“If you only greet your brothers, what are you doing specially?” In a world full of worried faces, it is we Christians who are called to spread smiles, the fruit of the awareness that we are children of the Father.
God did not wait for us to love Him. He loved us first (1 Jn 4:19). But not only that: He loved us even after the original sin. He loves us before, during, and after every fall. He loves us despite ourselves. And after the cross, he looks at us as those for whom his Son gave his life. We are worthy of all the blood of Christ. In other words, we have infinite value for God.
This is how the Lord behaves, and this is how he wants us to behave. The problem is that in our case, excuses quickly appear. I don’t like my neighbor because he never greets me. The lady in the corner shop toThe bank teller does nothing to solve my problem. My sister-in-law is very intense. My unbearable boss. My unbearable children.
And so on; we could go on with an endless list. We could mention some mistakes, a mistake they made,or even a wrong they caused us. But Jesus makes it clear in this passage from the Sermon on the Mount: there is no excuse. The Lord loved us first and gave his life for us all. Jesus greeted everyone, even Judas, in the Garden of Olives.
We, as Christians, bear the responsibility of bringing light to a world rife with darkness. In a world full of worried faces, it is we, Christians, who are called to spread smiles. In a world full of eyes fixed on the ground and ears occupied by headphones, it is we Christians who are called always to say, no matter what, hello. Neuroscientific advances have led to a growing understanding of why laughter is contagious. The explanations are very profound, but what interests us here is the confirmation: laughter, as science shows, is contagious.
We never know what may happen after this greeting. Perhaps this is the first step towards allowing “the fire of Christ that we carry in our hearts” (cf. The Way, point 1) to begin to warm the lives of others. If it seems that no one around you smiles, start by smiling yourself, “so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven.” You will surely be surprised.
