Assetati di infinito
Thirsty for infinity the best way to wish Merry Christmas 2019
“Aren’t you happy that between 20 days is Christmas?”
is the question that a young friend of mine asked me
that I met in a hypermarket in my city.
In fact, having a child still small amplifies with her
the joy, which he already has of his own, in feeling the atmosphere of Christmas.
From the christmas school play that would not be missed for anything in the world,
to the emotions he shares with the child … the crib,
the Christmas tree,
gifts, evenings spent together with relatives playing Tombola,
the walk with mom and dad through the streets of the city all lit up for a party …
Her words reminded me of those heard in the Sunday homily by a young Franciscan friar,
who spoke of the true spirit of Christmas,
without condemning what we live in these days,
certainly more consumerism oriented than anything else,
but that must lead us to the true spirit of Christmas,
the one where simply the mystery of the Word that everything has created
it has become a creature giving meaning to the history of each of us.
We, infact, every day are becoming more and more aware of our limits
and with this awareness we find the way to overcome them.
TOWARDS INFINITY AND TRANSCENDENCE
The aging of the body is one of these limits,
something that older people feel more than young people,
and that I,
that I feel young in spirit but not in the body, I really feel.
After a little ailment, another one begins,
and it is a whole run from doctor to doctor, of medicine in medicine …
Nothing serious fortunately
but having passed the “sixty” really feels more every day,
it is how to go towards a goal
as the great Teresa D’Avila taught,
who lived the last hour just spent, thinking:
“One hour less than the meeting with my Beloved Jesus.”
CONSCIENCE EXAMINATION
The request “Aren’t you happy that between 20 days is Christmas?”
it seemed to me to come out of the context in which I received it
and it forced me to an examination of conscience.
Christmas is the day when the person you love most is having his or her birthday.
this should already be a reason for happiness,
but my little faith makes this not enough.
Life is an already but not yet,
and it is not only from the point of view of us men and stars,
that we live a finite period of infinite time,
to reach our transcendence,
but also for God who wanted to abandon his infinity
to live the finiteness like each of us and make us become
“Thirsty for infinity” like the wise men so well described by Pope Francis
in his apostolic letter Admirabile signum:
The Magi teach us that people can come to Christ by a very long route. Men of wealth, sages from afar, athirst for the infinite, they set out on the long and perilous journey that would lead them to Bethlehem (cf. Mt 2:1-12). Great joy comes over them in the presence of the Infant King. They are not scandalized by the poor surroundings, but immediately fall to their knees to worship him. Kneeling before him, they understand that the God who with sovereign wisdom guides the course of the stars also guides the course of history, casting down the mighty and raising up the lowly.
THE PRISON OF LOVE
I imagine Him inside the tabernacle where he wanted to be locked up,
quivering, wait for His “already and not yet”, towards His Return,
whose just time he did not want to reveal to his disciples
when he was asked by his disciples before he was raised in the heavens
“When” he would restore again the kingdom to Israel rebuild the kingdom.
An “when” that he could not reveal because he wanted this “when”
also depended on men, on their faith,
because when he comes again he will not come to take the crown of thorns again,
but a true crown, and it is not in the style of God to impose anything on man
that having been made in his image must be free
as God Himself is.
A when now angels ask him in heaven,
eager to rejoice much more than when they rejoiced that holy night a
Bethlehem, for its first coming,
and they ask him more insistently when they see men do
violence on other men, on other creatures, on the whole creation.
Claudio Pace Terni December 2019, 6 Thirsty of Infinity (assetati di infinito)
The words of these ‘light music’ songs from the 1960s sometimes have an unconscious “eschatological” meaning.
