” “"Taking in our hands a piece of embroidery we can look at it the right way or the other way round. What our eyes can see in either case is very different: a big mess of threads which shows no figure; a tidy pattern of fabrics where a figure appears": this image has been suggested last night by card. Carlo Caffarra, archbishop of Bologna, when saying Mass for the start of the academic year 2006-2007 at the University of Bologna. Then the cardinal explained the meaning of this metaphor: "The history of man, the whole, real life of man, is a ‘big mess of threads’ that intertwine without being able to draw any reasonable figure, or does history, the whole, real and daily life of man look to us like a mess of threads, but is in fact drawing a ‘figure’ and making an ‘eternal design’?" According to the cardinal, "within the tormented passing of time, God is implementing in Christ an eternal design: bringing back to unity the divided humankind; collecting those that have got lost; bringing strangers closer; recomposing the dispersed".” “
