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Dear Father Angelo

I found by chance your answer with your Blessing.

Thank you; it is always nice to receive a blessing as a “gift”.

I take pleasure not without reason and I invite you to read what I said to my daughter Lina Maria about the myth of Ulysses, who essentially goes beyond the Gods, because his “thirst for knowledge of knowing what is there after death” makes him refuse the immortality proposed by Calypso, something that is denied to the Gods as they are doomed to “be above men”, but at the same time to always look after earthly things.

(some passages of the matter follow).

Answer from the priest

Dear Son,

1. something similar to the myth of Ulysses, who refuses the proposal of the nymph Calypso to become immortal and who in this way shows that he knows more than the gods do, because he knows what they are not allowed to know, namely death, and that therefore his fate is better than theirs who are doomed to be immortal and to live a monotonous, repetitive, and ultimately unbearable life, is also found in a very beautiful page by Pope Benedict XVI in the encyclical Spes salvi (30 November 2007).

2. Benedict XVI does not take inspiration from the Odyssey, but from St. Ambrose, the great bishop of Milan and doctor of the Church.

Here is what Pope Ratzinger writes: “To continue living for ever—endlessly—appears more like a curse than a gift. Death, admittedly, one would wish to postpone for as long as possible. But to live always, without end—this, all things considered, can only be monotonous and ultimately unbearable. This is precisely the point made, for example, by Saint Ambrose, one of the Church Fathers, in the funeral discourse for his deceased brother Satyrus: ‘Death was not part of nature; it became part of nature. God did not decree death from the beginning; he prescribed it as a remedy. Human life, because of sin … began to experience the burden of wretchedness in unremitting labour and unbearable sorrow. There had to be a limit to its evils; death had to restore what life had forfeited. Without the assistance of grace, immortality is more of a burden than a blessing’ (De excessu fratris sui Satyri, II, 47). A little earlier, Ambrose had said: ‘Death is, then, no cause for mourning, for it is the cause of mankind’s salvation’ (Ibid., II, 46)” (SS 10).

3. Benedict XVI continues: “Whatever precisely Saint Ambrose may have meant by these words, it is true that to eliminate death or to postpone it more or less indefinitely would place the earth and humanity in an impossible situation, and even for the individual would bring no benefit. Obviously there is a contradiction in our attitude, which points to an inner contradiction in our very existence. On the one hand, we do not want to die; above all, those who love us do not want us to die. Yet on the other hand, neither do we want to continue living indefinitely, nor was the earth created with that in view. So what do we really want? Our paradoxical attitude gives rise to a deeper question: what in fact is ‘life’? And what does ‘eternity’ really mean?” (SS 11).

4. To those who put forward man’s hope in scientific progress and the resources of technology, as Ernst Bloch had said in his day, Benedict XVI replies: “It is not science that redeems man: man is redeemed by love. This applies even in terms of this present world. When someone has the experience of a great love in his life, this is a moment of ‘redemption’ which gives a new meaning to his life. But soon he will also realize that the love bestowed upon him cannot by itself resolve the question of his life. It is a love that remains fragile. It can be destroyed by death. The human being needs unconditional love. He needs the certainty which makes him say: ‘neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom 8:38-39). If this absolute love exists, with its absolute certainty, then—only then—is man ‘redeemed’, whatever should happen to him in his particular circumstances. This is what it means to say: Jesus Christ has ‘redeemed’ us. Through him we have become certain of God, a God who is not a remote ‘first cause’ of the world, because his only-begotten Son has become man and of him everyone can say: ‘I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal 2:20)” (SS 26).

5. And he concludes: “Life in its true sense is not something we have exclusively in or from ourselves: it is a relationship. And life in its totality is a relationship with him who is the source of life. If we are in relation with him who does not die, who is Life itself and Love itself, then we are in life. Then we ‘live’” (SS 27).

6. Here is what Ulysses did not know and it is also what many men of our time do not know.

Only communion with God, only communion with Jesus Christ fills the heart of man.

It is not a solipsistic communion between us and God, between us and Jesus Christ, but between us and Christ “who gave himself as ransom for all” (see 1 Tim 2:6).

In him we therefore discover communion with everyone.

With the hope that this fullness of life may start from here and reach its fullness in eternal life, I bless you and remember you in prayer.

Father Angelo