Thursday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time
The wake-up of the faith
He said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be placed under a bushel basket or under a bed, and not to be placed on a lampstand? For there is nothing hidden except to be made visible; nothing is secret except to come to light. Anyone who has ears to hear ought to hear.” He also told them, “Take care what you hear. The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you, and still more will be given to you. To the one who has, more will be given; from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” Mc 4,21-25
Some years ago I was, alone, in a compartment of a train, waiting to leave from the Milan station. Taking advantage of that calm moment I opened the Bible and I started silently to pray. After some time other people arrived, walking along the corridor and a boy exclaimed: “Hi, mummy, let’s go there: it is all available!” “ No, let’s go forward – the mother answered – there is a Jehovah witness”. I wondered, with some sadness, why a person who prays in silence, handling the Bible, would have to be mistakenly visualized as a Jehovah witness. Is it perhaps preferable, today, the behaviour of the person who witnesses only with the works the mystery of the kingdom of God? Perhaps – I thought – a clear faith is today annoying ? Because it carries some values, as the family and the respect of the life, which today are not shared by a lot of people? Within the elapsing of few years the weakening of the spontaneity to live the Christian faith caused a significant arrogance from the non believers, who have assumed behaviours which are furthermore against the church. The arrival in our country of people from other religions has been instrumentally used to the point to show as a way of welcome the elimination of our most appreciated religious symbols as the crucifix and the nativity. Despite it, when few years ago we visited the Nepal, we have been not offended by the Buddha images, which are there everywhere; on the contrary, we admired it with respect! However, it seems to us that, in the recent times, this hypocritical attitude had a the consequence the flowering again of the faith and a lot of persons are founding again the apostolic courage to witness the Christian values. It seemed that the pond of the giving up, of the lack of interest, of the spiritual laziness and of the surrendering in front of the triumphant materialism and of the blasphemous vulgarity would have to capture every manifestation of faith, but it has not been in this way. We are visualizing a strong recovery of the Christian witnessing. As always in the history, the young people have been able to understand that the previous behaviour was lacking of any positive result and now they are routed , with the healthy selfishness which is peculiar of the youth, towards the discovery again of the faith as the source of real joys.