EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE, OR EVERYTHING IS A COMPETITION IN THE PLAN OF GOD? THE PANDEMIC, A PRECIOUS LOST LESSON MAYBE?

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"Everything will be fine". No, did not go, it is not going and everything will not magically go well; who just says "everything will be fine", without founding his hope in God, the illusion that the pandemic is a simple parenthesis, after which she can return to her former life, to the world before, as if nothing had happened. No. It won't be all right, because instead of taking the opportunity of the pandemic to get back into yourself, to realize once and for all that we are mortal, abandon sin and convert to good, go back to God and stop trusting in man in vain, one continues as and more than before to forget God and sin against him.

John Zanchi

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… Everything will be fine

Through the Apostle Saint Paul the Holy Spirit reveals this comforting news to us:

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«We know that everything contributes to good, for those who love God, for those who have been called according to his plan " [RM 8, 28].

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St. Paul states: «Everything contributes to good», "all", also what many men consider misfortunes; but this is possible only because the Son of God had compassion on us poor men ruined by sin, devoted to eternal perdition: for us sinful and lost men the Word of God is incarnated, for us sinful and lost men Jesus the Redeemer sacrificed himself on the cross, for us sinful and lost men Christ God is risen, to us who believe in him the Living has given the Holy Spirit. So no one is more optimistic than we Christians and we Christians can never be desperate, because we are the only ones in the world to have a well-founded hope that never disappoints.

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The maximum example of Christian optimism and we have the strength of Christian hope in the Good Thief: finished on the cross as a result of his life spent in sin, just at the last moment he accepted the divine grace of conversion and forgiveness, recognizing in Jesus Christ his King and Savior; the cross - supreme misfortune - became the hitherto evil villain the right opportunity to finally become good and, immediately after death, go with Jesus to triumph in Paradise. If he hadn't been crucified, the thief would not have saved his soul.

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«Everything contributes to good», Certain, but only "for those who love God", not for those who don't fear it, they despise and hate him; indeed, the other Thief who was crucified with Jesus was bad and wanted to stay bad and, after dead, went to hell, because he did not love God and on the cross he wasted the little breath he had left to insult Jesus.

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«Everything contributes to good»; to a shallow ear, these divinely inspired words seem quite similar to other words that in this time of pandemic we often heard parrot more or less repeat: "Everything will be fine".

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The Pauline concept "Everything contributes to the good" and the slogan of the last few months "Everything will be fine": they seem two equivalent ways to say the same thing, but it is not true. It would be enough to ask ourselves: "It will be all right" ... and why? Just say "everything will be fine", without adding anything else, without appealing to God, it means trusting only in man, expect salvation not from the only one who can give it to us, ie God, but by man. Indeed, one of the popular songs, recently trumpeted by commercial advertising, obsessively screams: "I believe in humans!». Does not say: "I believe in God"", but «I believe in human beings!». This is the great blasphemy of our time: put man in God's place. And yes the Holy Scripture, already in the Old Testament, he claims: "Damn the man who trusts in the man, who places his support in the flesh and his heart moves away from the Lord » [Gives 17, 5]. And so, the pandemic comes and, instead of seeking the help of the Lord and the salvation of the soul and body that only he can give us, he "trusts in man" and in his impotences, with the disastrous results we experience on our skin, deluding ourselves and deluding ourselves with the motto: "Everything will be fine". No, not everything went well, especially for the many, too many deaths suffocated by the virus in intensive care, spiral to salt, without sacraments, without the comforting presence of loved ones, the bodies of which were immediately piled up and burned, without a rag of funeral, without a prayer, without an autopsy that would have helped understand better and better how to help the sick, without waiting for the physical aggravation then unacceptable.

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Net of political propaganda, it is not going well at all from an economic and work and cultural point of view and the future prospects are already increasingly bleak in the short term.

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"Everything will be fine"; Sara! But in the meantime, for fear of dying, we supinely accepted the limitation of all personal freedom, the de facto suspension of democracy; for fear of no longer being able to live physically, we are reduced to surviving, that is, we have reduced ourselves to nothing but postponing physical death, that sooner or later will come for everyone anyway. Mind you: I am not saying that we have done wrong to take some of the personal and social precautions taken to avoid the spread of the infection. I say that - in the face of danger - just say "Everything will be fine" and that's it, without adding anything else, without appealing to God, it is something that manifests a sterile and unreasonable optimism of the completely unfounded will. Beyond the subjective intentions - which I do not judge because only God knows them - try to reassure myself with the blows of «Everything will be fine» and that's it, it resembles the superstitious practices of those who think of removing the evil eye from themselves through apotropaic gestures, that is, making horns, touching iron, reading the horoscope, etc, etc … And it has the same effectiveness, that is, none.

