7th May 7, 2020 - Finding of the Cross Because the world is saved through Him Nm 21.4-9; Ps 95.10-13; Phil 2,5-11; Jn 3: 13-17 1. Dear Brothers and Sisters May the Lord give you peace! This year the feast of the Finding of the Cross and the readings we have heard acquire a particular meaning due to the pandemic that is afflicting the whole world. I wish to reflect with you only on one aspect, which in the current context seems to me to be the fundamental aspect suggested by the readings we have listened to and by the narration of the Finding of the True Cross. It is about the transition from the experience of healing to the experience of salvation. It is the transition from looking at the bronze serpent raised in the desert to believing in the Son of God raised up on the Cross. 2. In the account taken from the Book of Numbers, the chosen people, during their journey in the desert, precisely because of the concrete difficulties they encounter, at a certain point begin to murmur "against God and against Moses". God - always according to the account of the Scriptures - uses a form of correction which before our eyes may seem very harsh, exaggerated, even cruel, He sends poisonous snakes that bite the people and many people die. This experience leads people to recognize that they were wrong: "We have sinned!". Then God intervenes once again in what appears to be a strange way: He does not eliminate the snakes, but orders Moses to place a bronze snake on top of a pole. Whoever looks at it is healed. The chosen people experience a salvation which is a physical healing. He experiences a salvation that is not the disappearance of poisonous snakes, but the care offered through this act of trust in God, mediated by what he does and is proposed His servant Moses. 3. In the Gospel story it is Jesus Himself, during His nightly conversation with Nicodemus, resumes the narration of the Book of Numbers and the symbolism of the bronze serpent raised on the pole. He does it to speak of Himself and to open to a dimension of salvation deeper than that of physical healing, the dimension of participation in the life of God: “And as Moses raised the serpent in the desert, so the Son of man must be raised, because whoever believes in Him has eternal life. In fact, God loved the world so much that He gave His only-begotten Son, so that whosoever believes in Him may not die, but have eternal life. God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but to save the world through Him" (Jn 3: 14-17). Physical healing is certainly a beautiful thing. We all desire it when we get sick or when a person we know and whom we love is sick. During this time we pray and have prayed and continue to pray for the healing of those affected by the corona virus. Yet physical healing is only a postponement of the inevitable moment of death. As in Bergman's film "The Seventh Seal", set during the plague of the Black Death epidemic in 1300, in which the protagonist, a knight, plays a chess game with death: he knows he will be defeated, but tries to make the time left to delay death and safely accompany a young family. 4. The experience of healing is a pale allusion to the experience of salvation, a weak analogy of what salvation is. Salvation is not about removing the experience of death for a few hours, or a few days, or a few years. The experience of salvation is entering into a full form of life, which is the fruit of the personal relationship with Jesus, with the one who has life in Himself, can give it and can take it back, in fact He can and wants to share it with us. I know that I will die, yet I know that when I welcomed Jesus into my life with His Word and His Spirit, and I accepted the invitation to live in a relationship with Him, He himself laid the seed of eternal life within me. Eternal life has already been sown in me precisely thanks to the gift that Jesus made by giving His life for me and passing through the mystery of death in love for my sake and to bring me to know the Father and live in Him. 5. Baptism and the Eucharist, flowing from His open side on the Cross, transmit His life and this gift of salvation to me. His words, which are Spirit and Life, transmit to me His own Spirit "who is Lord and gives life". A few days ago the Office of Readings enabled us to read a wonderful speech given by Saint Peter Chrysologos, where at a certain point this great preacher and father of the Church put these same words on the lips of Jesus crucified: "Do not be afraid. This cross is not a sting for me, but for death. These nails do not cause me so much pain, as they impress the love towards you more deeply. These wounds do not make me moan, but rather introduce you into my intimate self. My body stretched out rather than increasing the pain, widens the spaces of the heart to welcome you” (St. Peter Chrysologos, Disc. 108; PL 52, 499-500). 6. Today we see an afflicted and distressed humanity, full of fear because viral contagion can lead to disease and death. We see humanity anxious to find a remedy for this pandemic, some vaccine that will heal us as soon as possible. We are also concerned that the vaccine is discovered early, so that the sick may be healed and that the pandemic will end. As I said earlier, we have prayed and are praying intensely for this to happen. We should be even more interested in being able to experience what the chosen people spoken of in the Book of Numbers experienced, that is, we should be interested in being able to experience conversion, to be able to live the pandemic as a watershed between a before and after experience, between a first made of complaints and worries on himself and a after made of trust in God and of solidarity with our brothers. Even more, we should be interested in making the transition from the experience of purely physical healing to the experience of salvation, which introduces us to eternal life; which allows us to live with trust in God and with openness to our brothers and sisters even during the time of the pandemic; which allows us to look at death itself as an Easter experience and not as the end of everything; which allows us to feel loved by God in an infinite way even when we find ourselves immersed in human suffering and even when we feel that death swallows us. 7. Healing is certainly a good thing, but eternal life, participation in the life of God is undoubtedly much better. Healing is certainly a desirable thing, but salvation, which takes away our existence, is even more desirable to nonsense and nihilism, to anguish and fear, and transforms death into passage, in transit, into Easter. At the end of the procession, at the Aedicule of the Sepulchre, at the altar of St. Mary Magdalene and in the Chapel of the Apparition to the Virgin Mary we will sing: "O Crux, ave, spes única! / Paschále quæ fers gáudium" "Hail O cross, only hope, / that brings Easter joy". At the end of this reflection, allow me to share with you a prayer of Saint John Paul II which is inspired by this very song: "O triumphant Cross of Christ, inspire us to continue the task of evangelization! O glorious Cross of Christ, give us the strength to proclaim and to live the Gospel of salvation! O victorious Cross of Christ, our only hope, guide us to joy and to the peace of the Resurrection and eternal life! Amen " (Phoenix-USA, September 14, 1987).