THE TEXT BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF THE VIDEO COMMENTARY BY FR. FERNANDO ARMELLINI

Greetings to all.

Today we remember our dear deceased. We thank the Lord for the gift he has given us by placing them at our side, we pray for them and for all the deceased. For those who had the joy of knowing Christ and his Gospel and those who were not enlightened by the light of Easterand, therefore, they have lived without hope. We want our love to reach all the deceased.

I am insisting on this term: ‘deceased’ and I purposely avoid the word ‘death’ because as we know—Jesus has said—he who believes in him, who trusts his word, will not die. The conclusion of the biological life is not death, it arrives at the fulfillment of gestation. It is the necessary separation of this material world to enter the world of God, to be born to the definitive life, where there is no longer any form of death, but only life and fullness of joy.

Therefore, the term ‘deceased’, which comes from the Latin verb ‘defunge’, is more appropriate for a Christian, meaning reaching the goal, arriving at maturation. The words of Jesus that are proposed in the Gospel text today, announce the great gift that the Father of heaven has given us, his very life over which death has no power.

Let’s listen to it:

“Jesus said to the crowds: “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”

In the background I have placed a scene that is very common on the sarcophagi and what you see is found in the Capitoline museums. It is a very common scene. Remember the myth of the Calydonian boar. You can see the boar that is surrounded by hunters and dogs in the corner; And the boar is about to succumb. What does this scene, seen many times, represent?We know that the boar feeds on acorns, which sprout from oak and oak is the tree of Jupiter.And this is the meaning: Jupiter gives the boar what gives it life, but life is destined to finish; and the wild boar fights to survive but must resign itself to succumb. This scene is often found in the sarcophagi to say that, even if man strives and struggles to survive, at a certain moment, the biological life ends. The primates that have preceded us on the evolutionary scale, could not ask this anguishing question.

Our life ends when we aspire to live forever. What solution do people find—we are the only beings that are self-conscious and therefore we ask these questions? There are not many options: Either you have an answer or you remove this question. This—we know very well—is what happens today.

The term ‘death’ has become a taboo, as sex once was taboo. A while back, children did not know anything about sex, but they were usually close to their loved ones, attended their death that was a normal fact that belonged to the life cycle. They did not know anything about sex, but they knew the destiny of man and, therefore, the beginning of life and its conclusion. Today we know that children are very informed about sex, but they see death only in the movies and do not worry them; they take death out of their life.

If we want to live a truly human life we ​​must face our destiny. Therefore, be aware that our life has a beginning and has a conclusion when it comes to an end. Otherwise, our whole life is a continuous and useless escape from death. Always trying to postpone this appointment. We see it also in the prayers of the Christians themselves.

For many Christians, the prayers serve to ask God or any saint for help when one is in front of death, so that God or the saints intervene and fight in our favor so that death be delayed. But we ask ourselves: As believers are we asking to postpone this moment as much as possible, the conclusion of our biological life in this world? Christ answers this question, but not as we want… In fact, we remember that Martha (and also Mary) rebuked Jesus because she did not intercede for Lazarus when he was facing death and left him to die.

Many times we reproach God, and the saints, because they do not intervene to protect biological life. Did Christ come to perpetuate a biological life or to conquer death? Since the dawn of humanity people have become aware of dying. If we need to answer this question everything else matters little. We know that although the thought of death is removed for a moment, then this monster takes his prey again. And I will also say that if we understand the sense of the limitation of our life in this world, we will live it better.

What is the reason why God created man? To abandon it to his own destiny? Man always had this question. There were many answers. Recall, for example, how in the Mesopotamian myths, the deity was accused, to be those who retained life and gave people death. We also remember the arguments of the philosophers who said: the body dissolves in the dust, but the soul is immortal. So, Socrates in Phaedo, seeks to convince his disciples who have problems accepting the force of his reasoning when he tried to prove that the soul is immortal. These are weak attempts.

If we do not have the answer of Christ we will remain in the darkness, in the fog of living in this world without knowing what our destiny is. We cannot begin to find an answer with these reasoning. But in Israel, especially the prophets and, later, the psalmists, they began to do another kind of reasoning based on love. If God enters into a love affair with man, because he wants to dialogue with him, the prophets said, God cannot abandon man, because this is the law of love. The lover cannot do less than that for the beloved person.

And if I say to God: I love you. And if He tells me: I love you-this love cannot end. This is a stronger argument. It is not based on a reasoning of the immortality of the soul, but on the relationship of love that takes place between God and man. God has repeated it many times in the Old Testament. We remember Isaiah, for example, when he says to Israel: “You are precious in my eyes, you have immense value and I love you.” What is it that God has projected for this wonderful creature that is man?

In the Gospel text of today the plan of love of God is narrated. The Gospel text is taken from the discourse of the bread of life, in Capernaum, the sixth chapter of John. What is the design of God? It is presented in this text with this expression: the will of the Father, his plan of love. This expression is repeated four times: ‘the will of the Father’. What has he programmed for the man he loves?

Jesus says in his speech: “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me.” This project of love of the Father begins by entrusting to Jesus all humanity. And he entrusts it to Jesus without conditions. Therefore, to obtain salvation, it is necessary to enter into this project of love with Jesus. It is the destiny of all humanity: to follow Jesus … without conditions…. It is not said that only good people will go to him (in God’s plan). NO.

All humanity must find Jesus. This is the Father’s project. It could be asked if this project admits the possibility of some failure. Jesus continues saying: “For I came down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me.” And Jesus has come to this world precisely for this: to update, to realize the project of love of the Father, that is, to perpetuate this project of love, who was born when God has projected this stupendous creature that He loves.

