List of points

Let us consider for a moment the texts of today's Mass, Tuesday in Passion Week, for they will help us to distinguish 'true godliness' from 'false godliness'.** We shall be speaking about humility, for this is the virtue which helps us to recognise, at one and the same time, both our wretchedness and our greatness.

Our wretchedness is all too evident. I am not here referring to our natural limitations, to those great ambitions that people dream of but, in fact, never achieve, if only for lack of time. I am thinking rather of the things we do badly, of our falls, of the mistakes that could have been avoided and were not. We are continually experiencing our personal inadequacies. Moreover, there are times when it seems as if all our failings come together, as if wanting to show themselves more clearly, to make us realise just how little we are worth. When that happens, what are we to do?

Expecta Dominum, hope in the Lord. Live by hope, full of faith and love, the Church says to us. Viriliter age, be of good heart. What does it matter that we are made of clay, if all our hope is placed in God? And if at a certain moment you should fall or suffer some setback (not that it has to happen), all you have to do is to apply the remedy, just as, in the normal course of events, you would do for the sake of your bodily health. And then: off to a fresh start!

Haven't you noticed the way families look after valuable ornaments or decorative pieces, a vase for example; how they take care lest it get broken? Until one day the baby happens to be playing nearby and knocks it over. The precious souvenir is dashed to pieces, and all the family are very upset. But they immediately set about repairing it. The pieces are gathered up and carefully glued together, and in the end it is restored to its former beauty.

However, when the broken object is a simple piece of crockery or just a piece of earthenware, it is usually enough to get some simple rivets, clips of iron or other metal, to bind the fragments together. The pot or vessel thus repaired takes on an original charm of its own.

We can apply this lesson to our own interior life. When we are faced with weaknesses and sins, with our mistakes even though, by God's grace, they be of little account — let us turn to God our Father in prayer and say to him, 'Lord, here I am in my wretchedness and frailty, a broken vessel of clay. Bind me together again, Lord, and then, helped by my sorrow and by your forgiveness, I shall be stronger and more attractive than before!' What a consoling prayer, which we can say every time something fractures this miserable clay of which we are made.

Let us not be surprised to discover our frailty. Let it not come as a shock to see how easily our good behaviour breaks down, for little or no reason. Have confidence in the Lord, whose help is always at hand. 'The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?' No one. If we approach our heavenly Father in this way, we will have no grounds for fearing anyone or anything.

What does it matter that we stumble on the way, if we find in the pain of our fall the energy to pick ourselves up and go on with renewed vigour? Don't forget that the saint is not the person who never falls, but rather the one who never fails to get up again, humbly and with a holy stubbornness. If the book of Proverbs says that the just man falls seven times a day, who are we poor creatures, you and I, to be surprised or discouraged by our own weaknesses and falls! We will be able to keep going ahead, if only we seek our fortitude in him who says: 'Come to me all you who labour and are burdened and I will give you rest.' Thank you, Lord, quia tu es, Deus, fortitudo mea, because you, and you alone, my God, have always been my strength, my refuge and my support.

If you really want to make progress in the interior life, be humble. Turn constantly and confidently to the help of Our Lord and of his Blessed Mother, who is your Mother too. No matter how much the still open wound of your latest fall may hurt, embrace the cross once more and, calmly, without getting upset, say: 'With your help, Lord, I'll fight so as not to be held back. I'll respond faithfully to your invitations. I won't be afraid of steep climbs, nor of the apparent monotony of my daily work, nor of the thistles and loose stones on the way. I know that I am aided by your mercy and that, at the end of the road, I will find eternal happiness, full of joy and love for ever and ever.'

Later, in the same dream, our writer discovers a third path. It too is narrow and, like the second, it is both steep and rugged. Those who travel it walk solemnly and regally in the midst of countless hardships. Yet they end up falling over the same terrible precipice that the first road leads to. This is the path of the hypocrites, people who lack a right intention, who are motivated by a false zeal and pervert divine works by mixing them with their own selfish and temporal ambitions. 'It is folly to undertake a hard and difficult task just to be admired; to put great effort into keeping God's commandments with but an earthly reward in mind. Whoever practises virtue for the sake of some human benefit is like a person who sells off a priceless heirloom for just a few coins. He could have won Heaven, but he is content instead with fleeting praise… That is why they say that the hopes of hypocrites are like a spider's web: so much effort goes into weaving it, and in the end it is blown away by a puff of the wind of death.'

