ASIA/HOLY LAND - Patriarch Pizzaballa celebrates the solemnity of the Annunciation in Nazareth: virtual Masses do not save us, but the encounter with Christ

Nazareth (Agenzia Fides) - "It is not through technology that we will meet the Lord, it is not the virtual masses that will save us, and not even social media, but the personal encounter with Him". This is how Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Patriarch of Jerusalem of the Latins, wanted to recall the only source of healing and redemption that can save the lives of men and women of all times, including the present, particularly marked by pain and dismay in the face of the pandemic. He did so by celebrating the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, in Nazareth, in the Basilica built on the site where, according to Christian tradition, the Archangel Gabriel announced the forthcoming birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary.
The homily of the Annunciation delivered by Patriarch Pizzaballa represents a precious, luminous and unfortunately isolated help in order to contemplate the moment we are living with a Christian gaze, in the light of the mystery of the Incarnation. The Patriarch recalls that last year at this time, "we were all shocked by the arrival of the pandemic in our personal and collective lives". However, he adds that a year later, " our ideas are no longer clear. Fear has made us think that the world is a hostile and dangerous place. Maybe we can manage the health emergency better, but everything else: economy, social life, education, work ... everything is even more fragile and exposed to so much uncertainty".
"The questions around which collective attention is focused focus on the economy, on social life, on health care. But what does all this say to our faith? (…) The Lord himself tells us: 'So, you know how to interpret the aspect of heaven and you are unable to interpret the signs of the times?' "The last year also saw churches closed, with celebrations suspended even at Easter and without Christmas... and where even the life of faith seems to have gone virtual: masses online, pastoral care in zoom, blessings from a distance. "But the mystery that is celebrated today, reminds us that Mary's "yes" allowed God to break into the reality of the world, taking our own flesh".
Precisely in Nazareth at a precise moment in time, "the Word of God took on our humanity in everything except sin. And this" Pizzaballa suggested "already tells us how much God loves this reality of ours. The world has never been a happy haven of peace: problems of all kinds, injustices, divisions, wars, diseases exist today as in the past and always. But all this in no way prevented the fulfillment of God's plan in such a world. His desire for salvation was not stopped by our disobedience: he became one of us, because he loved us as we are. If we had been perfect, perhaps, there would have been no need for a plan of salvation, for his intervention in history".
Those who walk in time following Jesus - added the Patriarch - are led to "love the reality of this world, as God loved it". This world, although marked by pain, "is nonetheless the Place in which God has manifested Himself and in which He has met us, and where we still meet Him today". And even in difficult times, there is nothing "that can prevent us from living fully. Faith also involves recognizing the beauty of our reality, knowing how to face the events of life, whether beautiful or tiring, with the certainty of the good that dwells in us, of a Word that saves us".
Continuing his homily, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem called by name the most insidious temptations of the present time, recognizing that more and more often, and especially in this last year, also "in the Church we have lived more virtually than actually". Technological tools should not be despised, because they have certainly allowed everyone to maintain a minimum of sociality. But it is not through technology" added Pizzaballa "that we will meet the Lord, it will not be virtual masses that will save us, and not even social networks, but the personal encounter with him". And the mystery that we celebrate today is also an invitation not to flee from reality, not to avoid dealing with who we really are but, on the contrary, to rediscover in one's personal and community life, just as it is, the signs of God's presence, the place where we can meet him". The event of the incarnation of Jesus - underlined the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem - is not a mere "interior movement" reserved for the Virgin Mary: there are immediately "many witnesses around the event of the Annunciation": Joseph, the cousin Elizabeth, "the archangel Gabriel, of course, and above all the Holy Spirit". The Incarnation of the Word of God immediately "sets others in motion, creates a community of people, united by Mary's 'yes' to the action of the Spirit of God".
Behind this "yes", in short, there are the protagonists of the history of salvation, the witnesses of the past and the present who, moved and guided by the Spirit, have become collaborators in the realization of the divine plan". Encountering the work of Christ Himself in the lives of others - he added - is what "we are still so badly in need of because if it is true that each one must find in himself the security of its relation with God, it is also true that there is a confirmation which can come only from outside, from the relation with the other".
Too often - the Patriarch noted in the conclusion of his homily - "we lock ourselves into our own problems, which become our only horizon. We are always so caught up in the little affairs of life, by things to do, or even by big projects, that we forget the essential: existence has meaning only if it opens up to the love, and the world, that is to say all of us, needs to experience it real, we need the embrace of God's forgiveness, of his irruption into the life of the world. Remembering it and reminding others of it, putting it into practice, is "the vocation and mission of the Church today". (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 25/3/2021)

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