MARY, OUR MOTHER

VATICAN - AVE MARIA: Mgr Luciano Alimandi -

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - "But when the Son of man comes, will he find any faith on earth?" (Lk 18, 8) How often in the Gospel does the Lord Jesus underline the importance of faith! If faith fails, the Lord is unable to work miracles, to flood the hearts of the faithful with grace, to conquer evil... Without faith the Gospel cannot spread, because incredulity stifles the breath of the Spirit. When in the place of faith there is incredulity, the heart of the Christian becomes like the heart of St Thomas: it can no longer see the light, the saving influence. Only if we follow Jesus, can we see clearly, because we no longer walk in darkness (cfr. Jn 8, 12). The disciples of Emmaus, like Thomas, had to travel a path of "conversion", a path of "returning to Jesus" through faith.

"Stay with us Lord, the day is coming to a close " (Lk 24, 29). Yes, when faith disappears, darkness falls. The further we are from Jesus, the greater the darkness, darkness rule our life and even the presence of Jesus becomes ghostly. Our words are similar to those of the disciples of Emmaus: "we hoped…" (Lc 24, 21).

Instead if we have faith and we renew it day after day, with many acts of faith during the day, we live in the presence of Christ, we are part of his history which is everlasting, ever relevant. The true believer speaks of Jesus not as a marvelous experience of the past, but in the present, and sees the future in the hands of Divine Providence.
If we live our faith in Jesus we can say with our heart those wonderful words of the Gospel: "It is the Lord!" (Jn 21, 7). This was the exclamation of the apostle Jesus' loved, the one who saw the empty tomb and believed (Jn 20, 9), the one who recognized Jesus when he appeared on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, after the apostles had fished all night without success (cfr. Jn 21, 3). An act of faith is like Peter's plunge into the water to reach Jesus. True faith is a leap towards Jesus who draws us to himself with his living presence.

Faith helps us to see the presence of Jesus in our midst, and it also has to power to strengthen and intensify this presence: "where two or three are gathered in my name, I am with them " (Mt 18, 20). If we gather in the Name of Jesus, this means we believe in Him!

This is why the Devil tries to steal faith from our hearts. If faith disappears so does grace! The prince of this world, the Gospel tells us, acts not only when Jesus is tempted, during the forty days in the desert, but also in the week of his Passion when: Judas betrays Jesus; the high priests, the scribes, the Pharisees and the angry mob all call for the death of Jesus, while Pilate washes his hands of the matter; the Romans are instigated to violence against the Man, who has committed no evil ...

In this dark scenario, Our Lady remains firm in her faith: like a beam of light illuminating the gloom when night falls on the world as Jesus dies. If we stay at the foot of the cross with Mary and with John the only apostle who remained, our faith will never fail.

Peter, who experienced the night of the faith, temptation, denial, wrote to the faithful as the first Pope: "Keep sober and alert, because your enemy the devil is on the prowl like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand up to him, strong in faith and in the knowledge that it is the same kind of suffering that the community of your brothers throughout the world is undergoing" (1 Pt 5, 8-9). If faith is the greatest of all gifts, it is clear that to lose it is the greatest of all dangers. This is why the Lord chose to anchor the Church's faith to the rock, to "Peter" (cfr. Mt 16, 18). Peter, the Pope, can never lose his faith, because the Lord promised: "I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail, and once you have recovered, you in your turn must strengthen your brothers." (Lk 22, 32). As Catholics we know that to keep the faith we must follow Peter, the Pope, the Shepherd of the universal Church.

The Holy Father Benedict XVI, Peter of our day, guides and enlightens us and we must thank Heaven that when Peter speaks it is Christ's the power which confirms our faith: "In our days, when in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God. (…). The real problem at this moment of our history is that God is disappearing from the human horizon, and, with the dimming of the light which comes from God, humanity is losing its bearings, with increasingly evident destructive effects." (Benedict XVI, concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four bishops consecrated by archbishop Lefebvre, 10 March 2009).

Lent calls us to Conversion and first of all to conversion of faith, which means moving from incredulity to complete trust in Jesus who speaks to of us repeating what he said to Thomas: "Do not be unbelieving any more but believe" (Jn 20, 27).

(Agenzia Fides 1/4/2009; righe 58, parole 918)