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Rome, Easter 2000 Dear Brothers and Sisters, Our Lenten journey began with Jesus being led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted. It is an experience which involves struggle and judgment as it leads to the Father, and is ordinarily the mise en scène for making the choices that affect our life and mission: is it to be a triumphal procession, an ascent to where power resides? Or is it to be the hidden pathway of humility? We are all prepared to follow Jesus, the glorious and victorious Messiah, but we find it difficult to embrace the messianic path of kenosis. Choosing to follow a Messiah who goes up to Jerusalem weak, disarmed and defenceless, able indeed to perform cures and miracles, though having no wish to make a show of this - rather, avoiding the crowds and popular acclaim so as not to separate himself from his Father's will - cannot be other than a disconcerting experience. "Our own hope had been that he would be the one to set Israel free" (Lk 24:21), murmur the disciples of Emmaus, as they went away from Jerusalem with disillusioned hearts. What tragic occurrences can cross our paths today causing us to be disenchanted, to lose hope, to feel defeated, powerless and devoid of patience! So many of our brothers and sisters in every continent are the victims, on a daily basis, of injustice, torment and fear. Their tormentors can "treat them as they please" (cf. Mk 9:13). Celebrating Easter in this Jubilee Year means living in unanimity with what is human and divine, and in this way suffering becomes redemptive, like that of Jesus, and the last and definitive word does not belong to death. "There is no need for you to be afraid. I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified...He has risen...Go quickly..." (Mt 28:5). It is He who shows us the road ahead even when the good sense behind love seems fated to come to naught! Celebrating the Passover of the risen Christ means putting up with that peculiar suffering which derives from the inability to change all the negative factors that encircle us. And yet it also means being aware of our ability to give these things another significance, to implant them in a different perspective. The sequence of events that continues to develop around the disciples of Emmaus is not changed; rather is it illuminated by a fresh outlook that first caught fire within their own hearts. The two disciples, ever since that eucharistic sharing, transformed utterly their whole way of looking at what had happened. It is night-time; but the disciples are no longer afraid of the dark. In Jerusalem the same old enemies await them; but any fears they had have since been transformed into fortitude. There is no longer any need to flee the past and find refuge in isolation: now is the hour for the disciples to run and find "the others", and detonate that joyous missionary drive which will characterise believers in every age. Dearly beloved brothers and sisters, the proof that Christ is truly risen lies in the fact that the world is no longer the same but is a different one! Yes, indeed: the empty tomb is not the only proof; the profound experience of His transforming presence within us is also proof. Like Mary Magdalen, Peter, the disciples of Emmaus, let us also, after meeting "the living Lord", overcome all fear and diffidence and give to the events of history a new significance. To live in the light of the Resurrection is to look upon the world with the very eyes of God. May the risen Christ open our hearts and make them ready for the recreative power of His Spirit. Alleluia Fraternally,
Brother Giacomo Bini, ofm
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