Don Camillo was unhappy to give up entirely on the idea of the flood, so he tried to salvage something from it.
You could at least make it rain a bit. The land is dry and the reservoirs are all empty.'
It will rain, Don Camillo, it will rain,' Jesus reassured him.
'There has always been rain. ever since the world began.
The mechanism has been set in motion so that it will rain when the time is right.
Or are you of the opinion that the Eternal One has slipped up in his management of the universe?'
Don Camillo bowed.
'Very well,'he said sighing. 'I understand what you are saying perfectly.
But if a poor country priest can't even allow himself to ask his God for a few bucketfuls of rain, well forgive me, but it's disheartening.'
'You are right a thousand times over, Don Camillo.
All that remains is for you to go on strike in protest.'
Don Camillo was still unhappy and walked off with his head down, but Jesus called him back.
Jesus looked grave.
'Fret not, Don Camillo,' whispered Jesus.
'I know that men wasting Gods grace looks to you like a mortal sin, because you know that I got down from a horse to pick up a breadcrumb.
But you should forgive them because They do not mean to offend God.
They search desperately for justice on earth because they no longer have faith in divine justice, and just as desperately go after worldly goods because they have no faith in the recompense to come.
They only believe in what they can touch and see.
The flying machines, they are the angels of this infernal hell on earth which they are trying in vain to turn into a paradise.
It is a body of ideas - a culture — that leads to ignorance, because when a culture is not supported by faith, there comes a point where man sees only the mathematics of things.
And the harmony of this mathematics becomes his God, and he forgets that it is God who created this mathematics and this harmony
But your God is not made of numbers, Don Camillo, and good angels fly in the skies of your paradise.
Progress makes man's world ever smaller: one day, when cars run at 100 miles a minute, the world will seem microscopic to men, and then mankind will find itself like a sparrow on the pommel of a flagpole and will present itself to the infinite, and in the infinite it will rediscover God and faith in the true life.
And mankind will hate the machines which have reduced the world to a handful of numbers and it will destroy them with its own hands.
But all this will take time, Don Camillo.
So do not worry, your bicycle and your scooter are in no danger for now' Jesus smiled, and Don Camillo thanked him for putting him on earth.
:)
There is so much to unpack in this passage - I leave it to you though to do just that and come to your own conclusions!!
Have fun!
