Do like God

Do like God, become man "is the phrase of a biblical scholar who accompanied me a lot during Christmas time and in this beginning of 2022. God has chosen the incarnation to express his trust in man made in his image and likeness, he shared all of himself with us and these clay vessels of ours now hold the greatest treasure, the likeness to God. I often repeat this to myself these days, looking at the shreds of our frayed humanity.
When I have in front of my eyes the hardness, the wickedness, the violence of which we are capable or I come into contact with the brutality into which so many fall out of loneliness, abandonment, illness ... I try to look at reality with the eyes of God who has trusted in man, in order to find the same trust again.

Each of us has a long way to go to achieve the integrity of his person and become like Jesus, fully human. To enter the gospel is to undertake this change of mentality, not to deny our humanity but to rediscover it fully. The gospel is a true school of humanity, for everyone, for those who believe but also for those who do not believe. It is the manifesto of an authentic integral humanism. Jesus is the new man who fully realizes his humanity: a man in whom there is no falsehood, does not seek his own advantage, does not raise his voice, does not distinguish himself, is approachable by everyone, knows how to give the right value. to the things of the world without losing sight of the greatest good, respects the civil law without losing his inner freedom, knows how to listen to people and recognizes their needs even the unexpressed ones, feels compassion for the poor but is available to all, has no fear of compromising oneself with uncomfortable people, he always makes mercy prevail over judgment, surrounds himself with friends but knows how to stay close to anyone who approaches him and lets himself be surrounded by crowds, he knows he has his value but does nothing on his own ... They are just a few brushstrokes of the human features of Jesus - the human face of the Father - which infected, involved, converted people and environments in which he lived.

And it is this integral humanity of his that, after his death and resurrection, after the descent of the Holy Spirit on his mother and disciples, has imprinted a transformation in the life of humanity, channeled energies and resources into tilling the earth so that it bear fruit. , changed the face of history. A new humanism today can only start from the relationship with Jesus and from the mentality of the gospel translated in our time, in a way suitable for our people. It is not possible to apply abstract formulas or to amaze with special effects, it is instead a question of witnessing with life, with actions, gestures, credible words that give concreteness to the human-divine face of Jesus, that respond to the "hunger for bread and hunger for God "Of the new generations.

Rosanna Tabasso
NP January 2022