Pope John Paul I
Dear Jesus,
I have been criticised. "He's a bishop, he's a cardinal," people have said, 'he's busy writing letters to all kinds of people: to Mark Twain¹, to Péguy², to Casella³, to Penelope⁴, to Dickens⁵, to Marlowe⁶, to Goldoni and heaven knows how many others. And not a line to Jesus Christ!"
You know this. With you, I try to keep talking continuously. It's hard to translate into letters, though: I talk to you about personal things. Such small things, too! And then, what could I write to you, or about you, after all the books that have been written about you?
And then again, we already have the Gospel. As lightning is greater than all fires and radium than all metals, and as the missile flies faster than the poor savage's arrow, so is the Gospel greater than all other books.
All the same, here is my letter. I write it trembling, feeling like a poor dead mute trying to make himself understood, or like Jeremiah who when he was asked to preach said to you, very reluctantly, "Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child."
Pilate, presenting you to the people, said: "Behold the man." He thought he knew you, but he knew not the least part of your heart, which, a hundred times and in a hundred ways, you showed was tender and merciful.
Your mother. On the cross, you wished not to leave this world without finding a second son to care for her, and you said to John: "Behold your mother."
The Apostles. You lived night and day with them, treating them as true friends, bearing with their faults. You taught them with endless patience. The mother of two of them asked for a privileged place for her sons and you told her that it was not honours but suffering they would find with you. Others wanted the best places too, and you told them to sit in the lowest place, and serve others.
In the Upper Room, you gave them a warning. "You will be afraid, you will run away," you said. They protested; the first to do so and the most vehement was Peter, who later denied you three times. You forgave Peter and said to him three times: "Feed my sheep.
As for the other Apostles, your forgiveness breaks out above all in John, Chapter 21. They had been out in a boat all night, and you were there on the lakeside before dawn, acting as their cook and servant, lighting the fire, roasting some fish for them to eat with bread.
Sinners. You are the shepherd who goes in search of the lost lamb, who is happy to find it again and celebrates when he takes it back to the flock. You are the good father who, when the prodigal son returns, flings himself on his neck and embraces him warmly. On every page of the Gospel you approach sinners, both men and women, eat at their table, invite yourself in if they dare not invite you. I have a feeling that you seemed to worry more about the suffering sin produces in the sinner than about the offence against God. When you gave them hope of forgiveness, you seemed to be saying: "You can't imagine the joy your conversion gives me!"
Practical intelligence burned brightly in you, too, as well as this warmth.
You looked at people's inner life. The faces of the Pharisees were thin after prolonged religious fasts, and you said you didn't like them. Their hearts were a very long way from God and it was the inner life that counted. People must be judged through their hearts and it was from within, from the hearts of men, that evil thoughts came: dissoluteness, theft, murder, adultery, lust, pride, idleness.
You had a horror of useless words. "Let your speech be yea, yea; nay, nay; more than this is derived from evil. When you pray do not use many words.
You liked concrete action and reserved behaviour: if you fast, put perfume on your head and wash your face, you told people. If you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does. To the leper whom you cured you said: tell no man. You told the parents of the girl brought to life very forcefully that they must not go out and proclaim the miracle. You said you were not seeking your own glory, that all wished was to do the will of your Father.
From the cross, at the end of your life, you said: "It is finished.", but you never wanted to do things by halves. The Apostles told you that the people had been following you for a long time and should be sent away to eat in their own homes; but you said they must be given food where they were. When the meal multiplied fishes and loaves was over, you told them to gather the fragments, since it was not right for them to go to waste.
You wanted to do good down to the last detail. Having raised Jairus's daughter, you told them to give her something to eat. People said of you: "He has done all things well."
What a light of intelligence poured out from your preaching! Your enemies sent guards from the Temple to arrest you and saw them return empty-handed. When they were asked why they had not brought you, the guards replied: "No man has ever spoken as he did." So you enchanted people, who from the very beginning remarked that you spoke with greater authority than the scribes.
Poor scribes! Chained to the six hundred and thirty-four precepts of the law, they used to say that God himself spent a little time every day studying the law and, up there in the sky, studied their dusty old interpretations of it. Whereas you said: "You have heard that it was said... on the contrary I say to you..." As master of the law, you claimed the right and the power to perfect it it. With magnificent courage you declared that you were greater than the Temple of Solomon. Heaven and earth would pass away, you said, but your words would not pass away.
And you never wearied of instructing people in the synagogues, in the Temple, sitting in the market square or in the fields, walking through the streets, at home, or even at the table.
Today everyone asks for dialogue, and more dialogue. I have counted the dialogues in your Gospel. There are eighty-six: thirty-seven with the disciples, twenty-two with other people, and twenty-seven with your opponents. Today, in teaching, people want group activity based on particular interests. When John the Baptist sent from prison to ask where you were, you wasted no time in chat. Miraculously you healed the sick who were there and said: "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard."
To the Jews of your day, Solomon, David and Jonah were what Dante, Garibaldi9 and Mazzini10 are to us. You spoke continually Solomon, David and Jonah, and of other popular characters. And always with courage.
When you said: "Blessed are the poor, blessed are the persecuted," I wasn't with you. If I had been, I'd have whispered into your ear: "For heaven's sake, Lord, change the subject, if you want to keep any followers at all. Don't you know that everyone wants riches and comfort? Cato promised his soldiers the figs of Africa, Caesar promised his the riches of Gaul, and, for better or worse, the soldiers followed them. But you're promising poverty and persecution. Who do you think's going to follow you?" You went ahead unafraid, and I can hear you saying you were the grain of wheat that must die before it bore fruit; and that you must be raised upon a cross and from there draw the whole world up to you.
Today, this has happened: they raised you up on a cross. You took advantage of that to hold out your arms and draw people up to you. And countless people have come to the foot of the cross, to fling themselves into your arms.
Faced with the sight of all these people pouring in for so many centuries, and from every part of the world, to the crucified man, a question arises: were you merely a great and good man, or God? You gave us the answer yourself, and anyone whose eyes are longing for the light and are not obscured by prejudice accepts it.
When Peter said to you: "You are the Christ, the son of the living God." you not only accepted this confession, but rewarded it. You always accepted for yourself what the Jews believed belonged to God. They were scandalised when you forgave sins, said you were master of the Sabbath, taught with supreme authority, and declared yourself equal to the Father.
Several times they tried to stone you as a blasphemer, because you said you were God. When at last they took you prisoner and led you to the Sanhedrin, the High Priest asked you solemnly whether you were or were not the son of God. You replied that you were, and that he would see you at the right hand of the Father. Rather than retract this and deny your divinity, you accepted death.
I have written to you, but never have I been so dissatisfied with what I have written as I am this time. I feel I have left out most of what could be said about you, and have said badly what could have been said much better. But there is this comfort: the important thing is not for one person to write about Christ, but for many to love and imitate him.
And happily, in spite of everything, this still happens.
From Illustrissimi by Pope John Paul I
Published by Gracewing & Little Hills Press Pty Ltd, 2001
(c) Grafiche del Messaggero di S Antonio, Padua
