Jesus

When I ponder the statement, “Life holds potential meaning under any condition, even the most miserable,” the story of an anonymous woman comes to my mind. She made a deep impression on me and taught me about two existential states: having, and being.

No scene depicting the birth of Jesus is complete without angels.

The story of Jesus's first coming to earth is remarkable, not only because it was foretold thousands of years in advance, but also because the prophesied details of His passion and death were exactly fulfilled.

Jesus Christ is certainly the most fascinating and controversial person in human history, if we look at how He has been understood throughout the history of Christian thought. But how did Jesus understand Himself?

I am not an expert on the phenomenon of death. But like all of us, I have to live in its shadow, and watch the restlessness and greed it causes. The same gloomy reports that circle the planet also reach me. I feel especially conscious of this as COVID-19 claims its first victims in my country.

On the days of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, there were at least ten other events that would have disrupted and animated any editorial meeting. Within a very short space of time, unique events with historical implications took place, in different dimensions and in different areas.

Any large-scale phenomenon, such as a pandemic, activates our instinct to preserve our state of being—especially when we feel like we are losing it.

Perhaps the greatest mystery for Christians is the incarnation of God, described in the words of the apostle John, an eyewitness to the life of Jesus: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).

How can salvation be real and certain only through Jesus Christ when countless people have never even heard His name? If billions of people have no knowledge of Him, isn’t the role of Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world exaggerated? And are there no other ways of salvation besides Him?

In Dante Aligheri's Divine Comedy, written in the early 14th century, hell is described as a "city of woe" and a place of "eternal pain"—metaphors of endless suffering.

We are generally surrounded by people close to us—family, friends, or colleagues. We build a kind of microcosm in which we stand at the center, alongside the relationships we choose to maintain. But on that particular day, I was reminded that everyone has their own microcosm.

The name of Jesus brings to mind the gift of the incarnate Godhead—their supernatural acts, astonishing wisdom, incomparable goodness, unmitigated innocence, supreme sacrifice, offered salvation, and our only certain hope.

In the frenzy that grips most Christians at this time of year, the coverage of Easter celebrations in the press is a good indication of how people prepare for Easter.

As soon as the tourists leave the land of the silent agony of Gethsemane, their lives return to normal, and the garden where the Son of God sobbed in indescribable pain, misunderstood and unsupported even by His closest disciples, sinks back into oblivion.

Why couldn’t God simply have forgiven sinners? Precisely because sinners cannot be forgiven until they completely understand sin, with all its far reaching consequences, or before the wages of sin are paid.