the Revelation of God as a
communication he makes of himself
and of his benevolent and loving
purpose. This Revelation of God fits
into human time and history: a history that becomes "the arena where we
see what God does for humanity. God
comes to us in the things we know
best and can verify most easily, the
things of our everyday routine, apart
from which we cannot understand ourselves" (cf. John Paul II, Encyclical
Fides et Ratio, n. 12). St Mark the Evangelist - as we have
heard - records the very start of
Jesus' preaching in clear and concise
words: "the time is fulfilled, and the
kingdom of God is at hand" (Mk 1:15).
What illuminates and gives full meaning to the history of the world
and of man begins to shine out in the
Bethlehem Grotto; it is the Mystery
which, in a little while, we shall be
contemplating at Christmas: salvation,
brought about in Jesus Christ. In Jesus of Nazareth God shows his face and
asks man to choose to recognize and
follow him. God's revelation of himself
in history in order to enter into a
relationship of loving dialogue with
man, gives new meaning to the whole human journey. History is not a mere
succession of centuries, years or days,
but the time span of a presence that
gives full meaning and opens it to
sound hope. Where can we read the stages of this
Revelation of God? Sacred Scripture is
the best place for discovering the
steps of this process, and, I would like
- once again - to invite everyone, in
this Year of Faith, to open the Bible more often, to hold, read and meditate
on it and to pay greater attention to
the Readings of Sunday Mass; all this is
precious nourishment for our faith. In
reading the Old Testament we can see
how God intervenes in the history of the chosen people, the people with
whom he made a covenant: these are
not fleeting events that fade into
oblivion. Rather, they become a
"memory", taken together they
constitute the "history of salvation", kept alive in the consciousness of the
People of Israel through the
celebration of the salvific events. Thus,
in the Book of Exodus, the Lord
instructs Moses to celebrate the Jewish
Passover, the great event of the liberation from slavery in Egypt, with
these words: "This day shall be for you
a memorial day, and you shall keep it
as a feast to the Lord; throughout your
generations you shall observe it as an
ordinance for ever" (12:14). Commemorating what God has
brought about becomes a sort of
constant imperative for the whole
People of Israel, so that the passing of
time may be marked by the living
memory of past events which, in this way, day after day, form history and
live on. In the Book of Deuteronomy Moses
addresses the people saying: "Only
take heed, and keep your soul
diligently, lest you forget the things
which your eyes have seen, and lest
they depart from your heart all the days of your life; make them known to
your children and your children's
children" (4:9). Consequently he also tells us: "be
careful not to forget the things that
God has done for us". Faith is
nourished by the discovery and
memory of the ever faithful God who
guides history and constitutes the sound and permanent foundation on
which to build our life. The Canticle of
the Magnificat, which the Virgin Mary
addresses to God, is a lofty example of
this history of salvation, of this
memory that makes and keeps God's action present. Mary exalts God's
merciful action in the actual journey of
his people, his fidelity to the promises
of the covenant that he made to
Abraham and his descendents; and all
this is a living memory of the divine presence that is never absent (cf. Lk
1:46-55). For Israel, the Exodus is the central
historical event in which God reveals
his powerful action. God sets the
Israelites free from slavery in Egypt so
that they may return to the Promised
Land and worship him as the one true Lord. Israel does not set out to be a
people like others - so that it might
have national independence - but
also to serve God in worship and in
life, to create a place for God where
men and women are obedient to him, where God is present and worshipped
in the world - and of course, not only
among the Israelites - but to witness
to him also among the other peoples. The celebration of this event is to
make him present here and now, so
that God's action may not be lacking.
He fulfilled his plan of liberation and
continues to pursue it so that men and
women may recognize and serve their Lord and respond to his action with
faith and love. So it was that God revealed himself not
only in the primordial act of the
Creation, but also by entering our
history, the history of a small people
which was neither the largest nor the
strongest. And this self- revelation of God, which develops through history,
culminates in Jesus Christ: God, the
Logos, the creative Word who is the
origin of the world, took on flesh in
Jesus and in him showed the true face
of God. In Jesus every promise is fulfilled, the
history of God with humanity
culminates in him. When we read the
account of the two disciples on their
way to Emmaus which St Luke has
written down for us, we become clearly aware of the fact that the
Person of Christ illuminates the Old
Testament, the whole history of
salvation, and shows the great unitive
design of the two Testaments, it shows
the path to his oneness. Jesus, in fact, explains to the two bewildered and
disappointed wayfarers that he is the
fulfilment of every promise: "and
beginning with Moses and all the
prophets, he interpreted to them in all
the scriptures the things concerning himself" (24:27). The Evangelist
records the exclamation of the two
disciples after they had recognized
that their travelling companion was
the Lord: "Did not our hearts burn
within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the
scriptures?" (v. 32). The Catechism of the Catholic Church
summarizes the development of Divine
Revelation (cf. nn. 54-64): From the
very first the Lord invited men and
women to intimate communion with
himself and, even when through disobedience they lost his friendship,
God did not abandon them to the
power of death but time and again
offered them covenants (cf. Roman
Missal, Eucharistic Prayer IV). The Catechism retraces God's journey
with man from the Covenant with
Noah after the flood, to the call to
Abraham to leave his land to be made
the father of a multitude of peoples.
God forms his People Israel in the event of the Exodus, in the Covenant
of Sinai and in the gift, through Moses,
of the Law, in order to be recognized
and served as the one living and true
God. With the prophets, God forms his
People in the hope of salvation. We know - through Isaiah - of the
"second Exodus", the return of the
People from the Babylonian Captivity
to their own land, its refoundation; at
the same time, however, many were
dispersed and in this way began the universality of this faith. In the end,
not only a King, David, a son of David,
was awaited, but a "Son of man", the
salvation of all peoples. Encounters
between cultures took place, first with
Babylon and Syria, then also with the Greek multitude. Thus we see how
God's path broadens, how it unfolds
increasingly towards the Mystery of
Christ, King of the Universe. In Christ
the Revelation in its fullness, God's
benevolent purpose, is brought about at last: he makes himself one of us. I have reflected on remembering
God's action in human history to show
the stages of this great plan of love,
witnessed in the Old and New
Testaments. It is a single plan of
salvation, addressed to the whole of humanity, gradually revealed and
realized through the power of God, in
which God always reacts to man's
responses and finds the new
beginnings of a covenant when man
strays. This is fundamental in the journey of
faith. We are in the liturgical season of
Advent which prepares us for Holy
Christmas. As we all know, "advent"
means "coming", "presence", and in
ancient times it meant, precisely, the arrival of the king or emperor in a
specific province. For Christians the
word means a marvellous and
overwhelming reality: God himself has
crossed the threshold of his heaven
and has lowered himself to man; he has made a covenant with him,
entering the history of a people; he is a
king who came down to this poor
province which is the earth, and made
a gift to us of his visit, taking our flesh
and becoming a man like us. Advent invites us to retrace the journey of this
presence and reminds us over and
over again that God did not take
himself away from the world, he is not
absent, he has not left us to ourselves,
but comes to meet our needs in various ways that we must learn to
discern. And we too, with our faith,
our hope and our charity, are called
every day to perceive this presence
and to witness to it in the world that is
often superficial and distracted, and to make the light that illuminated the
Grotto of Bethlehem shine out. Thank
you.
