What can I do?

A new world is emerging from the thick darkness in which we are shrouded

A new year opens and the hope that is addressed is that of a year of peace, in which the will to good prevails in all hearts, from those of those who hold the reins of the world to those hidden in the folds of the earth , to the mass that has no voice. Yes, once again this is the wish and it is the thing that most makes us aware of the poverty, the weakness, the impotence of the ordinary man, of the citizens who every morning start walking the road towards their work or towards the looking for a job.

People who struggle between hope and desperation, between the desire to commit and mistrust, between believing what they say and promise, and doubting everything, between taking refuge in indolence and the awareness of their duty. We are all aware that a page is being turned in the book of history, one like others of the many that have already been turned, but this very awareness, if we really want to take it seriously, arouses in us the temptation to escape, to close our eyes.

A task too big for any of us. “What can I do?” We are a body in which a vital flow can start from every tiny cell that irrigates many other cells and the body takes on new life. Yes, a new world is emerging from that thick darkness in which we are shrouded, darkness of hatred, of war, of murders, of the hungry and the starving, of exploitation and ignorance.

Darkness in which tears flow waiting for a simple little light to shine and illuminate the world. Every tear has a great capacity to absorb and reflect light and this small light is in the hands of everyone, of each one; those hands must not be closed, they must not become waterproof, nor safes that preserve the treasure for only a few. Allowing small handfuls of apparently sterile sand to flow between your fingers, but which each one can turn into seeds full of life that turn a garden into a desert. It is God's promise in the Old Testament: the desert will flourish.

The great temptation of all times is to adapt, living in the rotten and no longer looking for the good part, the part that can regenerate itself and regenerate the world. We are called to fight, we very small cells, not only to avoid being attacked by cancer, but also ready to continuously give a healthy part of us to regenerate what is no longer healthy. God loved the world so much that he gave him his Son, says the Gospel. And how much do we love him? How much are we ready to give of ourselves to express our love?

The life we have received is a mine of inextinguishable good, the richness of which is continually regenerated if we want to continue digging and giving what we extract from it. You gain by losing: it is an evangelical concept, but one that you experience even if you don't know the Gospel. On the other hand, the life that is born and grows is always the fruit of a mother who loses what she carried within herself and apparently only for herself. The sower must risk losing what she has if he wants to one day reap a hundredfold.

Called to build a new world, to open a new humanity, we will achieve nothing if we are not willing to lose: a year opens before us and awaits from each of us the gift of a great wealth made of courage, genius, goodness, hope and patience, and everything that makes the world beautiful. All this is in our hands, even if many times we are not aware of it, perhaps because no one helps us to notice it, or because we are afraid to open our eyes to see the light or the horizon. Often this horizon is veiled by the dust that rises from the earth shaken by the bombs, by an enmity that refuses the solution of forgiveness, of renunciation of what one wants to hold tightly in one's hands, but which sooner or later will always vanish.

Peace, on the other hand, which is born from a will that sees the place from which the light arises, does not vanish, falling to the ground it multiplies, thrown away it invades; it has an ability to bring life and joy, serenity that we don't even suspect. If only we have the courage to place peace on the table of discord, we can make this world, which is crying, smile.

Cesare Falletti

NP Gennaio 2024