The poor always have ” “a place of honour ” “

Christians live in constant expectation of the return of the One to whom we address our cry: Maranathà! Come, O Lord Jesus! We live within the unfolding of history in time, every minute that passes and doesn’t come back. Does it create a void? Generated the very moment when the Resurrected One, with the marvellous signs of His glorious passion, disappeared from the sight of His followers? It is a fact: emptiness leads to emptiness, in relationships, with friends. The handling of the “devil’s excrement”, i.e, figures in the red, will lead to more indebtedness. Did our Lord Jesus, the Master who attracted the crowds, magnetized them and proclaimed to them the Kingdom of God, push us into such a viscid abyss? If that were the case, it would be the total, blatant denial of His incarnation, of His pilgrimage from one village to the next, of His acceptance of a cruel, ignoble death for the Salvation of humankind. But that is not the case. Among us, He decided to remain with the supreme bestowal, unimaginable for us, of His presence in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Every day He is among His followers, among those who recognize Him and among those who do not recognize Him but that He awaits. Each Sunday he donates Himself and renews the promise of being with us, of being the bread that nourishes, supports, a path on which we can proceed with security. Each year, Holy Thursday renews this mysterious bond in a solemn way, exposing His presence for everyone, inviting everyone to draw near. In every Cathedral, in every dome, He is with His people: the poor and hungry pilgrims of history, laden with difficulties and stumbling blocks. Which cathedral, which dome, ancient and saturated in the prayers bejewelled across the centuries, or in modern times, challenging contemporary absence with a constant referral to that presence, stands the comparison with a thriving cathedral, in flesh and blood, of those who suffer and are poor in their ailing humanity? Francis will not remain in the splendours of St. Peter’s but he will be present in the place of suffering that voices his often unanswered ‘why’? Why me? To this wounded and suffering humanity, the bishops of Rome will break the bread that gives meaning, that fortifies, that volunteers support and does not promise a post mortem retribution, but which indicates here and now the key, not for a resolution but for the donation of the suffering that Crucified Christ bore in the Passion. “The Don Carlo Gnocchi Foundation”, where the Pope will celebrate Holy Thursday Mass in Coena Domini, and will wash the feet of 12 disabled hospitalised in the rehabilitation centre, is not a place of poverty and misery. It is a state-of-the art healthcare centre, the place par excellence in which He, bread always present throughout the course of history and in the personal stories of each one of us, offers Himself in poverty and in the daily life of the sign because every poor, our sibling, afflicted in his/her humanity and health, may be placed at the heart of the mystery, in the place of honour: a great sign of Christian love, of that uterus of the Creator who is moved and accepts His fate until His death. Last is the One crucified on the cursed wood; last are the sick, last is the One who strives to reach the Golgotha and is blemished by infamy; last among the last: those oppressed by the thongs of the Mafia, usury, slot machines, drug addiction… And then the Via Crucis at the Coliseum, that will emerge from an injured realm, led by the Shepherd who knows its scars, will miraculously become a sign of healing, and the beaming bread on the altar will become the authentic light that shines and brings in the alchemy of the love of God to a full and all-embracing transformation. The gift of Francis, under the banner of total, unconditional beauty, kneels before the last among the last. So do we with him.