WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER As he led the Church he was with an attitude of no compromises; now the Spirit asks him to set out, without knowing what will happen. 'I only know - the Spirit had let him know this - that the Holy Spirit testifies to me from city to city that chains and tribulations await me'. He knew that. I'm not retiring. Always the heart open to the voice of God. With this beautiful example let us pray for the pastors, for the parish priests, for the bishops, for the Pope, that their life may be a life without compromise, a life on the road, and a life where they don't believe they are at the center of the story. (Santa Marta, May 30, 2017)
S. FAUSTI – To know is to love and to love is to know. Whoever has accepted the Word now knows the revelation of the Son. Knowing means having the same experience as the Son, who receives from the Father his being and his feeling, his speaking and his acting. All that the Son is and has is from the Father, a gift of his love. Jesus has manifested the Father to us and we have known him, because he has given us the Words that the Father has given to Him. The Words received from the Son are summarized in the command of love. Jesus accomplished it perfectly and leaves it as a gift to his disciples. The disciples are those who welcome the Words that Jesus has given them. Actually the Word is one. The Son who loves as he is loved by the Father. But the word of love is articulated in many words, indeed, in every word. Welcoming it is man's act of freedom, which generates him as a child of God. Whoever welcomes the words of the Word made flesh, knows Jesus as the Son who came out of the Father. Knowing becomes believing: knowing is fundamentally believing in love. Words of love are known to those who receive them with love. Anyone who doesn't love doesn't understand. Only love contains truth and life, the truth of life. “For them I ask” Jesus' question expresses a desire. It is sure that he will be heard, because he is the same as the Father. It is expressed aloud, in front of his disciples, so that they too may know and desire him. Jesus does not ask for the world. "The world" here is understood as that structure of lies that dominates our relationships. When instead the world is understood as the set of men slaves of this system, then it is said that: "God loved the world so much that he gave his Son to save it". Indeed Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the Savior of the world, He who gives His flesh for the life of the world (6,51), He who is the light of the world (8,12), the light that comes into the world to enlighten every man (1, 4). Jesus intercedes for the men that the Father has given him as brothers. Their belonging to the Father is underlined again. The Son recognizes that what he has and is comes from the Father, as the Father in turn gives him what he himself has and is. This gift is the mutual knowledge between the Father and the Son, their relationship of ineffable Love (Mt 11:27), in which we too are included, who belong to the Father as children and to the Son as brothers. Jesus is glorified in the disciples, because they recognized him as Son, receiving his same relationship with the Father. Concretely he is glorified through their love of brothers who keep the Word of the Father, learned from the Words of his Son.
-->( FAUSTI) Jesus is completing Easter, His passage from this world to the Father. He ends his life on earth, in which he has manifested the Name to men. It is good for us that he goes away, because he will send us the Consoler, he goes to prepare a place for us, because we too are where he is (14:2). Although not "from" the world, the disciples remain in the world to continue his mission. Being "in" the world, both for the Son and for each of his brothers, is the condition in which the return to the Father is played out. "Here and now" we are called to live as children of the Father. Being children of God is not an escape from the limits of space and time, but a commitment to live in the flesh according to the Spirit, to be born from above. The Father is now called Saint, later Justus. Holy means separate, different, other. It is an exclusive attribute of God, He alone is Holy. Yet he wants us all to be like him: "Be holy, for I am holy" (Lev 11:44). Paradoxically God, being Love, is so Other as to become like us, because we become like Him. "Keep them in Your Name" The name is the presence, the person. Through the Son who has manifested it to us, the Father keeps us within himself, in communion with Him, as our Father, In Him we keep our truth as children. “Let them be one” . The purpose of the prayer of the Son to the Father is that the brothers are "one", one thing. Being one is man's fundamental desire, it is the realization of love, a source of joy and life. If evil divides and kills, love unites and gives life. The true holiness that the Father wants from his children is unity in love. A fraternity where every diversity is welcomed and every misery the object of mercy. The holiness, the perfection of God, that by which God is God, and He alone, is mercy. This attribute reveals its essence as omnipotence of an absolute love that creates and recreates every creature in its image and likeness. The union that exists between brothers is the same that exists between Father and Son, whose life is mutual love. The union between Father and Son, communicated to us by the Son, brings together the scattered children of God into "one", making a single flock, a single shepherd. The division between Christians is the great evil which opposes the glorification of the Father and the Son on earth: it divides the "inconspicuous" tunic and tears apart the Body of the Son. The way to unity between the various Churches is to read and re-read these Words of Jesus until the blindness and animosity that comes from the divider disappears from our hearts. Then we will also be united with Israel; and the Glory will reveal itself to all. Division, synonymous with death, cannot come from God. Only unity comes from him, in the acceptance of diversity and in the discernment, which distinguishes his action from that of the enemy. From him comes above all the forgiveness that heals all divisions.
