Dear brothers and sisters, Fiat!

It is a moving experience each year on Palm Sunday as we go up the mountain with Jesus, towards the Temple, accompanying Him on his ascent. On this day, throughout the world and across the centuries, young people and people of every age acclaim Him, crying out: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Jesus enters Jerusalem. The crowd of disciples accompanies Him in festive mood, their garments are stretched out before Him, there is talk of the miracles He has accomplished, and loud praises are heard. Crowds, celebrating, praise, blessing, peace: joy fills the air. Jesus has awakened great hopes, especially in the hearts of the simple, the humble, the poor, the forgotten, those who do not matter in the eyes of the world. He understands human sufferings, He has shown the face of God’s mercy, and He has bent down to heal body and soul.

This is Jesus. This is His heart which looks to all of us, to our sicknesses, to our sins. The love of Jesus is great. And thus He enters Jerusalem, with this love, and looks at us. It is a beautiful scene, full of light – the light of the love of Jesus, the love of His heart – of joy, of celebration.

And here the first word that I wish to say to you: joy! Do not be men and women of sadness: a Christian can never be sad! Never give way to discouragement! Ours is not a joy born of having many possessions, but from having encountered a Person: Jesus, in our midst; it is born from knowing that with Him we are never alone, even at difficult moments, even when our life’s journey comes up against problems and obstacles that seem insurmountable, and there are so many of them! Please do not let yourselves be robbed of hope! Do not let hope be stolen! The hope that Jesus gives us. (Pope Francis)

Jesus set out as a pilgrim towards Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. He knew that what awaited Him was a new Passover and that He Himself would take the place of the sacrificial lambs by offering Himself on the cross. He knew that in the mysterious gifts of bread and wine He would give Himself for ever to His own, and that He would open to them the door to a new path of liberation, to fellowship with the living God. He was making his way to the heights of the Cross, to the moment of self-giving love. The ultimate goal of His pilgrimage was the heights of God Himself; to those heights He wanted to lift every human being.

 “The second word: Cross. Jesus enters Jerusalem in order to die on the Cross. Why the Cross? Because Jesus takes upon Himself the evil, the filth, the sin of the world, including the sin of all of us, and He cleanses it, He cleanses it with his blood, with the mercy and the love of God. Let us look around: how many wounds are inflicted upon humanity by evil! Wars, violence, economic conflicts that hit the weakest, greed for money, love of power, corruption, divisions, crimes against human life and against creation! Jesus on the Cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God’s love He conquers it, He defeats it with His resurrection. This is the good that Jesus does for us on the throne of the Cross. Christ’s Cross embraced with love never leads to sadness, but to joy, to the joy of having been saved and of doing a little of what He did on the day of His death” (Pope Francis)

One day Luisa was tormented by a question: “Jesus sings so much the praises of the happiness of the Kingdom of the Supreme Fiat; yet, He Himself who is the very Divine Will, and His Celestial Mama who possessed It as whole, were not happy on earth; rather, they were the ones who suffered the most on earth”.

Even Luisa Herself, called by Jesus the “firstborn daughter of His Will,” was kept many years (over 60) confined in a bed and suffered. It is true that Luisa was also happy to be so tied to Jesus yet, apparently, to the human eye, this happiness disappears.  It seems that the happiness of which Jesus speaks can clash, when we think about His sufferings, those of His mother and about Luisa’s state as the least of his creatures.

And Jesus, in His answer, helps Luisa to understand that there is an immense difference between one who must form a good, a kingdom, and one who must receive it in order to enjoy it. Jesus came upon earth to expiate, to redeem, to save man; and in order to do this He had to receive the pains of creatures, and take them upon Myself as if they were His own. Also the Virgin Mary was not to be dissimilar from Him. For Them the pains were offices which They came to fulfill, therefore they were all voluntary pains, not impositions of a fragile nature.

In spite of so many pains of Theirs, highest happiness, unending and ever new joys, continuous Paradise, were inseparable from them.

Just as the nature of the sun is to give light, and that of water to quench one’s thirst, that of fire to warm and to turn everything into fire – and if they did not do so, they would lose their nature – so it is the nature of the Divine Will to make happiness, joy and Paradise arise, wherever It reigns.

Will of God and unhappiness does not exist, nor can exist; Happiness was always at its peak, the seas of joys were inseparable from Him. Even when Jesus was on the Cross, and Mary was crucified at His divine feet, perfect happiness never disassociated from Them; and if this could happen, Jesus would have had to go out of the Divine Will, disassociate Himself from the divine nature, and act only with the human will and nature.

Voluntary pains and sufferings have such power over the Divinity, as to have the strength, the empire, to tear the womb of the Celestial Father, and from this tearing which they form in God, make seas of graces overflow, forming the triumph of the Supreme Majesty and the triumph of the creature who possesses this empire of her voluntary pains.

Therefore, the praised happiness of the Kingdom of the Divine Fiat does not clash just because Jesus was the Divine Will Itself .

It is let ourselves be loved and saved by Him, He who, as St. Paul says, “who loved me and gave Himself entirely to Me.”

Putting together the two attitudes of the crowd that praises Jesus first and then condemn Him, as today’s celebration shows us, leads us to understand that it is easy to forget the love of God , abandon ourselves to sin, deny the Lord.But the Lord fills us with His love and mercy.This has to do with letting ourselves be loved and saved by Him,  “God, who loved me and gave himself for me” St Paul says.

Only then we can live  the Holy Week, only then we can live the life that is before us.

don Marco