But perhaps you will say: "People do not want to hear this, much less put it into practice." I realize that. Freedom is a strong and healthy plant which does not grow well among stones and brambles or on the roadway, trodden under foot. We learned that long before Christ came to the earth.

Do you remember the second psalm? "Why do the nations conspire, and the people plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves up and the rulers take council together, against the Lord and his anointed." You see: nothing new. People opposed Christ, the anointed, even before he was born. They opposed him as he went his peaceable way along the roads of Palestine; they persecuted him and continue to do so by attacking the members of his real and mystical body. Why so much hatred, why are people so easily taken in, why this universal smothering of the freedom of every conscience?

"Let us burst their bonds asunder and cast their yokes from us." They break the mild yoke, they throw off their burden, a wonderful burden of holiness and justice, of grace and love and peace. Love makes them angry; they laugh at the gentle goodness of a God who will not call his legions of angels to his help. If our Lord would only make a deal, if only he would sacrifice a few innocent people to satisfy a majority of blameworthy people, there might be a chance of arriving at some understanding with him. But that's not the way God thinks. Our Father is a real father, he's ready to forgive thousands of evildoers if there are even ten just men. People motivated by hatred cannot understand this mercy; they get more and more settled in their apparent earthly immunity, feeding on injustice.

"He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury." How righteous is God's anger, how just his ire, and how great his clemency!

"I have been set as a king by him on Sion, his holy mountain, to tell of his decrees. The Lord said to me, You are my son, today I have begotten you." The kindness of God our Father has given us his Son for a king. When he threatens he becomes tender, when he says he is angry he gives us his love. "You are my son": this is addressed to Christ — and to you and me if we decide to become another Christ, Christ himself.

Words cannot go so far as the heart, which is moved by God's goodness. He says to us: "You are my son." Not a stranger, not a well-treated servant, not a friend — that would be a lot already. A son! He gives us free access to treat him as sons, with a son's piety and I would even say with the boldness and daring of a son whose Father cannot deny him anything