List of points

What a strange capacity man has to forget even the most wonderful things, to become used to mystery! Let's remind ourselves, this Lent, that the Christian cannot be superficial. While being fully involved in his everyday work, among other men, his equals; busy, under stress, the Christian has to be at the same time totally involved with God, for he is a child of God.

Divine filiation is a joyful truth, a consoling mystery. It fills all our spiritual life, it shows us how to speak to God, to know and to love our Father in heaven. And it makes our interior struggle overflow with hope and gives us the trusting simplicity of little children. More than that: precisely because we are children of God, we can contemplate in love and wonder everything as coming from the hands of our Father, God the Creator. And so we become contemplatives in the middle of the world, loving the world.

In Lent, the liturgy recalls the effect of Adam's sin in the life of man. Adam did not want to be a good son of God; he rebelled. But we also hear the echoing chant of that felix culpa: "O happy fault," which the whole Church will joyfully intone at the Easter vigil.

God the Father, in the fullness of time, sent to the world his only-begotten Son, to re-establish peace; so that by his redeeming men from sin, "we might become sons of God," freed from the yoke of sin, capable of sharing in the divine intimacy of the Trinity. And so it has become possible for this new man, this new grafting of the children of God, to free all creation from disorder, restoring all things in Christ, who has reconciled them to God.

It is, then, a time of penance, but, as we have seen, this is not something negative. Lent should be lived in the spirit of filiation, which Christ has communicated to us and which is alive in our soul. Our Lord calls us to come nearer to him, to be like him: "Be imitators of God, as his dearly beloved children," cooperating humbly but fervently in the divine purpose of mending what is broken, of saving what is lost, of bringing back order to what sinful man has put out of order, of leading to its goal what has gone astray, of re-establishing the divine balance of all creation.

Anyone who wants to fight has to use the available means, which have not changed in twenty centuries of Christianity. They are prayer, mortification and frequent use of the sacraments. Since mortification is also prayer — prayer of the senses — we can sum up these means in two words: prayer and sacraments.

I would like us to reflect now on the sacraments, which are foundations of divine grace. They are a wonderful proof of God's loving kindness. Just meditate calmly on the Catechism of Trent's definition: "Certain sensible signs which cause grace and at the same time declare it by putting it before our eyes." God our Lord is infinite; his love is inexhaustible; his clemency and tenderness toward us are limitless. He grants us his grace in many other ways, but he has expressly and freely established, as only he can do, seven effective signs to enable men to share in the merits of the redemption in a stable, simple and accessible way.

If the sacraments are abandoned, genuine christian life disappears. Yet we should realize that particularly today there are many people who seem to forget about the sacraments and who even scorn this redeeming flow of Christ's grace. It is painful to have to speak of this sore in a so-called christian society, but we must do so for it will encourage us to approach these sources of sanctification more gratefully and more lovingly.

Without the slightest scruple people decide to postpone the baptism of newly born children. Yet by doing so they seriously go against justice and charity by depriving children of the grace of faith, of the incalculable treasure of the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity in a soul which comes into the world stained by original sin. They also try to change the true nature of the sacrament of confirmation, which tradition has unanimously seen as a strengthening of the spiritual life. By giving more supernatural strength to the soul, through a quiet and fruitful outpouring of the Holy Spirit, confirmation enables the Christian to fight as milites Christi, as a soldier of Christ, in his intimate battle against selfishness and lust of all sorts.

If you lose sensitivity for the things of God, it is very difficult to appreciate the sacrament of penance. Sacramental confession is not a human but a divine dialogue. It is a tribunal of divine justice and especially of mercy, with a loving judge who "has no pleasure in the death of the wicked; I desire that the wicked turn back from his way and live."

