List of points

The circumstances of the servant in the parable who owed ten thousand talents, are a good summary of our situation before God. We too are unable to find the wherewithal to pay the enormous debt we have contracted for so much divine goodness, a debt which we have increased through our personal sins. Even though we fight resolutely, we can never properly repay the great debt that God has forgiven us. However, divine mercy fully makes up for the impotence of human justice. God can say he is satisfied and remit our debt, simply 'because he is good and his mercy infinite'.

The parable, as you will remember, ends with a second scene which is the counterpoint of the first. The servant, whose huge debt has just been cancelled, took no pity on a fellow servant who owed him only a hundred pence. And it is here that the meanness of his heart comes to light. Strictly speaking, no one will deny him the right to demand what is his. Nevertheless, there is something inside us that rebels and tells us that his intolerant attitude is very far from real justice. It is not right that a person who only a moment previously has been treated with mercy and understanding, should not then react with at least a little patience towards his own debtor. Remember that justice does not consist exclusively in an exact respect for rights and duties, as in the case of arithmetical problems that are solved simply by addition and subtraction.

The Christian virtue of justice is more ambitious. It enjoins us to prove ourselves thankful, friendly and generous. It encourages us to act as loyal and honourable friends, in hard times as well as in good ones; to obey the law and to respect legitimate authority; to amend gladly when we realise we have erred in tackling a problem. Above all, if we are just, we will fulfil our professional, family and social commitments without fuss or display, working hard and exercising our rights, which are also duties.

I don't believe in the justice of idle people, because, with their dolce far niente,* as they say in my beloved Italy, they fail, sometimes seriously, in that most fundamental principle of equity, which is work. We must not forget that God created man ut operaretur, that he might work, and others (our family and our country, the whole human race) also depend on the effectiveness of our work. My children, what a poor idea of justice those people have who would reduce it to the mere redistribution of material goods!

Our Lord has come so close to his creatures that we all hunger in our hearts for higher things, to be uplifted, to do good. If I am now prompting similar aspirations in you, it is because I want you to be convinced of the confidence he has placed in your soul. If you let him work in you, you will become, right where you are, a useful instrument, more useful than you could ever have imagined. But to make sure that cowardice does not make you betray the confidence God has placed in you, you must avoid the presumption of naively underestimating the difficulties that you will meet in your Christian life.

These difficulties shouldn't surprise us. As a consequence of our fallen nature, we carry within us a principle of opposition, of resistance to grace. It comes from the wounds inflicted by original sin, and is aggravated by our own personal sins. Therefore we have to strive ever upwards, by means of our everyday tasks, which are both divine and human and always lead to the love of God. In this we must be humble and contrite of heart and we must trust in God's help, while at the same time devoting our best efforts to those tasks as if everything depended on us.

As we fight this battle, which will last until the day we die, we cannot exclude the possibility that enemies both within and without may attack with violent force. And, as if this burden were not enough, you may at times be assailed by the memory of your own past errors, which may have been very many. I tell you now, in God's name: don't despair. Should this happen (it need not happen; nor will it usually happen) then turn it into another motive for uniting yourself more closely to Our Lord, for he has chosen you as his child and he will not abandon you. He has allowed that trial to befall you so that you may love him the more and may discover even more clearly his constant protection and Love.

Take heart, I insist, because Christ, who pardoned us on the Cross, is still offering us his pardon through the Sacrament of Penance. We always 'have an advocate to plead our cause before the Father: the Just One, Jesus Christ. He, in his own person, is the atonement made for our sins, and not only for ours, but for the sins of the whole world,' so that we may win the Victory.

Forward, no matter what happens! Cling tightly to Our Lord's hand and remember that God does not lose battles. If you should stray from him for any reason, react with the humility that will lead you to begin again and again; to play the role of the prodigal son every day, and even repeatedly during the twenty-four hours of the same day; to correct your contrite heart in Confession, which is a real miracle of God's Love. In this wonderful Sacrament Our Lord cleanses your soul and fills you with joy and strength to prevent you from giving up the fight, and to help you keep returning to God unwearied, when everything seems black. In addition, the Mother of God, who is also our Mother, watches over you with motherly care, guiding your every step.

Holy Scripture points out that even 'the just man falls seven times'. Whenever I read this phrase my soul trembles with love and sorrow. This divine indication shows us Our Lord once again setting out to meet us and speak to us about his mercy, his tenderness and clemency that know no limits. Be sure of this: God does not want our wretchedness, but he is aware of it, and indeed he makes use of our weakness to make saints of us.

As I was saying, I tremble out of love. Looking at my life, I see quite honestly that I myself am nothing, am worth nothing and have nothing, that I can do nothing and, even more, that I am nothingness itself! But He is everything and, at the same time, he belongs to me and I to him because he does not reject me and has given himself up for me. Have you ever seen a greater love than this?

