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Question

Hello Father Angelo,

I was able to obtain your email address from the web and I preferred to write to you from here, as I consider it more private and appropriate.

Since this afternoon I was following certain topics and twice, unknowingly, I came across your writings, by which, I have been particularly fascinated.

This very day, I realized that I have lived a brief but intense detachment from the Lord, and the questions that came to my mind were many, but this is not faith and I know it very well.  However, the most important thing I would like to ask you is: can serenity be achieved without God?  And if the answer is yes, how different would be the life of those who do not know Him?

I hope you can reply to my questions and that you would not consider mine undeserving consideration.  Since the beginning of my spiritual path, I live entrusting my existence to Him and I constantly derive grace, but I recognize my human nature as a woman, daughter and as His disciple.

A warm hug

Answer

Dear friend

I am happy that two times, consecutively, you have been brought to our site.

      The men who judge the events according to the yardstick of earthly judgment would   

      say that it happened by chance.

      For the believers, to whom everything is subject to the government of God, it was a 

      gift, a trait of God’s love towards you and that, also through the humble service of our

      site, presented itself in front of you.

  1. From these first considerations, you can already find the difference of life between those who know God and those who do not know Him.

In the first case, life is lived within a project of love where everything speaks to us and questions us in a personal manner.

In the second case, it is lived at the mercy of a blind destiny.

  1. In the first case, you have the sharp awareness that human life is priceless, because it has as its main objective a life of communion with God.

And this communion of life is not for some time, but it is eternal.

In the second case, the present life is the only one, it is a fleeting moment, the meaning of which is unknown.

  1. But, that it is meaningless, it is difficult to accept, because we can see that everything that surrounds us is governed by very wise laws.  The men themselves know this and they deepen their knowledge more and more through scientific knowledge.

And they rightly ask themselves:  how is it possible that everything is governed in a very wise manner, starting from our organism, and that only our existence, which is the highest form of life in this world, doesn’t have a goal to reach?

Is it possible that only the one who is able to discover the hidden wisdom in everything doesn’t have any wise goal and his life is meaningless?

  1.  That is why men of all times are in search of God.  And to tell the truth, this desire, which is part of the very wise laws that govern our existence, was placed within us by God Himself, from the One who created us.  He Himself put within us the spring that stimulates us to look for Him.
  1.  When someone is a believer in God and especially a believer in Christ, feels that his life is internally unified, because “all things were created through him and for him” (Col 1, 16).

But when you are not a believer, there is a particular solitude in the depth of your heart. In fact, a loneliness that is never filled.

  1. So I come to answer even your first question: if serenity could be achieved without God.

           A short lived serenity, yes, also who lives without God can have it.

           But a certain fullness of serenity, the one that is not only the fulfillment of truth, but 

           the one that brings the personal presence of God in the heart of a man, only 

           a believer in Christ can have it, rather only who lives in grace.

           Saint Augustine justly wrote:  “Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, 

           until it repose in Thee” (Confessions, 1,1).

          Says Saint Thomas  in a lapidary and particularly incisive way: “………………” 

          (Expositio in symbolum apostolorum, 1) and “……………………” (De duobus 

          praeceptis caritatis, ch.28). 

  1. Full serenity is proper to Paradise because “everything that can bring happiness is present and in the highest degree.

If there is enjoyment, there will be the highest and most absolute enjoyment, because it is the supreme good, that is God: “Delights at your right hand forever” (Psalm 16, 11).  If you are looking for honor, there will be every honor there. (…)

If you look for science, there you will find the most perfect science (…)

There will be, still, the most perfect security:  in fact, in this world there isn’t full security, because the greater the goods and the greater the family, all the more the fears and the things that are needed.  But, in eternal life there isn’t any sadness, any fatigue, any fear (Pr 1, 33).

Finally, eternal life consists in the cheerful fraternity of all the saints.  It will be an extremely delightful communion of spirits, because everyone will have all the graces of all the others blessed.  Each will love the other as himself and therefore will enjoy the blessings of others as of his own.  So the joy of one, will be all the higher the greater the joy of all the other blessed” (In Symbolum Apostolorum expositio, chap. 15).

Wishing you to fully possess it in eternal life and, as far as possible, already in this world, I will remind the Lord of you and I bless you.

Father Angelo