(from the Alphonsian Academy blog)
We are used to asking God questions and we want Him to answer us with precision and clarity. Today it is He who, through events, questions us in a rigorous, even dramatic way. God’s questions are questions that reach us immediately, directly, through the clear perception of the danger that overwhelms us and the fear that subtly creeps into us and can lead to anxiety, even panic, fragile people, in a swing of feelings and emotions to which it is difficult to give voice.
It is the fear of getting sick and not finding help, of being confined to an intensive care unit where horrible death is always lurking. Precisely because we grew up in a society that ostracized suffering and death, we now find ourselves lost, helpless in the face of our fragility, alone and with a painful sense of helplessness, involuntary protagonists of a drama that we never wanted to interpret.
The overwhelming boldness of our own invincibility and unlimited faith in the power of science have dissolved like snow in the sun; the sense of the transience of our existence has regained the upper hand. And the sense of helplessness is in danger of flowing now into anger, now into despair, now into supine, fatalistic resignation, unless it can flow into the sphere of love for others. The Lord, without too much regard, has brought us back before death, the supreme event that only the prospect of Christian Easter allows us to face.
In fact, it is the specter of death that is incumbent on us to seek a way of salvation. The Lord is imperatively confronting us with a theme that we used to be comfortable relegating to the background. In our day, then, it seems that even talking about the resurrection and eternal life can create annoyance or discomfort; and instead, it is precisely what the Church must strongly repeat to those who today, confused by the events of the present, seek a good reason to live and die: this good reason can be found in the resurrection of Jesus.
Fr. Gabriel Witaszek CSSR
(the original is in Italian)
