Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent

ON GOLGOTHA TO SEE THE DAY OF THE RISEN CHRIST IN OUR LIVES Never to see death, if only... Would you truly want to have this experience? Then keep the Word of Jesus. But how is it done? Like Abraham. He too saw only death: he had no son to whom to bequeath his inheritance, no land where he could be buried. And the Word of God descended from Heaven precisely in his despair. A call that transformed that beyond death that awaited him into a future overflowing with life. Here Abraham began to see the day of Jesus, which was to see his resurrection in his everyday life: that day became clearer upon arriving in Canaan, the land God had promised him, and even more so as he held Isaac in his arms, the life flowing from his dead flesh. But it was not yet the day of Jesus to rejoice in. Something was missing, as it is for each of us who have experienced His love that has resurrected us through the forgiveness of sins. But it is not enough, because to never see death again requires the decisive experience of full and unconditional love, surrendering oneself to God. This is the fruit of the dark night of faith, the hardest, the only one in which we can see the light of Easter that forever erases death in the eternal day of the Messiah Jesus. The night of Moriah, to which God led Abraham. But this is precisely the obstacle that makes us doubt and stumble into scandal: can God ask us to sacrifice a child? For whom do we stand? But take heart, this Easter we can lean on the Church and ascend to Moriah where we can offer God our Isaac: perhaps your hope of healing, or the desire to find work. Take what you want, what is most important, what you desire most intensely, and offer it on the altar. Entrust your life to God by keeping His promise, that is, by watching over, protecting, loving, and obeying the Word that the Church preaches to you. In this way, you too will recover your Isaac, and it will be a true resurrection. Like the new and free relationship with that son who purified Abraham's eyes so that he could look upon him without the morbid affection born of the fear of losing him. After the angel's intervention, in fact, Abraham called that place: "Here God was seen" (Targum). At the height of his anguish, he saw that God had been favorable to him. We too in the Church will be able to see the day of Christ in those pregnant with death. You will see, for example, the life of Christ in your own life, attacked by cancer, which means having peace, time, words, and pains to offer with love. Because before Abraham existed, before our marriage, our children, our work, our character and our flaws, our bodies, even before we sinned or suffered that injustice, Jesus is "I AM," that is, life stronger than death, infinite love for each one of us. And if He loved us before, won't He love us now, and tomorrow, and always, giving us His immortal life precisely where and when death will frighten us most?