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Father,

I’m a 24-year-old girl and I’ve already written to you before. Again, I want to thank you for the invaluable service you provide.

I wanted to ask you a few questions that I’ve had in my mind for some time.

I have a lot of friends who don’t believe in the Word of God, don’t respect it, and I think many of them think that religion and everything that revolves around it are nothing but a bunch of nonsense.

I recently reconnected with Faith and the Church, and I’d feel like saying it was purely due to God’s Grace, but I believe that my coming from a Christian family also contributed to it: that is beyond doubt. This is exactly the point: those friends of mine have never been educated in the Faith; one can say that they do not know the Word of God, but then how can one ask them to respect it? How can one ask them to Believe?

Of course, I can also bear witness and try to show that there is another way in which to live life, but why should they believe me? They have no reason to do that. If I were in their shoes, I myself wouldn’t change because of the nice words someone may say to me. Some things must really be experienced on one’s own skin: that’s how it was for me.

But then, why doesn’t God manifest himself, why doesn’t he make his presence felt by everyone? That is what makes me confused. Why would he seem to allow some people never to get to know him? I believe that very few people deliberately, by their express will, avoid meeting the Lord. He knows that we are really hard of heart and that his intervention is needed for us to be able to change, convert, and be saved: but then why is he silent?

I don’t know if I was clear enough in asking my questions; I hope so.

I send you my best wishes and I thank you again, and tonight I will say a prayer for you.

Dear Daughter,

1. I agree with you that many of your friends have not been evangelized.

However, I would be surprised if this happened despite their having attended catechism to receive the sacraments of Confession, Eucharist, and Confirmation.

Perhaps it is more likely that they are young people who lost their faith because they did not nurture it.

2. Faith, as well as the life of grace after all, is a supernatural seed of life placed by God in our soul.

If this seed is not protected and is not nurtured, if it is not preserved and solidified, it is inevitable that it will fade out and die.

Many lose their faith exactly because they have extinguished it with their sins.

Our Lord said it clearly: “the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil” (Jn 3:19).

3. The society in which we live does not help protecting the life of faith.

Much less do one’s personal sins.

And your friends too, especially if they are far from the Lord, commit many of them.

It is not that practicing Christians do not commit them. But in general, having committed a sin, practicing Christians try to run to safety through confession and they keep calling their various actions with their proper names, as virtuous or sinful actions.

On the other hand, when one is far from faith, nothing is repaired; on the contrary, one strengthens oneself in sin and finally ends up justifying it, to the point of calling it good. And this, as Cardinal Martini said, is the worst of crises: that of justifying evil and calling it good.

4. It must also be said that before the word of God, which of course whoever has faith embraces, there is the conscience which bears the natural law written in itself and is akin to a first revelation of God.

It would already be a good thing if one listened to one’s conscience.

The commandments, even before they were written on stone tables and delivered to Moses, were written in the heart of every man.

5. St. Paul, speaking of pagans who had not received the Revelation like the Jews had, says: “For when the Gentiles who do not have the law (that is, the Revelation) by nature observe the prescriptions of the law (meaning the natural law, that is, according to the commandments), they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law. They show that the demands of the law are written in their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even defend them” (Rom 2:14-15).

6. These words of St. Paul are echoed in another way by the Second Vatican Council, which says this about conscience: “In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged.

Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths. In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbor” (Gaudium et spes, 16).

7. Furthermore, even to pagans, born that way or having become such by having lost their faith, God keeps giving many proofs of himself.

St. Paul reminds that to us in the sermon he delivered in Lystra: “We are of the same nature as you, human beings. We proclaim to you good news that you should turn from these idols to the living God, ‘who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.’ In past generations he allowed all Gentiles to go their own ways; yet, in bestowing his goodness, he did not leave himself without witness, for he gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filled you with nourishment and gladness for your hearts.” Even with these words, they scarcely restrained the crowds from offering sacrifice to them.” (Acts 14:15-18).

8. Furthermore, today, unlike at the time of the ancient pagans, God has planted the Church in the world and set her as the universal sacrament of salvation (Lumen gentium, 48).

Sacrament means sacred sign.

The Church was placed before everyone as a sacred sign of God, a sacred sign of salvation.

Even your friends may question themselves about the Church and before dismissing it as “a bunch of nonsense”, they might wonder if Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Pope John XXIII, John Paul II… just chased a bunch of nonsense, if all the believers who are also engaged from a social point of view are all following a bunch of nonsense, if people who by virtue of their faith dedicate themselves to the last ones are following a bunch of nonsense.

If they questioned themselves a little more deeply, they would realize that they are the ones who are chasing vain things and are living in pursuit of nothingness.

9. The Lord keeps speaking in various ways, according to the language accessible to each person.

He keeps talking to those friends of yours too.

He speaks all the time through nature, through the cosmos, through events.

And he also speaks through the testimony of good people and of the saints.

10. Finally, the Lord also speaks to them through you.

And you, do speak a lot to the Lord about them.

They need your prayer.

I gladly join my prayer to yours and I bless you.

Father Angelo