It is still difficult to let these rays of Light touch our hearts that Christ lets glimpse of His Prayer to the Father! May the Spirit open his eyes, mind and heart to the depth of this Love which flows from a pierced Heart, whose piercing becomes a source of Rebirth and Sanctification for all! Beginning with the guilty, let us pray :”Restore the joy of being saved, sustain in me a generous soul!...A contrite spirit is a sacrifice to God, a broken and humbled heart, God, You do not despise. In Your love do grace to Zion, raise up the walls of Jerusalem" (Ps 50:14-20) Paul, after having been a persecutor (Acts 9, 3-19), prays for everyone :" For this reason I bend my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name, so that he may give you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened mightily, by his Spirit, in the inner man, and let Christ dwell by faith in your hearts, that, rooted and grounded in love, you may be enabled to embrace with all saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ and to know this love which passes all knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able, through the power that works in us, to do infinitely more than we ask or think, to him be the glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus, to all ages, for ever and ever. “(Eph 3:14-21). In the infinite greatness of this Love, we are welcomed to become one big single Heart, in Jesus, we entrust ourselves to Him and entrust the whole Church, and all God's children, wherever they are, in all nations, in the whole world!
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
RispondiEliminaAs he led the Church he was with an attitude of no compromises; now the Spirit asks him to set out, without knowing what will happen. 'I only know - the Spirit had let him know this - that the Holy Spirit testifies to me from city to city that chains and tribulations await me'. He knew that. I'm not retiring. Always the heart open to the voice of God. With this beautiful example let us pray for the pastors, for the parish priests, for the bishops, for the Pope, that their life may be a life without compromise, a life on the road, and a life where they don't believe they are at the center of the story. (Santa Marta, May 30, 2017)
S. FAUSTI – To know is to love and to love is to know. Whoever has accepted the Word
RispondiEliminanow knows the revelation of the Son.
Knowing means having the same experience as the Son, who receives from the Father his being and his feeling, his speaking and his acting.
All that the Son is and has is from the Father, a gift of his love. Jesus has manifested the Father to us and we have known him, because he has given us the Words that the Father has given to Him. The Words received from the Son are summarized in the command of love.
Jesus accomplished it perfectly and leaves it as a gift to his disciples.
The disciples are those who welcome the Words that Jesus has given them.
Actually the Word is one. The Son who loves as he is loved by the Father.
But the word of love is articulated in many words, indeed, in every word.
Welcoming it is man's act of freedom, which generates him as a child of God. Whoever welcomes the words of the Word made flesh, knows Jesus as the Son who came out of the Father.
Knowing becomes believing: knowing is fundamentally believing in love. Words of love are known to those who receive them with love.
Anyone who doesn't love doesn't understand. Only love contains truth and life, the truth of life.
“For them I ask” Jesus' question expresses a desire. It is sure that he will be heard, because he is the same as the Father. It is expressed aloud, in front of his disciples, so that they too may know and desire him. Jesus does not ask for the world.
"The world" here is understood as that structure of lies that dominates our relationships. When instead the world is understood as the set of men slaves of this system, then it is said that: "God loved the world so much that he gave his Son to save it".
Indeed Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the Savior of the world, He who gives His flesh for the life of the world (6,51), He who is the light of the world (8,12), the light that comes into the world to enlighten every man (1, 4).
