Easter, or the definitive grace for those who serve their life sentence. That is, everyone

“We are not well, it is increasingly difficult for us to live, as if managing life becomes increasingly difficult” (Jón Kalman Stefánsson). Lapidary words, which raise the curtain on a condition of heaviness and boredom that is increasingly widespread and shared. It cannot now be avoided, listing it among the individual exceptions of youth discomfort or mental disorder. We have the opportunity to study, travel, use technologies, we can find information on every topic, but we feel confused about our future, empty of our own words, filled with anguished silence for fear of not making it. The ancient wisdom according to which the virtue of man would consist in the ability to know how to be satisfied, knowing how to renounce one’s claim to be original at all costs, is not entirely convincing. Fortunately (or unfortunately, for someone), there is something that still stubbornly attaches us to the blue sky, like the butterflies of Love is great by Damien Hirst. They are almost “forced” to aspire to damned high things, too high, for their strength. Unsatisfied aspiration of this land, which feels the poverty of everything undaunted: it is no longer obvious that this aspiration is the sign of the greatness of the human being. For many, it constitutes the “condemnation” of this punishment which is living. Precisely to this “humanity exhausted by its mortal weakness” (Liturgy), the grace of Jesus of Nazareth is proclaimed by Christians again this year. He, as a convict, frees from any form of imprisonment.

To you, who, like Judas, have betrayed and broken the dearest relationship of life, call again and again “friend”. You, who, like his crucifiers, have discovered yourself as a silent accomplice in the plots of the powerful, are embraced with boundless sympathy that still leaves a margin for your freedom: “Forgive them, because they don’t know what they are doing”. You who, like the good thief, in the eyes of the world are a failure without appeal, publicly condemned by the law, you can still receive the most beautiful invitation of life: “Today you will be with me in Paradise”. This tenacious affirmation of the original goodness of mine, of your being, of the ultimate positivity of every being in this world, is possible for Christ because he had this gaze above all on himself. He did not allow himself to be measured by the eyes of those who judged him, abandoned him or crucified him. He didn’t add condemnation to condemnation, but he took everyone’s pain upon himself, delivering himself into the hands of the Father. Thus he went through the tunnel of condemnation and at the bottom of the darkness of death he found the light of the Father’s embrace which gave him new life, life in the Spirit.

Since Christ was resurrected, there is no act in this world that can decree a final judgment on anyone’s life. Without discrimination, the condemned to death and the torturer, the renegade friend and the traitor, the victim of the system and the ruler of the moment, in short, all those who still let themselves be involved today in the contemporary life of the Risen One, can start a new a journey that changes the way of looking at oneself and at the face of the other, generating a new, indestructible friendship. This was seen a few days ago in the emotional meeting between the parents of little Angelica, who died at the age of five, and Pope Francis as they left the hospital. That hug and that prayer are not the end, but the sign of a new life in this world. Even the guilt that already tastes like death can be an opportunity to start over. wrote s. Ambrogio: “I won’t glory because I have been of help to someone, nor because someone has been of help to me, but because Christ… has defeated death. The guilt of innocence is more productive. Innocence made me arrogant, guilt made me humble! The sense of condemnation for this life gives way to amazement and tenderness “of this objectivity which is my subject, the marvel of this thing that I call ‘I'” (Giussani). From the pain of living to the amazement of being there because you are immortally loved: this is the definitive grace of Easter which breaks forever all forms of loneliness.