The Great Puzzle Of The Human
Simone Riva - In the great whirlwind of things we think and do during our days, some do everything possible to avoid being swept up in the indistinct mass of our actions, as if they always want to be noticed.
In the evening, when I close the church, just one of these peeps out. Before turning off the lights and closing the doors, I approach Our Lady’s altar and remove the candles people lit that day. I always feel a certain discomfort in doing so because I feel as though I am interrupting something that began between the person who lit the candle and the Mother of God.
Then, however, I think it’s a way of inserting myself into that dialogue, which is made up of thanksgiving, asking for help and affection, and taking charge of it. So the one who has lit the lamp, who, like every man, has a direct relationship with God, finds a friend willing to empathize with his prayer because he is as needy as he is.
Another gesture that is never taken for granted is the daily entrance into the classroom. The lesson is played out in the first few moments because children have a special sense of smell that allows them to intuit with what desire the teacher is crossing the threshold. They also have a direct relationship with the One who made them, even if sometimes not consciously. This is clear to me, so I always ask to be with them for this certainty.
The other day, a girl stopped me on the stairs, sneaked up, and said, “Prof, every time I meet you, you put a smile on my face.” I immediately wondered what she must have noticed in me, that I did not even catch. But when the heart is disposed to amazement because it is truly amazed—not because it talks about it—everything becomes a sign and is saved from the famous mass of the same everyday things. Thus, curiosity, for which one may not even die of boredom, turns our attention to those details that, by displacing us, put us in the right place—details that others often notice but that escape us.
Lighting a candle, standing in line on the freeway to go to work, getting on the bicycle or moped to get to school, taking care of the house, providing groceries… these thus become the pieces of the grand puzzle of the human that have all the characteristics to be enjoyed, before they are dismissed. Pieces that demand someone still willing to say “I,” as Jovanotti wrote in his latest piece, Fuorionda: “It was the first time that the protagonist was me and not always someone else, an actor or an old uncle.”
Prayer educates us to say “I” by affirming the presence of an Other who, surprisingly, has not yet grown tired of us—so much so that we can turn to Him laden with all our needs. As the great St. Thomas Aquinas, whom the Church celebrates this very day, prayed: “Infuse me, Lord my God, with intellect that I may learn Thee; love that I may seek Thee; wisdom that I may find Thee; words that I may please Thee; perseverance that I confidently wait for Thee; and hope that I may at last embrace Thee.” It would not be worth living for anything less.
The author has not revised the text and its translation.
