Thursday, November 20, at 6:00 p.m., in Gallarate, at the Libreria Biblos Mondadori (Piazza della Libertà): presentation of the book *When Happiness Arrives. A Journey through the Bible for Those Who Have Stopped Believing in It* (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 112 pages, €12) with the author Adrien Candiard.

What do we seek, as human beings, more than happiness? Nothing, one would be tempted to answer — and yet, why doesn’t the Bible present itself as an all-encompassing treatise on how to become happy? If Scripture is the Word of God, and if God can do everything, why don’t we find in it a systematic knowledge of how to fully attain the state of being happy?

Starting from this paradox, Adrien Candiard leads the reader through the entire biblical text in search of what those pages — ancient yet so modern — have to say about happiness. From the Psalms to the Book of Revelation, from the ancient prophets to Jesus, from the wisdom books to the New Testament, “the Bible speaks on every page of happiness, that tireless desire of the human heart.”

Candiard, with the spiritual wisdom and exegetical skill for which he is widely recognized, guides us through the depths of numerous biblical books to reveal that being happy has more to do with welcoming a gift than with striving through effort: “The Bible cannot be a collection of habits. The Bible unsettles, surprises, and overturns our certainties and our comfort. This is how it nourishes our search for happiness; this is how it leads us along paths known only to itself — all the way to God, the source of all good.”