Don Paolo Alliata, rector of the Montini high school in Milan
Children ask us questions that we don’t always know how to answer. Or, at least, for which we do not feel up to it. We asked Don Paolo Alliatarector of the Montini high school, to help us guide our children, grandchildren or pupils to live one of the significant moments of Christian life. The forty days that accompany us to Easter.
Don Paolo what does it mean to be in Lent?
«I would identify three keywords: first is 40, of course a symbolic number in the Bible. Generally, in the ancient world, numbers are forgers of meanings. 40, like the years in the desert of the people of Israel in search of freedom; 40, previously, like the days of the flood, therefore the image of the purification, of a start again; 40 days of Jesus in the desert to try to understand what his path will be in life. And therefore 40, large number but defined with a time that has a beginning and an end. And this identifies a special time, a particular time, precisely because it has a beginning and an end. So for 40 days that Christians live in preparation for Easter, they want to be a special time. In which, what do you do? Second word, “desert”, which often returns to the great biblical narratives, also in reference to 40, precisely 40 years, 40 days. The desert means essentiality, it means frugality, it means to drop everything that is accessory to return to the indispensable. If you bring you to the speels in the desert, what you don’t really need, you weigh down your life and make it impossible. Instead, in the desert, you have to stay with what is absolutely essential, vital. Here, then, letting go of the things that suffocate us. The desert is also the place of amplitude, of vastness, of not seeing borders. And therefore a place of space, the open space, large. Here, Lent is the time of space, you make room to breathe better, to breathe more deeply rooted what is essential. Therefore, a way to live the preparation, the celebration of Easter, the explosion of life, is to make room ».
COme do I do space within me?
«Here there are practices that help make room; There is fasting that when it is serious it means making space in the body, in the meat, it means breathing better, being more lucid on things, sleeping better and also working better and therefore enjoying more than being alive. Perhaps all this can be said to the children, thinking with them of how you feel after eating too much or how you feel after having taken a nice walk in the mountains. You arrive at the top, you ate the right, indeed maybe she has given up on a little something, to be able to walk better and enjoy the result of your commitment. So at the end of the 40 days: you enjoy the result of your commitment, that is, you can better enjoy the celebration of Easter, the energies, even around us, of the nature that awakens from the sleep in which she worked so much in winter are felt. So fasting also from everything that hinders everyday life, an excessive dependence on the things, on the cell phone, on video games. What is important is not the practice itself, but the question: what prevents me from being really free and happy in life? And what can I do to walk better towards Easter, to walk more freely, to enjoy what is there, instead of always being committed to regret what is not there? These are also small slavery. Then make room. Doing space also means making room for listening to the Word of God. John the Baptist retires to the desert to listen to the Word of God, Jesus in the 40 days retires to listen to the Word of God and, therefore, find a moment over the 40 days, perhaps every day in the evening, in which to listen to a biblical or sapiential story, those of Bruno Ferrero, for example collections of stories, a moment of prayer in the evening, because the space is in the heart. Prayer flows. So it could be an evening moment, in the corner of prayer created especially at home, perhaps with a little sand that recalls the desert, perhaps with the calendar of Lent, if one wants, and precisely the 40 days and perhaps with the Bible or an open gospel on the sand to recall the Word of God. An evening moment with the family in which you gather, we read the story and then you can say “for what I want to say today? What do I want to ask for forgiveness? And who I want to entrust in prayer tonight? This becomes a way to make room for prayer ».
Finally, the third word after 40 and desert?
«The word after 40 and desert, I would say relationships. That is, you make room for the heart to be more ready to welcome who I have around and maybe those who do not physically have around, but I want to reach with my good and my prayer. Free time that usually burns in a way, like saying, according to accessory, secondary things and, instead, I put some relationships in the center that I have lost a little on the street. I haven’t been going to visit the grandparents, uncles or cousins for a long time. For a long time I have not looked well in my eyes that my partner who sometimes is a little sad, that partner who once asked me for help and I understood that he had a little effort and then I no longer “spinned” it. You make room to give more space to relationships. And, therefore, even here an exercise could be every day a gesture of attention, of kindness, perhaps a little courageous, a little out of the patterns towards someone. Another way is that of precisely classic, renouncing something of accessory, to collect the proceeds of the renunciations and then allocate them to something that we have decided together with our children and then bring it physically or to the parish Caritas, making us tell about a family within the naturally privacy limits, and therefore know who we go somehow to help or allocate it to what we will decide “.
This‘year Lent coincides almost with Ramadan and more and moreù Children happen to confront their peers and their fasting. How do these two experiences dialogue?
«My advice to children is to ask their Muslim companions how Ramadan live them, they live it and what it means to them. This is the opportunity of a meeting “
