The New Year evokes the passage of time, to which we are subjected and
which drags us irretrievably (it is that of one more year and one year less);
it is a year of grace (time is a gift that God makes to us, totally full of his
goodness, of his proximity, of his call); It reminds us of the mystery of the
incarnation and the historically of our faith (it was on a given day of a year
that Jesus was born; it was another day of another year that he died. Like our
lives, yours is also subjected to the course of time: being born, growing,
dying). That the new year is celebrated within the Christmas festivities is for
Christians an invitation to live throughout this 365-day span that begins in
the company of the Lord Jesus, in whom the benignity of God is manifested to
us.
New Year, Old Man
This is usually not what happens ordinary in our personal lives, even on
New Year's Eve on December 31 that links the year that says goodbye to the one
that shakes hands at the cold dawn of January 1. I wish it were, not in the sense of
changing our shirts to that of another political color, but in what it
represents, however worn out the expression, that of the New Year, new life. He
is a magnificent saint and sign, provided that life-changing is a sign of
authentic growth and moral improvement. It is not bad, but quite the opposite,
that of wishing each other a prosperous new year, provided that we do not
exhaust or dimension in the field of economics those good wishes, as seems to imply,
with tomatillo, the qualifier in question.
It is worth here, as never before, that of putting the values of being
before those of having. Remember that
law on manifestly improvable rustic farms? Someone said to several of its
owners: Here the first manifestly improvable are you. Well, apply the story! What is to be renewed
in the new year is our personal life, from the inside out and not the other way
around. Understanding by quality of life not only the old triptych of health,
affection and money, but also, and, above all, moral dignity, the spirit of
service and the constant commitment to doing good at full hands.
The law sets specific dates for the expiration of food and medicine and also
sets the periods in which cars are to be passed to the workshop for necessary
review. And we, what? Oh, if so many bad habits, so many inertias, so many routines
expire on December 31st! And, how good it would be for many of us, as Lent approaches, to enter the workshop of a Spiritual Retreat, of an Annual
Exercises, to review the interior mechanisms, to renew some useless pieces of
our already exhausted programs!
Dissatisfied
We are special beings ourselves, who pursue tranquility, security, growing
development..., but nevertheless we are always dissatisfied. When we’ve
achieved something, we quickly become routine, repeated, boring:
"Everything is always the same!" Perhaps this way of being has its
motive and foundation. Because we have
been made for a word that has permanence and always validity; for a word that,
on the other hand, is always new.
Jesus, as a good Jew, would say "shalom". Even today, when one
Jew greets another with "shalom" he doesn't just want you not to be warned
and not harassed by your neighbors. "Shalom" is not only
biblically the absence of war. It's kind of a summary of all the saving goods.
To desire "shalom" is to wish one inner and outer peace, acceptance,
fraternity, being for the good of the other, harmony with oneself and with
nature, deep harmony with life and with the cosmos, the ineffable peace with
God.
We started a year. A "new year" people say. But it can be just
one more year for the usual war, one more year to keep talking about
reconciliation. The truth is that the year we started is nothing more or less
than a conventional space open to our responsibility. Time doesn't change
anything. It is the man who must change the world. And he has to do it with the
greatest realism.
Because, on the one hand, we know that last year's world hasn't happened.
The same problems remain: war, hunger, injustice. And the same conditionings
continue to weigh: ideologies, prejudices, taboos, confessable interests,
selfishness. This is not to make it easy to exercise freedom and change the
world so that everyone's freedom is possible.
But on the other hand, we believe that Jesus, the Son of God, was born of
woman and has grown under the law in a precise sociocultural context, to redeem
us: so that we may have the possibility of being children of God and, as such,
sovereignly free.
This is who we already are: children of God. But it is essential to become
aware of our new situation, so that we do not cry again at any pretense of
reducing ourselves to slavery. Because we are already liberated, even if it has
not manifested itself objectively and quiet, we can live in freedom and we can
act freely. Rather, we must commit ourselves to creating the necessary
conditions to make everyone's freedom possible.
This is our task: to free ourselves and others from all biological and
circumstantial conditionings, so that everyone's life may be possible. Bread
for all is the first task. But new living conditions must also be created for
collaboration and mutual understanding. Peace for all is the other aspect. For
without bread life is impossible; but, without peace, bread and life are
unbeatable.
For commitment
Prayers, wishes and speeches will not suffice. All committed. All called to
be witnesses and sowers of peace. If not all of us can become great prophets or
Nobel Peace Prize winners, we can be small masons or pawns of the new society.
The policy of small steps is imposed: an acceptance of yourself, a
reconciliation, a forgiveness, a loving closeness, a patience, a word, a
dialogue, a mediation, a clean complaint, a brave fight. A small pacifying
gesture is worth more than many speeches about peace.
Objection to all violence We will have to begin by disarming and pacifying
ourselves and we will have to make common with all those who raise the flag of
conscientious objection, tax objection and the objection of all violence. And
we will have to oppose every arms race and all terrorism and all manipulation
and all injustice and all dehumanization. And we will have to continue to
believe in man. And we will have to continue believing, above all else, in
Jesus of Nazareth. "We will therefore seek what fosters peace" (Rm
14,19): the peace that Jesus came to bring to earth and that He offered to his
disciples: Shalom.
