We too are like Nicodemus, pilgrims in the night. This evangelical icon offers us first and foremost a message on the path of life. Our path, our desires and everything we embrace and experience daily, in joys and defeats, in aspirations and projects, is the expression of our continuous search: we are beggars of love, we hunger and thirst for truth, we seek a full meaning that supports us, encourages us and helps us understand the mystery of our life. As we advance slowly, in small steps, we are called to dialogue with the twilight of our own human condition: we lack the whole truth, we do not know in depth the mystery of ourselves and the true face of others, we are not always able to understand the hidden truth of the reality that surrounds us and of the events that present themselves before our eyes. We seek a light that illuminates the path.
But Nicodemus also tells us about journey of faith. This is not a parallel path to that of our human existence, but these two itineraries are always intertwined with each other. As we heard in the Gospel, God loved the world so much that he gave us his only begotten Son and, in Him, he united himself forever with our flesh. He is always next to the Father and next to us; Like this, every time the mystery of our life unfolds in the light of a new day, in everything we are and do, we are in the presence of God and are guarded by his eternal embrace: our life “is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). Yet, sometimes we experience the night of faith, the struggle to believe, the tiredness of the spirit, the sense of inadequacy in the face of the call of the Gospel, the bitterness of our failures and the fear of not being up to par.
Brothers and sisters, Nicodemus teaches us that these nights – which accompany our life, the journey of faith and the history in which we live – are a place of blessinga space to be reborn, a womb that always generates new life. These nights strip us and bring us back to the essentials; they take away the human and religious masks that we wear during the day, so as not to be recognized or to give an image of ourselves that is different from what we are; they leave us naked, in our lights and our shadows, bringing us back to the humility of knowing how to look at ourselves in the truth, beyond the presumption of thinking that our journey is already completed and that we advance as if we had a clear light on everything, on everyone and even on God.
This “empty space” that the night creates, even when it presents itself in the form of suffering or dissatisfaction, disappointment or disbelief, can be an opportunity to receive new lifeto change and renew oneself, to “be reborn from above”, as Jesus says to Nicodemus. God, in fact, did not come to judge the world with its sin and the night of its infidelity, but sent his Son to save it, to give the world eternal life.
For this reason we too are called not to judge the “nights”; neither the nights of our lives, nor those of the Church, nor those of the society around us. In the night, we must instead set out as Nicodemus does, continue to ask the Lord, open ourselves to the wind of the Spirit to welcome the night no longer as a sign of failure, but as the beginning of a new life.
AND thinking about our personal journey, but also about the nights of our ecclesial journey and of Spain, of its cities, of its ancient and new poverty, of its society and culture, we can then ask ourselves: what are the nights we are going through? What do they suggest? By entering into them and looking with humility and without prejudice at the reality of who we are, what are we called to change?, where do we need to renew ourselves, in which direction do we want to go, which society do we want to build?
Let us not stop searching, questioning and dialogue, with God and with each other, even in the middle of the night. Let us walk together in the faith that harmonizes the diversity of our ideas and sensitivities, to seek the truth that guides us towards the common good, so that this country is a welcoming space for all, where everyone is respected in their dignity as a person and loved for who they are. Let us open ourselves to the gift of the Spirit, seeking the Lord like Nicodemus and welcoming the light of his Gospel, with the certainty that we will experience a new life within us, a presence that blesses, a free love that will help us move from night to light. Because God wants nothing to be lost and from now on he wants to give us eternal life, to lead us to happiness that has no end.
May the Lord grant us, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, to open ourselves to Him and to be shaken by the wind of His Spirit.
