INTRODUCING LIFE INTO TODAY’S SOCIETY
God’s reign isn’t just a salvation that begins after death. It’s a breaking-in of grace and life already in our actual existence. Even more. The clearest sign that the reign is near, is precisely this current of life that begins to open up a path on the earth. «Go and announce that the reign of heaven is near. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons». Today more than ever we believers ought to hear Jesus’ invitation to put new life into society.
There’s opening up a concerning chasm between technological progress and our spiritual development. One would say that the human being doesn’t have spiritual power to animate and give meaning to his unceasing progress. The results are evident. So many end up impoverished by their money and the things they think they possess. Worn-out life and boredom take hold of many. «Interior contamination» is dirtying what’s best in many people. There are men and women who go about lost, without being able to find meaning in their life. There are people who run around, submerged in a nervous and intense activity, empty inside, not knowing exactly what they want.
Aren’t we again in the face of men and women who are «sick» and need to be cured, «dead» who need resurrection, «possessed» who wait to be freed of so many demons that keep them from living as human beings? There are people who deep down want to return to living. They want to be healed and to rise. To return to laughing and enjoying life, meeting each day with joy.
And there’s only one path: learn to love. And learn once again the things that love demands and that aren’t fashionable: simplicity, hospitality, friendship, solidarity, gratuitous attention to the other, faithfulness… Among us love is still lacking. Someone needs to awaken it. People of today aren’t going to be saved either by comfort or electronics, but by love. If in us there is a capability of loving, we need to spread it. It’s been given to us freely and freely we need to pass it on in many ways to those we meet on our journey.
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