The tenderness of our Lord is truly infinite. See how gently he treats his sons. He has made marriage a holy bond, the image of the union of Christ and his Church, a great sacrament on which is based the christian family that has to be, with God's grace, a place of peace and harmony, a school of sanctity. Parents are the cooperators of God. That is the reason why children have the obligation of loving them. It is quite right to describe, as I wrote many years ago, the fourth commandment as the sweetest precept of the Decalogue. If you live marriage as God wishes you to, in a holy way, your house will be a bright and cheerful home, full of peace and joy.

If we have learned to contemplate the mystery of Christ, if we make an effort to see him clearly, we will realize that now we can come very near Jesus too, in body and soul. Christ has pointed out the way to us clearly. We can be with him in the bread and in the word, receiving the nourishment of the Eucharist and knowing and fulfilling all that he came to teach us, as we meet and deal with him in our prayer. "He who eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, abides in me and I in him." "He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. But he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."

These are not mere promises. They are something real, the essence of a true life, the life of grace that leads us to deal with God personally and directly. "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, as I also have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." These words that Jesus said at the last supper are the best introduction to the day of the ascension. Christ knew that he had to go away, because, in a mysterious way that we cannot fully understand, after the ascension, a new outpouring of God's love would bring the presence of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. "I speak the truth to you: it is expedient for you that I depart. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you."

Jesus has gone away. He sends us the Holy Spirit, who directs and sanctifies our souls. The action of the Paraclete within us confirms what Christ had announced — that we are children of God, that we "have not received a spirit of bondage so as to be again in fear, but… a spirit of adoption as sons, by virtue of which we cry: Abba! Father!"

You see? This is the action of the Blessed Trinity in our souls. A Christian always has access to God, who dwells in the innermost part of his being, if he corresponds to the grace that leads us to become one with Christ, in the bread and in the word, in the sacred host and in prayer. On two other occasions in the liturgical year — Holy Thursday and Corpus Christi — the Church sets aside important feast days to commemorate the reality of this living bread, which we are reminded of every day. On this feast of the ascension, let us turn our mind to conversation with our Lord. Let us attentively listen to his word.

Previously we referred to what happened at Naim. We could recall other examples, for the Gospel is full of such scenes. Each incident reveals not only the sincere gesture of a man who suffers when his friends suffer, but above all the immense charity of our Lord. Jesus' heart is the heart of God made flesh, the heart of Emmanuel, God with us.

"The Church, united to Christ, is born of a wounded heart." From this heart, opened wide, life is transmitted to us. Here we must, even if only in passing, recall the sacraments through which God works in us and makes us sharers in the redeeming strength of Christ. How can we not recall with particular gratitude the blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, the holy sacrifice of Calvary and its constant bloodless renewal in our Mass? Jesus actually gives himself to us as food. Because he comes to us, everything is changed. Our being acquires new strength — the assistance of the Holy Spirit — which fills our soul, affects all our actions, our way of thinking and feeling. Christ's heart means peace for Christians.

The source of the self-giving which our Lord asks of us is not merely our own desire or effort, often feeble and inconstant. This life is supported primarily by the graces won for us by the loving heart of God made man. That is why we can and should keep going in our interior life as children of our Father God who is in heaven, without giving way to discouragement or depression. I like to ask people to consider how a Christian, in his ordinary daily life, in the simplest details, can put faith, hope and charity into practice. There lies the essence of the conduct of a man who relies on divine help. And in the practice of these theological virtues he will find joy, strength and peace.

These are the fruits of the peace of Christ, the peace brought to us by his sacred heart. Let us say it once again: the love of Jesus for men is an unfathomable aspect of the divine mystery, of the love of the Son for the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, the bond of love between the Father and the Son, encounters in the Word a human heart.

It is impossible to speak of these central facts of our faith without feeling the limitations of our minds and the greatness of revelation. Yet even if we cannot fully grasp these truths that overawe our reason, we believe them humbly and firmly. backed by the testimony of Christ, we know they are true. We know that Love in the depths of the Trinity is poured out on men by the love in the heart of Christ.