by Gianni Gennari

Let us resume our "journey" in stages on the "road" of the Creed, a road paved by the grace of the Holy Spirit poured out at Pentecost on the Apostles and on Mary, then on the Church over the centuries and little by little then, precisely in the "Creed", formulated during the first centuries, which came down to us with the seal of the "deposit" of faith. We are at meeting no. 22, if I'm not mistaken... We went through three successive meetings (18, 19 and 20) through the revelation of the adventure of the Son, the unique "image" of God.

I realize that I am writing precisely on Sunday 14 July, with the second liturgical reading which is the passage from the Letter to the Christians of Colossae (Col. 1, 15-20). I remember that in the writings of Saint Paul this formulation of faith in Christ corresponds perfectly to the "Prologue" of John (John 1, 1-18), and then finds an applicative reading in the passage, also by Paul, to the Philippians (2, 5 -11), which offers the "abasement" (the "kenosis", i.e. the emptying of oneself in the gift to humanity) of God himself in the gift of the incarnation of the Son, the eternal Word. In the last meeting we recalled the decisive announcement of the "Resurrection" seen from the side of us human creatures, who in the living persons of the Apostles and women have touched the Living One beyond the wall of death: truly dead, Jesus of Nazareth, and truly risen, for our salvation! His Paschal Mystery – birth, life, passion, death and resurrection – is salvation, in the faith of those who "saw", "touched" and "ate and drank with Him after his resurrection"... this is why our life as a Christian community, a Church that is both institution and mystery, is founded on the Rock that is Him (I Cor. 10, 4) and then "built on the foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets" (Eph. 2, 20). There is everything, in the way of mystery and institution, that which has lived for 2000 years in the reality that is both divine, for what depends on the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and human for what depends on men, from Peter onwards, without neglect no one: billions of men saved, up to Francis today and all those whose "superabundant" grace has allowed them to overcome the reality of sin and prepare from earth for the life of Heaven, in the exercise of faith operating through love, unique divine-human identity card savior until the end of the centuries… “He descended into hell”? With a further reflection, however, which we find precisely in the "Creed" after the memory, or rather the living "memory" of the redemptive death on the mountain and on the wood of the Cross.

It is worth, thinking back to these terms, to remember that here there is, revealed in the light of the events witnessed by history, what was hidden in the so-called "sacrifice of Isaac". What the true God of revelation did not ask of Abraham, who like all the primitive peoples of his time thought it was required, namely the sacrifice of his "son", Isaac, on the mountain and on the firewood (Gen. 22 ), God himself did it for us, sacrificing his "beloved" and only "Son", Jesus of Nazareth, on the mountain and on the tree... Let us read, therefore, one of the traditional formulas of the Creed, still in free use in the celebration, and recommended - so on the Missal that the CEI lectionary offers, in the times of Lent and Easter. We saw it: “He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he died and was buried…” And then? Then he “descended into hell, on the third day he rose from the dead”! We often pass over it, without thinking... But what does it mean? What could that “he descended into Hell” mean? Jesus in Hell? But then he would be Paradise, because where He is there is Paradise, with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, and with Mary, the first saved of all humanity! Jesus in the depths of the Earth? But it's a ridiculous way of imagining it, a kind of "ascension" in reverse... Universal salvation is possible So what? I think that in this formula of the most ancient Creed the faith is expressed in a primitive form in the fact that the Paschal Mystery, "incarnation, passion, death and resurrection" of Christ, is applied by divine grace to all humanity, from the beginning of times until their end... The popular image of the Jewish Sheol, of the Latin Avernus, of the Greek Hades, indicates all the past history before the salvific event which has its historical and geographical dimensions, but in its nature of grace divine embraces all times, all places, and is offered to the freedom of all men, from the beginning of history to its completion... Here is based our ability to hope for the widest possible salvation.

Here the "justice" of God is safe, at least measured with our poor dimensions of creatures: all men, of all times, of all places, have had and will have in the mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection the possibility of real redemption , and therefore of eternal salvation... We do not know how this happens. Of course, our freedom will also be at stake, as men on whom light proposes itself, and never imposes itself... This without boundaries of time... For this reason, there was some artist who imagined this revelation of the Redeemer to the men of the past , this announcement of light in the darkness of a humanity still not illuminated by the real, direct and humanly measurable presence, in time and space... Socrates saved, Aristotle, Virgil, the greats of Greek tragedies, and of the East, the wise men of philosophies and "religions" built by the human need to explain and dominate the events of life and death... Ultimately, but it is a theme to which we will return in future meetings, we can believe, and perhaps we must believe that all men of all times, even those prior to the historical event of the Incarnation, Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ, have the offer of eternal salvation to their freedom... We do not know how, when and where, through what human mediations , but faith in divine justice and its mercy imposes it on us - Francis has made this the continuous message of these weeks - the first and universal expression.

And precisely for this reason we, those who are aware of having received the announcement of salvation, owe - using the verb "duty", as an indicator of "debt" - to all men the service of the announcement, without however thinking that if we don't move, the others are lost. it is a thought to be cultivated, to maintain the sense of our service as "useless servants". Saint Paul did not write "woe to you if I do not preach the Gospel to you", but he wrote "woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel" (I Cor. 9,16), and in that me there are all of us, who we have had the gift of the consciousness of a creative and savior Love that has called us to life, earthly and eternal. it is the "duty" of the "mission", without distinction of vocations or special charisms: Baptism and Confirmation say this for everyone. On to the next stop…