The term "all-powerful," which resonates like a drumbeat in the liturgy, is never found in the gospel, never spoken by Jesus as a divine attribute. Jesus does not tell the story of God's omnipotence, but of His tenderness. God is love and cannot do everything. He can only do what love can do.
He does not have the power of a surgeon who intervenes and removes evil. Nor does he have the power of an army that destroys enemies. He has the power of a seed, the power of a loving mother sitting by her sick child, who cannot heal them but is near and does not leave, present from heart to heart, strength, assurance, a presence that does not abandon.
Not the all-powerful God in the sense of the language of politics or our human myths, who will destroy enemies (after all, darkness is still here and evil is here along with good), but the all-loving God, who can only do what love can do.
(Ermes Ronchi /*1947/, Key Questions of the Gospel,
meditations delivered during spiritual exercises for Pope Francis and the Roman Curia, 2016)
