It takes time

Children up to 15 years old, young people aged 16 to 24, perhaps responsible adults between 35 and 54. Not before, according to research from the Catholic University of Milan. It takes time. It takes more and more time. It all takes time. It takes 40, 50 years to turn a tree of a few centimeters into an oak capable of providing shade and protecting the ground from landslides. Parents need a lot of patience to see the fruits of their educational care, their attention, their love.

First, amid a thousand anxieties, he will have to witness, without being able to do much but continue to welcome and love, the thousand faces that the unconsciousness of their children can take, before a good inspiration begins to make them grow.

Peter wanted to pretend three times that he did not know Jesus, to see him die in that way (or to know from others how he was dying, his presence under the cross is not attested), to ascertain the empty tomb without giving credit to the women. , before making his profession of faith. It took him to see Jesus on the shore of the lake, it took him to be asked by Jesus three times if he loved him (three, like his denials), to understand that his infidelity, his sin was not an impediment to to love the Lord, but rather it was what now would have made him love him more: it is the forgiven sin that makes me understand the limitless love of God for me.

This is why Peter receives the office of pastor of the Church: because as a forgiven sinner he will now be able to forgive others. The Church institution is founded on forgiveness, on the capacity to love more, more, more. It takes time to understand.

This is why Pentecost, literally "Fifty", the day of birth of the Church, arrives on the fiftieth day after Easter Sunday, a good seven weeks, to indicate a very long time. It takes time to realize the gift received.

Pentecost is the Christian fulfillment of Shavu'oth, the Jewish harvest festival, when the people of Israel brought to the altar a sheaf, the first fruits of the harvest: the free choice to be obedient to the Torah out of love, not obligation. It is no coincidence that we read the story of Ruth, a foreigner who becomes Jewish through the same spiritual stages as the Jewish people and will be the ancestor of the Messiah.

The Fathers thought that at Pentecost it is Christ who offers us to the Father, the sheaves of the new creation, gilded by the sun of grace, exposed to the wind of the Spirit, after his resurrection no longer slaves, but children. The apostles come out of the upper room inebriated to announce to the extremity of the earth that the Holy Spirit has now written the law in the hearts, no longer the law of constraint, but the freedom of love, says the Synaxary of the Eastern liturgy.

It takes time for the Spirit who rested on the Son to rest on every human being who has become a "son in the Son". It takes time for each of us to choose not to live in death, but in the Spirit of life, capable of transfiguring death and making it turn around.

NP Maggio 2021

Flaminia Morandi