19/03/2020
It was not necessary to walk 11 kilometers from Jerusalem, just a couple of them and by car, of course, with a mask and each one in a row of the car and, after 43 days at home, You came out to meet us.
During this time we thought: “you are the only one who has not noticed this pandemic, who has not avoided it, you have not noticed our suffering,” but it was us who were still absorbed in ourselves. We have spent this time focused and obsessed on whether the virus, whether the government, whether it spreads, whether… On top of that, when You ask us, we tell you that you are the stranger, so many times that we have made you a stranger in our lives: stranger, foreigner, odd, intruder. We believe ourselves the center of the world from which we must control everything, the world from which we leave you out.
When you ask us, we tell you that others believed, we recognize that we were waiting for another, someone to free us. But, do we really know what it means to free ourselves? Do we recognize our chains to know what our liberation is?
During all this time locked up you have been telling us the Scriptures and we have not recognized you. We followed the Masses on YouTube, the Holy Hours…, and our hearts burned, but we did not recognize you. Then, you made a gesture to leave so that we would desire you to stay with us.
Today, finally, in this Mass, we have recognized you in the breaking of the Bread. So many Masses heard, so used to you being beside us, that we did not recognize you! So immersed in our world, that we did not feel your presence! How much we need not to have you to have you and recognize you! How real you are and how close you are! But how insensitive we are! How you embrace us in every Communion and we do not recognize how extraordinary it is! Make our eyes open, and above all the heart, which we have so numb.
Today we have been the two from Emmaus, you have appeared to us and, just as we become one, You come out to meet us making this marriage of three. Make our hearts burn, make us recognize you. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for bringing us here today, and thank you because many years ago you made us choose this reading on our wedding day. I believe that even then you were preparing the gift of today.
