Good and evil

Publish date 24-08-2020

by Cesare Falletti

Evil is banal, but good is not; it's always new. We read in various newspapers that there was a theft in a footballer's home.
I myself have had various thefts, before being a monk, but also in the monastery and I know how bad it is in front of that sense of violence suffered.

It remains that the theft from a villa has nothing original and in case it can arouse a bit of solidarity, but it risks sending us back to our things, if we do not fall into the narrowest selfishness of "better him than me". But this time a light has illuminated this gray sky: the reaction of the robbed, who has not denied either the economic or emotional damage, even showing the devastated house. However, he added: "I entrust the lives of those who have done this into your hands, Lord, so that you forgive them and may know you".

In a simple sentence we find great richness, a just sense of prayer and a strong missionary spirit.
Faced with certain events that touch us and that hurt us, we feel our poverty: this is not the time to be heroes; it would even sound out of tune. The poor entrust his life, his pain, even his revenge to the Lord; the psalms are great teachers.

Entrusting the life of those who have hurt us into the hands of the Lord is the way to fight for good. In the hands of the Lord everything becomes good, even those lives that seem lost, wasted, harmful. By placing them in the hands of the Lord they can become a source of good and it does not matter if we see the results. Forgiveness is also not our thing: this excess of gratuitousness, of giving, of blessing those who curse us, as Jesus says, we can want it, but we are too small to do it and we know that only God can really do it.

Forgiveness does not leave things as they are; on the contrary, it overturns them. May they know you, it is the very prayer of Jesus just before being betrayed and carried on the cross. Making the Father known, and therefore making him loved, was her mission and she lived it by freely entering the drama of death. Jesus himself asked the Father to forgive and knew that in forgiveness we can recognize God, ourselves and our brothers whoever they are.

Cesare Falletti
NP February 2020

This website uses cookies. By using our website you consent to all cookies in accordance with our Cookie Policy. Click here for more info

Ok