Holy Thursday, April 1, 2021

- Al mattino (In the morning)
- Ballata dell’uomo vecchio (Ballad of the old man)

The drama of living begins again every morning, as we just heard: “In the morning, Lord, in the morning / my pitcher is empty at the font” (A. Mascagni, “Al Mattino” [In the morning], in Canti [Songs], Società Cooperativa Editoriale Nuovo Mondo, Milan 2014, p. 180), in other words, totally full of desire, of the yearning for fulfillment, just like each of us today.

This desire can be contrasted with an experience that imposes itself on us: “All the sadness that I feel, the love that I don’t feel / Are of many, many years” (C. Chieffo, “Ballata dell’uomo Vecchio” [Ballad of the old man], in Canti [Songs], p. 218). A number of the high school seniors with whom I spoke last week testified to this. They said things like, “life is slowly declining for me”; “my initial enthusiasm has been waning for some time; I no longer see the same energy I had before”; “I am completely apathetic. Nothing gets through to me, nothing attracts me”; and “I struggle to enjoy things. Some interest is there, but I realize that it doesn’t prevail over the fatigue.” They’re not even twenty yet, but they are already engaged in a full-on battle with nothingness [...]

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