As I was reading Monsignor Massimo Camisasca’s reflection on last Friday’s reading, the miracle of the loaves and fish, this Italian priest seems to underscore the very premise Pope Gregory preached: that it is in active participation of love that we receive grace, and the hope of the Resurrection. Writes Monsignor Camisasca:

The experience of the Resurrection carries a continual note of hope into our lives… Hope arises from faith; it is the visibility of faith; it is faith which becomes operative within the present. Hope is life in action which transfigures the present; it does not permit anything which would be the “victory” of nothingness—delusion, a bitter nostalgia, narcissistic self-contemplation, the desire to do without another person. Everything which would be a victory for nothingness is forced out by the victory of Christ. The Spirit of the Risen Lord enters our lives and makes us creators of unity, filled with new creativity and hope for ourselves and therefore all people.