Homily

We are in the midst of our Lenten path. Facing the tragedy of war we understand in a deeper way the sense of this time of change, fast and choice. Lent is a simple, direct and personal proposal: look at yourself, at what you truly are; do not flee with the endless justifications that make you always feel right; try to choose what side you want to be; become a person of peace. Let us feel horror for the suffering caused by war. May the images of death fill our heart with compassion. We should think also about the suffering we do not see: people reduced to things, bodies deprived of any dignity, the unstoppable tears of those who see death nearby, the anguish, hunger and thirst. It is the destruction of the temple of God that every human being is, that human being whose name war deletes, reduces to a number and nothing. That human being, whose face is disfigured and who is equal to many others, is not forgotten by God. We are all deported to Babylon (present-day Baghdad): war - any war, even if forgotten - affects all like a tyrant who makes people slaves to violence and fear. What we heard from the second book of Chronicles becomes true: the unfaithfulness of all, of the priests and the people, the repeated mocking of God’s messengers, the scorn and jeers at the prophets create a situation that seems hopeless. Wasn’t the request of those who insisted to solve problems through dialogue disappointed? Or the request of those who did not stop healing the wounds opened by conflicts that contaminate the world and the hearts with hatred, violence and weapons? Haven’t we looked for too long only for our own interests? Haven’t we lazily trusted that problems would solve themselves? Have we paid the price of peace or are we satisfied with not being hit directly by violence? Haven’t we lived spiritually far from one another in a world that has become so small, where we live one at the side of the other and yet we are not able to be together? Haven’t we wasted so many occasions of peace? Haven’t we accepted injustice that contributes greatly to increase blind fanatics of violence? Haven’t we also chosen the way of defending ourselves with the arms of arrogance, pride and supremacy? From the deep abyss of war we raise our pleas to God, whose name in all faith is peace, and we dare to ask Him, once again and with faith, that the rumble of the weapons stops and that the lives of people may be spared.
The Gospel offers us the answer to anguish and fear. "And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up." Jesus recalls what happened to Moses who saved the lives of the Israelites bit by poisonous snakes with a snake displayed on a pole. It is the mystery of the love of God who let himself be lifted on a cross so that no one may plunge in evil anymore. In difficulties, dangers and pitch darkness we can look at the crucified Lord; in the weakness of that poor man hanged on a cross, we will see God’s love crucified, telling us that our pain is his pain, and who is here with us, so that we can hope because heaven is not far and love defeats evil.
The second book of Chronicles we read in this fourth Sunday of Lent in the first reading connects the fall of Jerusalem and the subsequent period of slavery in Babylon to the increase of infidelity of the people of the Lord: "All the leading priests and the people also were exceedingly unfaithful... they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against his people became so great that there was no remedy" (2 Cr 36,14-16). The enemies burned down the temple, demolished the walls of Jerusalem and those who escaped death were deported. With the language typical of the Old Testament, Scripture stresses the close relationship between the lessening of the moral fibre of the whole people, indeed it is not only the few who are singled out and condemned as responsible, and the consequent degeneration and end of civic living together itself. We all need a time - maybe if in the middle of the desert - to understand again the deep meaning of life, of our actions. This meaning is given to us gratuitously by God and here is the reason to rejoice. The meaning of our life is the Lord Jesus who dies and rises for us. This "lifted" man is source of life because he shows a gratuitous and borderless generosity, God’s generosity: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life," continues John the evangelist.
But is there judgment? Yes, it is the judgment of love; it is the most bitter and severe. "The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light." This is the judgement: "He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him." "I was hungry and you did not give me food." God’s judgment is the result of our choices and of a heart that does not know how to love. Why do men and women love darkness? It seems absurd and yet how many times we choose not to love, thinking that we are smarter, not wanting to lose anything because we are afraid of love! Let us change by looking at him, at his suffering, at the crosses of other people. Let us try to stay close to him, to love him and to have his feelings so that we can rise with him and defeat the evil of this world.