We are in difficult times. Sometimes disoriented and disoriented. It is not clear how the ongoing wars – just think of Ukraine or the heated situation in the Middle East – lead to a truce or peace. But we are in Holy Week, in which the memory of the Passion of Jesus pushes us to think about his great love and the crosses of so many men and women. Small Lebanon, a country of (not always easy) coexistence between Christians and Muslims, with less than six million inhabitants, welcomes two million refugees pushed from the south of the country towards the center and north. A painful and dire situation. Don’t forget that Lebanon has hosted half a million Palestinian refugees since 1949 and for a few years now two million Syrians who left Syria due to the civil war. And we complain about some refugees!
The Passion and the Cross of Jesus call us to stay close to those who suffer: next to us and in distant lands. It is the choice of Mary, of the women, of the disciple that Jesus loved: to stay under the Cross. What can be done? The women and the young man understand, better than the men who have escaped, how crucial it is to stay close. It’s not forgetting, hoping, consoling. Monsignor Romero, bishop-martyr of San Salvador, killed in 1980 because he wanted to remain close to his people, said: «I in turn run this risk: becoming insensitive. Insensitive to the thousand things that happen, listen as you listen to the rain».
We realize that we cannot listen to a thousand painful news like we listen to the rain: with indifference. The death and pain of every human being is a tragedy that affects those who die and many other connected lives. Instead, exposure to so much news today makes us insensitive, because we are used to it. If we came out of Holy Week more compassionate, it would be a great achievement for us. Compassion makes you stay close and pray. Prayer is the great strength of Christians. The great Protestant theologian Karl Barth said that God is not deaf, he listens… there is an influence of prayer on God’s action. Our prayers are fragile. What matters is not that our prayers are strong. But may God listen to them.
The risen Jesus does not offer the solution to all my problems or those of the world, but he is alive, next to us every day. Rising again, Jesus gives new confidence to the frightened disciples; it gives confidence to the Church and pushes it to go out and carry out the mission of communicating the Gospel; it also gives us confidence because we look forward with hope. Jesus was resurrected and conquered death!
The history of the world is in the hands of the Father: death, war, evil, will not win forever. Looking to the future with this faith, we see glimmers of space in which to hope and act. Pope Leo said on Palm Sunday: «We look at Jesus, who presents himself as King of peace, while war is preparing around Him. He, who remains firm in meekness, while the others are agitated in violence… As King of peace, Jesus wants to reconcile the world in the embrace of the Father and break down every wall that separates us from God and our neighbor, because He is our peace.” This will of God is not a pious thought, but it is our faith and our firm hope.