I tremble also out of sorrow, because when I look back at what I have done, I am amazed at the extent of my failings. All I have to do is to examine my behaviour in the few hours since I woke up this morning to discover so much lack of love, so little faithful correspondence. This truly saddens me, but it does not take away my peace of mind. I prostrate myself before God and I state my situation clearly. Immediately he helps me, he reassures me, and I hear him repeat slowly in the depths of my heart, meus es tu!, I know the way you are, as I have always known it. Forward!

It cannot be otherwise. If we strive continually to place ourselves in Our Lord's presence, our confidence will increase when we realise that his Love and his call are always present. God never tires of loving us. Hope shows us that without him we cannot carry out even the most insignificant duty. But with God, with his grace, our wounds will quickly heal; clothed with his strength we shall be able to ward off the attacks of the enemy, and we shall improve. To sum up, the realisation that we are made of clay, and cheap clay at that, has to lead us, above all, to strengthen our hope in Christ Jesus.

The virtue of hope assures us that God governs us with his all powerful providence and that he gives us all the means we need. Hope makes us aware of Our Lord's constant good will towards mankind, towards you and me. He is always ready to hear us, because he never tires of listening. He is interested in your joys, your successes, your love, and also in your worries, your suffering and your failures. So do not hope in him only when you realise you are weak. Call upon your heavenly Father in good times and in bad, taking refuge in his merciful protection. And our conviction that we are nothing (it doesn't take a high degree of humility to recognise the truth that we are nothing but a row of zeros) will turn into irresistible strength, because Christ will be the one to the left of these zeros, converting them into an immeasurable figure! 'The Lord is my strength and my refuge; whom shall I fear?'

Get used to seeing God behind everything, realising that he is always waiting for us, that he is contemplating us and quite rightly demands that we follow him faithfully without abandoning the place assigned to us in the world. In order not to lose his divine company, we must walk with loving vigilance and with a sincere determination to struggle.

Let us grow in hope, thereby strengthening our faith which is truly 'that which gives substance to our hopes, which convinces us of things we cannot see'. Let us grow in this virtue, let us beg Our Lord to increase his charity in us; after all, one can only really trust that which one loves with all one's might. And it is certainly worthwhile to love Our Lord. You and I know from experience that people in love surrender themselves unhesitatingly. Their hearts beat in a wonderful unison, with a single love. What then will the Love of God be like? Do you not realise that Christ has died for each and every one of us? Yes, for this poor little heart of ours, Jesus consummated his redeeming sacrifice.

Our Lord speaks frequently to us of the reward which he won for us by his Death and Resurrection. 'I am going away to prepare a home for you. And though I do go away, to prepare you a home, I am coming back; and then I will take you to myself, so that you too may be where I am.' Heaven is the final destination of our path on earth. Jesus has gone ahead of us and awaits us there, in the company of Our Lady and of St Joseph, whom I so much revere, and of all the angels and saints.

Even in the times of the Apostles there were heretics who tried to tear hope away from Christians. 'If what we preach about Christ, then, is that he rose from the dead, how is it that some of you say the dead do not rise again? If the dead do not rise, then Christ has not risen either; and if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is groundless, and your faith too is groundless…' Our way is divine, Jesus himself being the way, the truth and the life, and thus we have a sure token that it ends in eternal happiness, provided we do not separate ourselves from him.

I like to repeat what the Holy Spirit tells us through the prophet Isaiah, discite benefacere, learn how to do good. I like to apply this advice to all the different aspects of our interior struggle, because we can never consider our lives as Christians as something finished and complete. The Christian virtues develop as a consequence of real effort, each day.

Take any job in life; how do we set about learning it? First we find out what we want to achieve and what means we have to obtain it. Then we use those means, perseveringly, over and over again, until we have formed a well-rooted habit. As soon as we learn one thing, we discover other things hitherto unknown to us and they in turn stimulate us to continue working without ever giving up.

Charity towards our neighbour is an expression of our love of God. Accordingly, when we strive to grow in this virtue, we cannot fix any limits to our growth. The only possible measure for the love of God is to love without measure; on the one hand, because we will never be able to thank him enough for what he has done for us; and on the other, because this is exactly what God's own love for us, his creatures, is like: it overflows without calculation or limit.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches his divine command of charity to all who are ready to listen with an open mind. At the end, by way of summary, he says, 'Love your enemies, and do good to them, and lend to them, without any hope of return; then your reward will be a rich one, and you will be children of the most High, generous like him towards the thankless and unjust. Be merciful, then, as your Father is merciful.'

Mercy is more than simply being compassionate. Mercy is the overflow of charity, which brings with it also an overflow of justice. Mercy means keeping one's heart totally alive, throbbing in a way that is both human and divine, with a love that is strong, self-sacrificing and generous. Here is what St Paul has to say about charity in his hymn to this virtue, 'Charity is patient, is kind; charity feels no envy; charity is never perverse or proud, never insolent; does not claim its rights, cannot be provoked, does not brood over an injury; takes no pleasure in wrong-doing, but rejoices at the victory of truth; sustains, believes, hopes, endures, to the last.'