This is the response of the Father’s will: “And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me.” Here we have the answer to the question to which I referred earlier. In the design of God defections and failures are not contemplated. His program must be done infallibly because it is unthinkable that Christ is not able to enforce it. Therefore, if someone says ‘man is free, he may choose not to accept this project of love with God’.

Certainly, God cannot violate the freedom of man because in the dynamics of love. there is respect for freedom. Love does not impose itself, otherwise it is not love Therefore, the question is: Will God, for all eternity, accept a defeat to his love? We know how much lovers suffer when they are rejected in their love… If he is omnipotent, he can conquer the loved one. Someone may think that the love of God be something invincible. But many, as things stand, must come to the conclusion that, in the end, the love of God will complete his project completely and perfectly which is to conquer all humanity. He has entrusted it to Christ because with Christ all enter into this relationship of eternal love with Him.

Jesus continues: “he will raise them on the last day”. What is this ‘last day’? It is not the end of the world, or the day we die, and then our material body made of atoms will come back to life… but on the last day, perhaps in millions of years. This is not the ‘last day’ in the Gospel of John. In the Gospel of John the ‘last day’ is about Calvary, when Jesus, as the last gesture of love, donates his spirit (parédokme ton pneuma): He has donated his spirit.

His ‘spirit’ is nothing other than his own divine life, that force of love that has animated him throughout his life. Then, on his last day, donating his own life, that is no longer biological life (biological life has its course), Jesus donates his ZOE, that is, the life of the Eternal. This is the project that the Father has: that on the last day Jesus gives his own spirit, the divine life, the life of the Eternal, by which one enters into the relationship of love, of life, with the Father. And this life can no longer be interrupted because it is not linked to biological processes.

This is the will of the Father. It is the fourth time that this ‘will of the Father’ is cited,which is the design of love of the Father of heaven. And it says how it will be done: in three moments. First of all: “that everyone who sees the Son and believe in him may have eternal life.” The first thing is to see, to contemplate, the Son. What does it mean to see the Son? It is the first condition to receive this project of love that is carried out in each one, and of recognizing in Jesus the face of the Father. Son—in the Semitic conception—indicates similarity, more than biological resemblance and, especially, the similarity with the Father.The first condition is, then, to recognize that Jesus perfectly reproduces the face of the Father.Therefore, it is necessary to contemplate it.

Here I want to quote the beautiful text of the First Letter of John, when the son of Zebedee, rethinking in the great experience having found the Word of Life says: “What we have seen with our eyes, what we have contemplated, what our hands have touched, the Word of Life. For life became visible and we have seen it …” (1 Jn 1:1-2).

Note this insistence on the ‘see’. We cannot make this experience, what the disciples who were with Jesus of Nazareth have done, but we can and must see—this is the first condition—with the eyes that see it through his Word. Recognize in Jesus what is presented to us in the Gospel, this clear figure in the Gospel texts, recognize the face of the Father who became visible in the world. And, therefore, prepare us to accept his gift. The first, then, is to ‘see’ it.

Then the second condition: to believe. Believing means giving personal adhesion. To believe in Jesus is not only to believe that he came to this world, that he worked miracles.Believing in Jesus means giving him accession, that is, recognizing that being a son or a daughter means living as he did. A third step: to welcome. He who has seen in Jesus the face of the Father, the one who gave him adhesion. Now comes the third moment: “I will raise him on the last day”. Eternal life, the spirit that is not given at the end of life… We must take this out of our heads! We are not given eternal life when we die and thus begins an eternal life. NO.

The life of the eternal is given on the last day, that is, it has already been given by Jesus and we all receive it, we become children of God, because the divine germ is given to every creature capable of entering into this dialogue of love with the Father. To prepare ourselves to accept this gift, there are those two conditions that Jesus mentioned above: to see in Him the Son of God, the face of the Father and, second condition, give him the adhesion, recognize that to be a child of God is to live as a child of God, because if this gift is received it is necessary to let it develop, let it emerge in our life and, therefore, live as He has lived.

Today is November 2. Many of us wonder what relationship we can have with people who have entered the second part of life, they went to a life that death cannot touch. We must still be born to this world; therefore, this moment is here and everyone ‘departs’—we know— and often accompanied by pain. We are wondering: Those who have preceded us to the Father’s house … those who have already ‘been born’… have all of them adhered to this project of love, that is, they have recognized the Son of God and gave him adhesion, they have contemplated it, they adhered to the faith, to this proposal of man that He made…? Have they received this divine life?

I think the answer we can give is a ‘yes’ even if they have done a lot of bad things as it happens with each one of us. We are wondering: What kind of relationship can we have with these people? We know that many of them have been wrong, they have not seen the Son of God in Jesus, they have not believed in Him… Some have given their adhesion only at the last moment after they had been away from God all their lives. What will be your destiny and how can we be close to these people and show them all our love?

The first thing is to speak no more of ‘suffrage’—that is, to pray to the Father of heavenso that He treats kindly these people whom we love well. We should not make these recommendations to the Father of heaven who loves them immensely, infinitely more than all of us. What can we do for these people? Their lives, certainly, was not perfect. These people remain in a relationship of dialogue, of love with us because they are alive. Death does not exist. We cannot see them because we are in this material world and with the material eyes we cannot see the body of the resurrected.

But our prayer, our love and even our forgiveness help them to be happy, to complete that path that they did not finish doing in this life. They should have done so many other things and avoided others … they have left debts; they have done someone wrong… What can we do for these people? We can give continuity to the good that they have done and repair the mistakes they have made.

This is what beauty and love has that we can manifest these sisters and brothers who have preceded us to the Father’s house… that house where we are called and that, certainly, we will all enter… not by our merits but because the Father, in his design of love, wanted it that way.