“What Christianity defines is its faith in the afterlife, in the resurrection of flesh and in eternal life; If this faith does not exist, the Catholic stops being Catholic ». Paraphrasing San Paolo, so writes Javier Cercas, the greatest Spanish writer living – atheist and anticlerical declared – in his book the crowd of God at the end of the world, recently in the bookstore for Guanda.
It is precisely on this news, the resurrection of Christ – two thousand years old old, but who continues to be “the” good news for Christians that believing asked Monsignor Mario Delpini, 73 years old, Archbishop of Milan since 2017, to stop and reflect. Leaving aside, for once, “hot” news to which the media have emphasized in recent times: from the synod of the Italian Church to the rough events relating to a well -known Ambrosian priest.
Everyone hopes, everyone has a request for good in their hearts, as Pope Francis in Spes non confundit says. Today, however, it is difficult to do it, if we think of the current international context. How is a word of Christian hope that is not trivial and rhetoric?
“I spontaneously refer to the experience of the Jewish people, narrated in the exodus. He was a people of slaves, convinced that their children would be too. At a certain point, however, the people receive an announcement from Moses and the promise of freedom, of “a land where milk and honey flows”. The story of the exodus and Easter of Israel is what allows us to hope for today ».
In what sense?
“A people of slaves who think” tomorrow we will still be slaves “does not hope at all. On the contrary, a people who welcome a call can decide to undertake the journey to the desert. Because he has hope. It is therefore a matter of taking that promise seriously. For the Jews the messenger of God was Moses … ».
Read the complete interview with Mario Delpini on the number of believing in distribution in newsstands and religious bookstores from Thursday 17 April and in the parishes from Saturday 19 April. Or buy a digital copy on www.edicolasanpaolo.it
(Photo above: ANSA)
