precious in my eyes”. God does not love you because you think and act the right way. He loves you, plain and simple. His love is unconditional; it does not depend on you. You may have mistaken ideas, you may have made a complete mess of things, but the Lord continues to love you. How often do we think that God is good if we are good and punishes us if we are bad. Yet that is not how he is. For all our sins, he continues to love us. His love does not change. It is not fickle; i...

                                                            La Sagrada Familia, Nativity facade

From the homily Each of us is called tonight to rediscover in the Risen Christ the one who rolls back from our heart the heaviest of stones. Why do you seek the living among the dead?” (Lk 24:5). Why do you think that everything is hopeless, that no one can take away your own tombstones? Why do you give into resignation and failure? . . . What is the stone that I need to remove, what is its name? . . .  Why do you seek the living among the dead? Why not make up your mind to abandon that sin which, like a stone before the entrance to your heart, keeps God’s light from entering in? Why not prefer Jesus, the true light (cf. Jn 1:9), to the glitter of wealth, career, pride and pleasure? Why not tell the empty things of this world that you no longer live for them, but for the Lord of life? . . . Let us ask ourselves: In my life, where am I looking? Am I gazing at graveyards, or looking for the Living One? . . . Let us ask ourselves: In my life, where am I going? So...

From the Angelus Mary shows us that if we want our life to be happy, God must be placed first, because He alone is great. How many times, instead, we live pursuing things of little importance: prejudices, rancor, rivalry, envy, illusions, superfluous material goods … How much pettiness in life! We know this is the case. Maria today invites us to look up to the “great things” that the Lord has done in her. In us too, in each of us, the Lord does many great things. We must recognize and rejoice, proclaiming God, for these great things. . . . The feast of the Assumption of Mary is a call for all of us, especially for those who are afflicted by doubts and sadness, and live with their eyes looking down and cannot look up. Let’s look up, the sky is open; it does not arouse fear, it is no longer distant, because on the threshold of Heaven there is a mother who awaits us and is our mother. She loves us, smiles and helps us with care. As every mother wants the best for her children, s...

[O]ur practical politicians keep things in the same confusion through the same doubt about their real demands. . . . Now our modern politics are full of a noisy forgetfulness; forgetfulness that the production of this happy and conscious life is after all the aim of all complexities and compromises. . . . If our statesmen were visionaries, something practical might be done. —G. K. Chesterton