The Challenge of Love
Simone Riva - As I begin to write this editorial, my mind is filled with a thousand thoughts. First of all, these are the first days of Pope Leo XIV, with all the discreet novelties he is introducing: simple words and measured gestures that have the effect of a gentle blade that slowly but surely intends to cut deep.
A second thought is prompted by the end of the school year: the rush to get passing grades to save subjects, the end-of-year procedures, the faces of those who already see themselves on vacation.
Then there is the international scene, the urgency of peace, the appeals that have fallen on deaf ears, and Christ’s promise in today’s Gospel: “I leave you peace, I give you my peace. Not as the world gives it, I give it to you” (Jn 14:27). We are on our way to Pentecost, which we will celebrate on May 25, and there is also the great theme of the Holy Spirit, with all its implications and consequences. Today’s Gospel also suggests its historical protagonism: “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you” (Jn 14:26).
Suddenly, however, I ask myself: “But what am I experiencing that is so interesting that it could be a useful reflection for those who read this? What is already alive in my life that I could write great theories about? What is moving me today?”
There is an episode that has been with me for several weeks. At the end of a lesson, I had reprimanded one of my students because he kept getting distracted. I had reprimanded him harshly and, given the relationship I have with him, he was upset.
When the bell rang at the end of the lesson, I saw that while everyone else was leaving, he was not moving. I tried to buy some time by tidying up my things, but he didn’t budge and remained standing in his place. At that point, I got up and looked at him. I was surprised to see that he was waiting for me to look at him. We looked at each other and smiled. Then we left together to go home. The most beautiful thing in life is precisely this grace of being waited for.
I notice this more clearly when I’m tired and weighed down, because fatigue—if taken seriously—takes away the habit of life, reawakens the struggle, and tends to make everything more compelling and conscious, forcing us to rediscover the reasons for our actions. This is what I am experiencing now, and it presents itself to me in different circumstances and faces that remind me that there is no situation in which I cannot say “I,” like the episode that happened at school, where it is difficult to determine who waited for whom.
Speaking of the Holy Spirit, however, I recently read a text from 2008 by Pope Benedict XVI that quotes this sentence from St. Augustine: “The Holy Spirit causes us to dwell in God and God in us; but it is love that causes this. The Spirit, therefore, is God as love!” (De Trinitate 15,17,31). This exchange of dwellings is what makes it possible to look at reality without letting the challenges it presents slip away—without letting them slip away from me. And we can challenge others only if we are challenged ourselves.
The challenge, however, has already been set, and it is that of love, as Pope Leo reiterated in his homily at the Mass at the beginning of his pontificate: “This is the hour of love!” Sometimes, in fact, we are tempted to believe that there are other challenges, invented by us based on how events unfold, improvising ourselves as good in a world of bad people, enlightened teachers in the midst of crowds of people who do not understand.
In reality, the big question that looms in every detail is always the same as that day, standing apart: “Do you love me more than these?” (Jn 21:15). Christ definitively poses to Peter the only challenge that is understandable to all, the most urgent and necessary. The present and the future depend on his answer, not on anyone else’s, just as they do for us. Eye to eye, knowing full well who is waiting for whom, we can continue to take risks.