Make it a habit to mingle with the characters who appear in the New Testament. Capture the flavour of those moving scenes where the Master performs works that are both divine and human, and tells us, with human and divine touches, the wonderful story of his pardon for us and his enduring Love for his children. Those foretastes of Heaven are renewed today, for the Gospel is always true: we can feel, we can sense, we can even say we touch God's protection with our own hands; a protection that grows stronger as long as we keep advancing despite our stumbles, as long as we begin again and again, for this is what interior life is about, living with our hope placed in God.

Unless we aspire to overcome the obstacles both within and without, we will not obtain the reward. '"No athlete wins a crown, if he has not fought in earnest;" and the fight would not be genuine if there were no opponent to fight with. Therefore, if there is no opponent, there will be no crown; for there can be no victor without someone vanquished.'

Far from discouraging us, the difficulties we meet have to spur us on to mature as Christians. This fight sanctifies us and gives effectiveness to our apostolic endeavours. As we contemplate those moments when Jesus, in the Garden of Olives and later mocked and abandoned on the Cross, accepts and loves the Will of his Father, all the while feeling the enormous weight of the Passion, we must be convinced that in order to imitate Christ, and be good disciples of his, we must take his advice to heart, 'If any man has a mind to come my way, let him renounce self, and take up his cross, and follow me.' That is why I like to ask Jesus, for myself, 'Lord, no day without a cross!' Then, through God's grace, our characters will grow strong and we will become a point of support for our God, over and above our own wretchedness.

Take a nail, for instance. If you meet no resistance when you hammer it into a wall, what can you expect to hang on it? Likewise, if we do not let God toughen us through sacrifice, we will never become Our Lord's instruments. On the other hand, if we decide to accept difficulties gladly and make use of them for the love of God, then in the face of what is difficult and unpleasant, when things are hard and uncomfortable, we will be able to exclaim with the apostles James and John, 'Yes, we can!'

The struggle of a child of God cannot go hand in hand with a spirit of sad-faced renunciation, sombre resignation or a lack of joy. It is, on the contrary, the struggle of the man in love who, whether working or resting, rejoicing or suffering, is always thinking of the one he loves, for whose sake he is happy to tackle any problems that may arise. Besides, in our case, being united with God, we can call ourselves victors because, I insist, he does not lose battles. My own experience is that when I strive faithfully to meet his demands, 'he gives me a resting place where there is green pasture, leads me out to the cool water's brink, refreshed and content. As in honour pledged, by sure paths he leads me; dark be the valley about my path, hurt I fear none while he is with me; thy rod, thy crook are my comfort.'

To win the battles of the soul, the best strategy often is to bide one's time and apply the suitable remedy with patience and perseverance. Make more acts of hope. Let me remind you that in your interior life you will suffer defeats and you will have ups and downs — may God make them imperceptible — because no one is free of these misfortunes. But our all powerful and merciful Lord has granted us the precise means with which to conquer. As I have already mentioned, all we have to do is to use them, resolving to begin again and again at every moment, should it prove necessary.

I would like to see you going to the holy Sacrament of Penance, the sacrament of divine forgiveness, every week, and indeed whenever you need it, without giving in to scruples. Clothed in grace, we can cross mountains, and climb the hill of our Christian duty, without halting on the way. If we use these resources with a firm purpose and beg Our Lord to grant us an ever increasing hope, we will possess the infectious joy of those who know they are children of God: 'If God is with us, who can be against us?' Let us be optimists. Moved by the power of hope, we will fight to wipe away the trail of filth and slime left by the sowers of hatred. We will find a new joyful perspective to the world, seeing that it has sprung forth beautiful and fair from the hands of God. We will give it back to him with that same beauty, if we learn how to repent.