List of points

As I read today's Epistle, I pictured Daniel there surrounded by hungry lions and, without wishing to be pessimistic, for I cannot say that 'old times were better' since every age has its good and bad aspects, I was thinking that at the present time there are also many lions running loose, and that we have to live in this environment. They are lions looking for someone to devour: tamquam leo rugiens, circuit quaerens quem devoret. What can we do to avoid these wild beasts? Perhaps our lot won't be the same as Daniel's. While I am not one for miraculous solutions, I love the wondrous greatness of God when he performs them, and I realise that it would have been easier for God to allay the prophet's hunger, or to place food in front of him. Yet God did not do it that way. Rather he arranged for another prophet, Habacuc, to be transported miraculously from Judea to bring him food. God did not mind working a great miracle here, because Daniel was in the lions' den not through any fault of his own, but on account of the injustice of the devil's hirelings, because he was a servant of God and a destroyer of idols.

We ourselves are also called to destroy many idols, not by doing anything spectacular but by living with the naturalness of an ordinary Christian, sowing peace and joy around us. In this way we will topple the idols of misunderstanding, of injustice, of ignorance, and of those who claim to be self-sufficient and arrogantly turn their backs on God.

Don't be frightened; don't fear any harm, even though the circumstances in which you work are terrible, worse even than those of Daniel in the pit with all those ferocious beasts. God's hand is as powerful as ever and, if necessary, he will work miracles. Be faithful! With a loving, responsible and cheerful faithfulness to the teaching of Christ. Be convinced that our times are no worse than those of other centuries, and that Our Lord is always the same.

I knew an elderly priest who used to say with a smile: 'As for me, I'm always calm and peaceful.' That is how we should always be, immersed in the world, with hungry lions all around, yet never losing our peace, our calm. Always loving, believing and hoping, and never forgetting that Our Lord will work all the miracles we need, if and when we need them.

The same is true of us. If we struggle daily to become saints, each of us in his own situation in the world and through his own job or profession, in our ordinary lives, then I assure you that God will make us into instruments that can work miracles and, if necessary, miracles of the most extraordinary kind. We will give sight to the blind. Who could not relate thousands of cases of people, blind almost from the day they were born, recovering their sight and receiving all the splendour of Christ's light? And others who were deaf, or dumb, who could not hear or pronounce words fitting to God's children… Their senses have been purified and now they listen and speak as men, not animals. In nomine Iesu! In the name of Jesus his Apostles enable the cripple to move and walk, when previously he had been incapable of doing anything useful; and that other lazy character, who knew his duties but didn't fulfil them… In the Lord's name, surge et ambula, rise up and walk.

Another man was dead, rotting, smelling like a corpse: he hears God's voice, as in the miracle of the son of the widow at Naim: 'Young man, I say to you, rise up.' We will work miracles like Christ did, like the first apostles did. Maybe you yourself, and I, have benefited from such wonders. Perhaps we were blind, or deaf, or paralysed; perhaps we had the stench of death, and the word of Our Lord has lifted us up from our abject state. If we love Christ, if we follow him sincerely, if we stop seeking ourselves and seek him alone, then in his name we will be able to give to others, freely, what we have freely received.

I have constantly preached about this opportunity that is both supernatural and human and which is offered by God our Father to us his children: we can share in Christ's work of Redemption. How glad am I when I find this teaching in the writings of the Fathers of the Church. St Gregory the Great explains: 'Christians free men from serpents, when they uproot evil from their hearts by exhorting them to do good… They lay their hands on the sick and cure them, when they see their neighbour flagging in his good work and they offer to help in so many ways, strengthening him with their example. These miracles are all the greater in that they are worked in spiritual things and give life not to bodies but to souls. You too, if you do not weaken, will be able to work these wonders, with the help of God.'

God wants all men to be saved. This is an invitation to us and also a responsibility that weighs upon each one of us. The Church is not a place of refuge for a privileged few. 'Who says the great Church is only a small part of the earth? The great Church is the whole world.' That is how St Augustine describes it. And he adds: 'Wherever you go, Christ is there. Your inheritance reaches to the ends of the earth; come take possession of it with me.' Remember the nets? They were full to overflowing, bursting with fish. God ardently longs to see his house full. He is a Father and likes to live surrounded by all his children.