The Fruit of Redemption

Rising from the dead, Jesus appeared to the women who went to the tomb: “Do not be afraid,” he says to them “go and announce to my brothers (…)”. In this conclusive moment he calls his disciples “brothers”. It’s how he continues to come to us today, as a brother: the firstborn. By rising he had conquered death and restored fraternity. Jesus had come into the world in order to re-establish the paternity of the Father. He descended into hell in order to conquer humanity’s enemy; now he announces that God’s children have been reinstated as brothers and sisters in the family of God.

Today’s world is dominated by fear and by egoism. And what is the result? (…) Humankind suffers because life doesn’t circulate among peoples, among the rich and the poor, among individuals, or else it circulates erratically. What promotes life is religion, science, technology, the arts and philosophy… But philosophy, art, technology, science, material goods do not circulate if they are not impelled by love; it is love which opens ways and overcomes divisions. But religion itself must be freed, it must redeem itself in every moment from the incrustations, limitations and rifts which are caused by the faults of the redeemed.

The circulation of goods does not happen as much, or as well as it should, because men and women no longer recognize each other as brothers and sisters and so they don’t love one another.

That person who annoys us on the train; the one who passes us by arrogantly or distractedly or who is alienated from us; the person we exploit in the factory or in the fields; the person we treat unfairly in the law courts or at the bank, is someone we don’t consider as a brother or sister. The persons we discriminate against because of their socio-economic status or because of their faith, don’t appear as children of our Father: at most they appear as illegitimate children worthy only of sympathy. The person bearing a firearm during the war doesn’t appear as a brother but more as a bombing device. Victims of prostitution are not considered sisters but rather as worthless merchandise. Seen in this way, society seems like a colony of lepers.

Every division, every discord, is a barrier to love flowing out. Love is God, and God is Life. And if life doesn’t flow, the waters are stagnated by death.

(…) If God’s attributes were only Strength, Honor and Fear, he would have remained alone, never generating a Son, nor bringing about creation. He would have been closed within himself, never open to others. But love is Trinitarian: it is circular: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. (…) The Trinity is Three and One: the Three love each other, and they are One; One distinguishes itself in Three persons in order to love; it is an Eternal game of Love. Made in the image and likeness of the Trinity, rational creatures discover in love an impulse to generate new life. (…) Love is the expression of God towards creation; and I return to God through my brothers and sisters.

The movement is circular, as in a river which departs from the source and flows out into the sea.

You go to God through your brothers and sisters; you go to them through God. This is how I can be truly myself; without them there would be no reason for me to exist since the reason for my being is to love.

Christ has put back into circulation all the treasures of life in the riverbed of love, with which he transmits the warmth, the light, the intelligence for reopening ourselves to the way that will lead us to unity where God is to be found.

He obtained this for us by coming among us, dwelling among us, making himself ours until, by dying, he redeemed us. Just as the Redemption freed us from divisions, it also reunited us to God. Christ has placed God in us and us in God. For this reason he commanded that we love one another, for where there is love there is God: “God is love, whoever is in love is in God, and God is in him” (cf Jn 4:16).

Il Fratello, Città Nuova, 2011, pp.29-30, 34, 36, 37-38.