HOMILY EASTER 2010
We chose the image of dance as a symbol of resurrection. It is not just a pretty picture but we believe it is also an image that says something to God and about God . To God says our desire to live life to dance, to share the sense of a faith that frees us from fear and death. But he also says something of God: it reveals a God who first broke the wall of death, break the chains of slavery, and life back to dance.
The religious scholars say that religious experience of life was born as the first dance and only then discourse has become. One of them in 1930 wrote an essay titled "very suggestive" In heaven there is a dance "(G. Van der Leeuw). There are cultures that have blood in the dance, maybe we are today, especially in the churches do not live the real experience of dance that remains for us as a metaphor, a symbol ... But today the presence of our fellow Africans, for example, in our City gives the language of dance with all her strength and beauty. But it would be enough to stop in around the fire with a Gypsy community to see how the spirit, "dunede" as he called Garcia Lorca body knows how to be a body dancing. We, too, especially in the more popular, we have experienced that our family celebrations, wedding parties, parties in the districts could not end except with a dance, ended up dancing ... (as a child I remember the house party, with mum and dad, aunts and uncles who danced and it was a great joy ...)
In the Jewish tradition dance is one of the most intense expressions to tell God Just read the psalms and the continual invitation to dance. There are two images in the Old Testament that can help us grasp the meaning of the dance:
The first is taken from Exodus and talk to your Passover, the crossing of the Red Sea. It is said that the past sea, Miriam, the prophetess the sister of Aaron and Moses with the other women began to dance in the sea. But why Miriam dance? Dance to express, to tell the liberation that God has done for his people held slaves in the land of Egypt. The memory of this release, the memory of the Passover is entrusted to the dance and is a prophecy by women. Every time that faith is transformed into a speech women invite us to give shape to the faith, invite us to dance our liberation.
Another page of the Bible shows us a dance. That of King David dancing before the Ark of the Lord. While David Dance, Mikol his wife laughs at him, looks at him with contempt of the window. David expresses a belief that dance, which celebrates, and Mikol a religion seems to remember that real estate and fixed assets, the religion of the devout and thoughtful look at the world that God and even the window but they never dance. Mikol sobering as failing to dance and not even having welcomed the dance of her husband, he remained sterile.
Even our Romano Guardini (baptized here at St. Nicholas in 1885) commented on this scene of David dancing before the Ark as a gratuitous act of love, as an expression of freedom and freshness of spirit. ( cf. The Spirit of the Liturgy )
A faith that does not dance, a religion that looks out the window at the world and can not enjoy life, the light step women and men, is a religion that does not generate more hope.
oust the dance of faith means to prevent that man is happy. Be somewhat against the happiness of man.
dance of Jesus does not know much. But being a good jew and frequent parties and banquets we can certainly imagine a man who loved to dance and enjoyed seeing the dance of emotion in others, to see people happy.
But there is a dance not visible to the eye but that has inspired artists and poets. A dance that no one but God alone can imagine, has seen the resurrection. Jesus wins the stillness of death and resurrection dance. God rolls away the stone building of the tomb, Jesus free from the bands of death and invited him to dance.
The philosopher Nietzsche said: " I could only believe in a God who dances . We would like to say ourselves tonight. But is it possible that God dance today? And if you do not dance, what prevents God to dance?
We would like to dance before God : as David did. But in front of what God can dance? You can not dance in front of a God who does not want man to be happy, there is a God full of precepts, but who can not hug and kiss anyone. You can not dance in front of a God who became just an idea, a system, apparatus. You can not dance in front of a God who has lost his body and knows the wounds and even caresses. Tonight Jesus reveals to us the humanity of God A God who loves dance. A God who knows and knows how to cry dance until the morning. The first resurrection is true that God gives to humanity that has been stolen, the religion of humanity that is often denied him not to feel some more, no tears or laughter. Tonight we want God to resume all his humanity, his body, we want God to be happy tonight .
We would like to dance in the middle of the world and within the city : But how do you dance to the world today? As you can dance in our town?
Easter is a celebration of life, is the blossoming of spring in the heart of the earth. A symbol that speaks of life, is an essential right and free for all is water. The Easter Vigil is the water that blesses fruitful by the Spirit brings back new life. On this night the sign of the source from which springs the gift of baptism is the same water today that it wants to privatize . The commodification of water is an expression of the commodification of life. Water is an essential commodity and is a right for all. Today, only those who identify with their power and their wealth feels that the water would be a substantive and not a gift .
We ask you to leave tonight free water, tonight we ask for the resurrection of the water. We request that anyone put their hands on the water and make it his property. And remember the words of the Gospel when he says that God sends rain from the sky the rain on the good and the bad, so free, for love.
Easter is the song of life that explodes and spreads throughout the universe. Today, there are champions of "life", who exploit this case and throw the church for the jacket, to get support and consensus. E 'singular that the same people who defend life are also blind to those same men and women who come into the world, can not live as men in our country and our city. A logic of exclusion, which devalues \u200b\u200bthe rights of the weakest, and humiliates the dignity of those living in an inhumane way in our country. Tonight we remember those who want to be champion of life to resurrect the lives of all, blacks and whites, the regular and irregular, Christians and Muslims.
We would like to dance in the church. But how do you dance in the church? We can not deny how difficult it is to be in the Church today. How difficult it is to accept a structure that seems so concerned to defend itself from embarrassing the prophets of freedom and hope. Maybe we feel real to us the words of a witness of the 900 born one hundred years ago, Carlo Carretto
Are You questionable church, but how I love you! How you made me suffer, but what you have to! I would like to see destroyed, but I need your presence. You gave me so many scandals, but you made me understand holiness! Nothing I have seen the world's most obscurantist, more compromised, more false, and I touched anything more pure, generous and beautiful. How many times I wanted to slam the door in his face and how many times I need your hug ... I can not get rid of you because you are, while not completely you ... "
When we think of Church we think all of you: you are looking for the face of God in life, to those who want to be happy but you also want the happiness of others, you who enter for the rights of children. When does the Church think of all those who keep this city in the face: the aged, the young people who seem to deny a future, foreigners, the mentally ill, the desperate. Think of you who hope in the spring. You who planted the seed and wait while he sleeps under the snow. And tonight the seed has sprouted. Why are we here tonight? He asked a girl at the beginning of our celebration. We are here because the seed has borne fruit, because it is the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, because death has been defeated by life. The Lord Jesus comes to us with a peach flower and invites us to dance.
On this night God invites us into the heart of the dance and tells us " Dance wherever you are, I am the Lord of the Dance"!
donMarco donRoberto
St. Nicholas Arena - Verona
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