Behold, I Make All Things New

Perhaps all of us need to discover that this passage from Revelation (21:5)—"Behold, I make all things new"—is a little scandalous. There are moments that bring this truth to mind:

• when a person is born
• when a person dies

When someone is born, something utterly new happens. We stand before a reality that is new, unexpected. The same is true when a person dies, and the Christian says he will rise. We all know we have no power to raise the dead, nor even to make someone live or be born—and yet we are sent to witness to this absolute newness. This is what is asked of us. More and more, each of us realizes that this task lies in each of our hands. And we say: "It is impossible. It is impossible for me to make or create something new. It is impossible for me to do this—impossible to draw life, hope, meaning from a situation of meaninglessness, hopelessness, death."

We Must Create Life

And yet Jesus was exactly this kind of person. He was a simple man who lived life and faced death. By living his life and his death as a simple man, he made all things new. This means we have nothing to do but accept together our weakness, our inability to do this thing, and accept together that this is precisely what we must do. Poor and incapable as we are, we carry this immense task: to seek life in every situation, even in those that seem most difficult, and to draw it forth. If in these days we grasp these two truths—the truth of our weakness and the truth of our calling—then God will repeat these words, "Behold, I make all things new," every time we try to kindle a smile in the hearts of all those we meet. Don Dario Madaschi

National Gathering Fede e Luce, Rome, 30 October–1 November 1982