Dear brothers and sisters, Fiat!

The Liturgy of this Sunday, called “Laetare”, invites us to be glad and rejoice as the Entrance Antiphon of the Eucharistic celebration proclaims: “Rejoice, Jerusalem! Be glad for her, you who love her; rejoice with her, you who mourned for her, and you will find contentment at her consoling breasts”. What is the profound reason for this joy? It is the Gospel, it is Jesus Himself, who is beside us as light and salvation.

Pope Francis wrote for us: The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew. We have proof in today’s Gospel, in which Jesus heals a man blind from birth.

The question which the Lord Jesus asks the blind man is the high point of the story: “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”. The man recognizes the sign worked by Jesus and he passes from the light of his eyes to the light of faith: “Lord, I believe!”.

It should be noted that as a simple and sincere person he gradually completes the journey of faith. In the beginning he thinks of Jesus as a “man” among others, then he considers him a “prophet” and finally his eyes are opened and he proclaims him “Lord”. In opposition to the faith of the healed blind man is the hardening of the hearts of the Pharisees who do not want to accept the miracle because they refuse to receive Jesus as the Messiah. Instead the crowd pauses to discuss the event and continues to be distant and indifferent. Even the blind man’s parents are overcome by the fear of what others might think.

We can ask ourselves: and what attitude to Jesus should we adopt? Because of Adam’s sin we too are born “blind” but in the baptismal font we are illumined by the grace of Christ. Sin wounded humanity and destined it to the darkness of death, but the newness of life shines out in Christ, as well as the destination to which we are called. In him, reinvigorated by the Holy Spirit, we receive the strength to defeat evil and to do good. The Lord Jesus is the “light of the world”, because in him shines “the knowledge of the glory of God” that continues in the complex plot of the story to reveal the meaning of human existence.

In the rite of Baptism, the presentation of the candle lit from the large Paschal candle, a symbol of the Risen Christ, is a sign that helps us to understand what happens in the Sacrament. When our lives are enlightened by the mystery of Christ, we experience the joy of being liberated from all that threatens the full realization.

In these days which prepare us for Easter let us rekindle within us the gift received in Baptism, that flame which sometimes risks being extinguished. Let us nourish it with prayer and love for others. Pope Francis writes: “The Church, in her maternal concern, tries to help them experience a conversion which will restore the joy of faith to their hearts and inspire a commitment to the Gospel”.

On September 14, 1923, Jesus told Luisa the purpose for which He created man in Creation: that he would always revolve around Him; and He, like Sun, being at the center of his round, would reflect in him His light, His love, His likeness and all His happiness. At each round of his, He would give him ever new contentments.

Before man sinned, His Divinity was not hidden to man, because by revolving around Him, he was His reflection, and therefore he was the little light. So, it was as though natural that, He being the great Sun, the little light would be able to receive the reflections of His light. But as soon as he sinned, he stopped revolving around Him, his little light became dark, he became blind and lost the light to be able to see His Divinity in his mortal flesh, as much as a creature is capable of.

In coming to redeem man, God took on mortal flesh in order to let Himself be seen, not only because man had sinned with the flesh and with the flesh He was to expiate, but because he lacked the eyes to be able to see His Divinity. This is so true, that His Divinity, which dwelled within His Humanity, could only unleash, through glimpses and flashes, a few rays of light from His Divinity.

What great evil sin is: it is for man to lose his round around His Creator, to annul the purpose of his creation, to be transmuted from light into darkness, from beautiful into ugly. It is such a great evil, that with all Jesus’ Redemption He could not restore in him the eyes to be able to see His Divinity in his mortal flesh, but only when this flesh, undone and pulverized by death, would rise again on the day of judgment.

What would happen if the whole Creation could fall short in its revolution around the sun? All things would be upset, would lose light, harmony, beauty; each one would bump against the other; and even if the sun were present, because they would not be revolving around it, the sun would be as though dead for the whole Creation. Now, because of original sin, man lost his round around His Creator, and therefore he lost the order, the dominion of himself, the light.

And every time he sins, not only he doesn’t not revolve around his God, but he makes his stops around the goods of Redemption which, like new sun, came to bring him forgiveness, escape, salvation. But do you know who it is that never stops in her round? The soul who does the Divine Will and lives in It. She always runs, she never stops, and she receives all the reflections of Jesus’ Humanity, and also the flashes of light of His Divinity.”

don Marco