Dear friends of Gethsemane, peace be with you from Jerusalem!
In this week we "enter" the Passion-death and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the mystery of our Redemption, it is the heart of our faith, it is the announcement that the first disciples of the Lord were able to tell and guard with ardour of heart and full of gratitude: God’s ancient Promise came true in Jesus, the slain Lamb, He is our King who saved us, He is the Risen One! ’It is extraordinary the way of doing of this our King, different from all the other kings of this world. Indeed, we all often have the tendency to welcome Him, His way of doing that is selective, "according to our tastes and interests" that is in a simply human way, a logic that is of this world! We would indeed like Him to do justice with his strength, with his powers, but the Lord is the Lamb, mild and meek. It strikes me very much as in his Passion in a progressive way he speaks less and more and more lives what he said about himself... of the Servant of God (Is 42,1-7; 49,1-6; 50,4-9; 52,13-53,12). We find it hard to accept this. Let’s just think for a moment: Jesus within about 18 hours passes in a drastic way to be perfectly healthy, alive and whole to be massacred, dripping with blood... He dies and is buried in a grave! These things ‘come out’ of our way of thinking, perceiving the present or the future of the loved one, we flee before all this and we can never accept the mystery of suffering, sickness and death!I find no answer except in the profound reason that we are not made to die, God created us for joy, to be eternally alive with Him, the sin of the first parents led us to death! And behold, to save us, to bring us back to eternal life, Jesus had to take the sin of man upon Himself, he knew this effort, as a true but perfect Man, with determination he accomplished the work desired by the Father: the Redemption of all humanity, true Man but also true God! In the same way, even if in a different way, Mary Most Holy participates in the work of the Redemption!The Paschal Mystery seen in the human perspective is a failure, a disappointment, a shocking drama for everyone! However, contemplated in a perspective of faith is the "necessary" way for our salvation, according to the plan and thought of God.Let us ourselves be told by the Lord himself how much he loved us... Let us be reached by his gaze full of love. What would he say to us? Let us Him still be the one to instruct us, with his way of doing, with his infinite Love manifested for all of us. Let us reciprocate this love with the offering of our lives, in sincerity, as we are, in our weakness. Let us look at the full Moon of this Holy Night, mother of all nights: it is that same Moon that has looked at his eyes!We remind you from these holy places where the Lord has redeemed us, we will kiss them also for all of you. Let us contemplate and taste this "Love that many waters cannot quench" (cf.Ct 8:7); let us correspond to Him in silence and in the concreteness of our life.
Happy Easter in the Lord!