Jesus intercedes for the men that the Father has given him as brothers. Their belonging to the Father is underlined again. The Son recognizes that what he has and is comes from the Father, as the Father in turn gives him what he himself has and is.
This gift is the mutual knowledge between the Father and the Son, their relationship of ineffable Love (Mt 11:27), in which we too are included, who belong to the Father as children and to the Son as brothers.
Jesus is glorified in the disciples, because they recognized him as Son, receiving his same relationship with the Father. Concretely he is glorified through their love of brothers who keep the Word of the Father, learned from the Words of his Son.
-->( FAUSTI) Jesus is completing Easter, His passage from this world to the Father.
RispondiEliminaHe ends his life on earth, in which he has manifested the Name to men. It is good for us that he goes away, because he will send us the Consoler, he goes to prepare a place for us, because we too are where he is (14:2).
Although not "from" the world, the disciples remain in the world to continue his mission.
Being "in" the world, both for the Son and for each of his brothers, is the condition in which the return to the Father is played out. "Here and now" we are called to live as children of the Father.
Being children of God is not an escape from the limits of space and time, but a commitment to live in the flesh according to the Spirit, to be born from above.
The Father is now called Saint, later Justus. Holy means separate, different, other.
It is an exclusive attribute of God, He alone is Holy. Yet he wants us all to be like him: "Be holy, for I am holy" (Lev 11:44).
Paradoxically God, being Love, is so Other as to become like us, because we become like Him.
"Keep them in Your Name" The name is the presence, the person. Through the Son who has manifested it to us, the Father keeps us within himself, in communion with Him, as our Father,
In Him we keep our truth as children.
“Let them be one” . The purpose of the prayer of the Son to the Father is that the brothers are "one", one thing.
Being one is man's fundamental desire, it is the realization of love, a source of joy and life. If evil divides and kills, love unites and gives life.
The true holiness that the Father wants from his children is unity in love. A fraternity where every diversity is welcomed and every misery the object of mercy.
The holiness, the perfection of God, that by which God is God, and He alone, is mercy.
This attribute reveals its essence as omnipotence of an absolute love that creates and recreates every creature in its image and likeness.
The union that exists between brothers is the same that exists between Father and Son, whose life is mutual love.
The union between Father and Son, communicated to us by the Son, brings together the scattered children of God into "one", making a single flock, a single shepherd.
The division between Christians is the great evil which opposes the glorification of the Father and the Son on earth: it divides the "inconspicuous" tunic and tears apart the Body of the Son.
The way to unity between the various Churches is to read and re-read these Words of Jesus until the blindness and animosity that comes from the divider disappears from our hearts.
Then we will also be united with Israel; and the Glory will reveal itself to all.
Division, synonymous with death, cannot come from God. Only unity comes from him, in the acceptance of diversity and in the discernment, which distinguishes his action from that of the enemy.
From him comes above all the forgiveness that heals all divisions.
It is still difficult to let these rays of Light touch our hearts that Christ lets glimpse of His Prayer to the Father! May the Spirit open his eyes, mind and heart to the depth of this Love which flows from a pierced Heart, whose piercing becomes a source of Rebirth and Sanctification for all! Beginning with the guilty, let us pray :”Restore the joy of being saved, sustain in me a generous soul!...A contrite spirit is a sacrifice to God, a broken and humbled heart, God, You do not despise. In Your love do grace to Zion, raise up the walls of Jerusalem" (Ps 50:14-20)
RispondiEliminaPaul, after having been a persecutor (Acts 9, 3-19), prays for everyone :" For this reason I bend my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name, so that he may give you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened mightily, by his Spirit, in the inner man, and let Christ dwell by faith in your hearts, that, rooted and grounded in love, you may be enabled to embrace with all saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ and to know this love which passes all knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able, through the power that works in us, to do infinitely more than we ask or think, to him be the glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus, to all ages, for ever and ever. “(Eph 3:14-21).
In the infinite greatness of this Love, we are welcomed to become one big single Heart, in Jesus, we entrust ourselves to Him and entrust the whole Church, and all God's children, wherever they are, in all nations, in the whole world!