Today, Christ's sweet —but stern— voice admonishes those who believe they certainly deserve a “ticket” for Paradise, just because they may say: “Jesus, how wonderful you are!” Christ has paid the price of our salvation without excluding anyone but, all the same, some minimum conditions must be kept. And, amongst them, not pretending to have Christ doing all the work while we do nothing at all. That would not only be sheer foolishness, but wicked arrogance. This is why, the Lord does not hesitate to use the word “evil”: “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah” (Lk 11:29). He calls them “evil” because they want to see first His spectacular miracles in order for them to grant their eventual and condescending adhesion.

Not even in front of His own Nazareth countrymen did He agree, because —demanding as they were!— they expected Jesus to sign up His mission as Prophet and Messiah by means of wonderful prodigies. They would like to savor as comfortably seated watchers in a theater. But this is not possible: the Lord offers the salvation, but only to those who submit to Him through an obedience born from the faith, an obedience that waits and says nothing. This total faith (that God Himself has planted in our inside as a seed of grace) is what He wants from us.

A testimony against those believers keeping a caricature of their faith will be the queen of the South, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and it turned out that “there is something greater than Solomon here” (Lk 11:31). There is a proverb that goes: “There's none so deaf as those who will not hear.” Christ, condemned to death, will rise in three days: He will offer salvation to whomever recognizes Him, while all others —when He comes back as a Judge— can wait for nothing but their sentence because of their stubborn disbelief. Let us accept Him with advanced faith and love. We shall recognize Him and He will recognize us as belonging to Him. Don Alberione, servant of God said: “God wastes no light: He lights the lamps as needed, but always on time.”