Francesco Pasolini asks to recover in Advent the amazement before the action of God

The new preacher of the Pontifical Household, Fr. Roberto Pasolini, inaugurates his ministry with a cycle of preachings on the liturgical season of Advent, the first of which calls to recover amazement at the action of God in our lives.

Under the title The door of wonderthe successor of Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, who served as a preacher for 44 years, has called to face the challenge of “realizing the presence and action of God in history and awakening again to amazement at what he not only can, but, above all, he wants to achieve, in our visas and in the history of the world.”

Father Pasolini explained that “welcoming good news is not easy, especially when the person has been marked for a long time by suffering, disappointments and uncertainties.”

Thus, he took the examples of Saint Elizabeth, wife of Zechariah, and the Virgin Mary, in whom he exemplifies two attitudes that can generate in the faithful a dynamism of salvation, according to what he says. Vatican News.

On the one hand, Elizabeth knows how to say “no” to the apparent immutable continuity of events, while Mary calls us to say “yes” to the newness of God “formulating a free and joyful assent to his will.”

Regarding Isabel’s refusal to have her son called Zechariah, but rather John, which means “God uses mercy,” the pontifical preacher points out that this attitude “suggests that history, although influenced by its legacies, is always capable of surpassing itself and open to new possibilities, if the action of God exists.”

Elizabeth’s “no” “reminds us that nothing and no one is conditioned only by its own history and roots, but also continually reconditioned by the grace of God,” explained Father Pasolini.

A “brave no” against evil

The preacher also encouraged people to say a “brave no” against evil, for which it is necessary to believe that “God is working in history and that the best is yet to come.”

In reference to how the Virgin Mary welcomes the announcement of the archangel Gabriel, Fr. Pasolini stated that the graphic of the season of Advent is “to realize that there are more reasons to rejoice than to be sad, not because these things are simple, but because The Lord is with us and anything can still happen.”

On the other hand, the Capuchin pointed out that “every announcement from God necessarily exposes death, because it contains the promise of a full life, entirely given to God and the world.”

The fear of this can only be overcome “by considering the beauty and greatness of what awaits us.” To do this, it is necessary not to settle for saying “yes” to things that cost us nothing because each “authentic decision according to the Gospel costs a lifetime and exposes us to the risk of losing privileges and certainties.”

The “holy amazement” of the Virgin

Pasolini explains, about the Virgin’s “holy astonishment” upon hearing God’s proposal through the archangel’s mouth, that she does not intend to “understand God’s plan in detail,” but simply to participate in it “freely and consciously.”

With the “let it be done,” Mary “declares all her enthusiasm for the call she has just received,” as if she were saying to the messenger of God: “What you proposed to me to accept, in reality it is now I who want it and I choose it.”

“When the light of God manages to show us that within the fear of what awaits us is the fidelity of an eternal promise, amazement arises in us and we find ourselves able to finally pronounce our ‘here I am,’” he concluded.