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"Everything will be fine". No, did not go, it is not going and everything will not magically go well; who just says "everything will be fine", without founding his hope in God, the illusion that the pandemic is a simple parenthesis, after which she can return to her former life, to the world before, as if nothing had happened. No. It won't be all right, because instead of taking the opportunity of the pandemic to get back into yourself, to realize once and for all that we are mortal, abandon sin and convert to good, go back to God and stop trusting in man in vain, one continues as and more than before to forget God and sin against him.

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No, it won't be all right, because during the pandemic on the balconies and windows the signs drawn with the rainbow of the 'appearedEverything will be fine, not the Crucifixes and Madonnas. E, since the beginning of the pandemic, our churches are even more empty than before, even on Sunday.

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No, it's not going to be all right, because Masses and other sacraments were suspended too easily, as if they were unimportant things, rather, everything was done to convince people that churches would be the most dangerous place for health, or even that, receive Holy Communion, is a kind of health hazard. Instead, massing in shopping malls, in supermarkets and bars, that's fine, because it only matters to satisfy bodily needs!

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Saying "everything will be fine", should imply that "the pandemic will also contribute to our true good", but only if we realize that, even the pandemic, it is a clear warning, by God at least allowed, to call everyone back to conversion and repentance. It is the Gospel that authorizes us to say this. The man who had been paralyzed for good 38 year old, after being instantly healed by Jesus at the Probative Pool in Jerusalem, she heard him say it: «Here you are healed; sin no more, so that something worse doesn't happen to you » [GV 5, 14]. Stay paralyzed for good 38 years would seem one of the biggest misfortunes that can happen, yet Jesus says there is something far worse, that is, the eternal damnation of the soul. Said in an updated way: there, the worst of the infection seems to have passed; but don't sin anymore, because something worse doesn't happen to you.

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Always Jesus, in the Gospel he warns: «Those eighteen, above which Siloam fell tower fell, You believe that they were worse offenders than all the inhabitants of Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, all perish in the same way » [LC 14, 4 – 5]. Said in updated form: those who died from the pandemic, believe that they were more guilty than all the inhabitants of Italy? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all perish equally. And then nothing would have been worth repeating obsessively: "Everything will be fine", without adding anything else.

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«Everything contributes to good, for those who love God ". Indeed, who loves God and puts him first in his thoughts, in his words, in his works, also knows how to take advantage of the pandemic, by doing penance for one's sins and loving God and neighbor even more for God's sake, putting all his confidence not in mortal man, but only in God and demonstrating his faith in eternal life through words and deeds.

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«Everything contributes to good, for those who love God ". The man who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote these immortal words, that is, the Apostle Saint Paul, he knew exactly what he said; after his prodigious conversion, his life was marred by countless and terrible trials, some of which he himself remembers:

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«Five times from the Jews I have received the thirty-nine blows [that is, I was scourged almost to death]; three times I was beaten with rods, I was once stoned, three times I was wrecked, I spent a day and a night at the mercy of the waves. Countless trips, river hazards, brigands dangers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the pagans, dangers in the city, dangers in the desert, dangers on the sea, dangers from false brothers; fatigue and labor, vigils without number, hungry and thirsty, frequent fasting, cold and nakedness » [2Color 11, 24 – 27].

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In the midst of all this, the Apostle Saint Paul did not waver in faith, did not lose hope, charity was not lost; indeed he endured everything in a Christian way, as an opportunity to do penance for the serious sins committed before his conversion and to grow in the love of God and spend oneself for the eternal salvation of one's neighbor. For this reason he remained indomitable and faithful until the end, in the last imprisonment suffered because of the Gospel, on the threshold of death by beheading, he wrote:

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«I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I kept the faith. Now I have only the crown of righteousness left that the Lord, the right judge, will deliver me on that day; not just me, but also to all those who have looked forward to its manifestation with love " [2TM 4, 7 – 8].

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San Paolo was not the type he says at all: "Everything will be fine", or "I believe in humans". St. Paul says: «Everything contributes to good, for those who love God "and" I know who I believed in " [2TM 1, 12].

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In some passages of the Holy Scriptures, the Book of Kings [3, 5. 7 – 12] and the Gospel of the Evangelist Saint Matthew [13, 44 – 52] they warn us and invite us to be wise, that is, to love God with all of ourselves, ready to sacrifice everything else - including us - for Him, therefore to love one's neighbor for the love of God, thus also loving ourselves, that is, worrying about our eternal salvation:

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«Every scribe, become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven, is like a landlord who extracts new and old things from his treasure » [Mt 13, 56].

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The Christian, pervaded by divine wisdom, also knows how to profit spiritually from the pandemic, because he puts his faith in his hope in God and not foolishly in men, so that for him "everything contributes to the good".

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Arezzo, 5 August 2020

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This article was obtained from a homily pronounced in the Cathedral Church of Saints Peter and Donate in Arezzo, Sunday 26 July 2020, XVII of Ordinary Time after Pentecost

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