November 2017

1. “The greatest among you will be your servant.” (Mt 23:11)

Jesus was speaking to the crowds that followed him, telling them about the new lifestyle of those who want to be his disciples, a way of life that went “against the current” in comparison to the usual way of thinking (see Mt 23:1–11).

2. In his day (and today, too) it was easy to talk in high moral terms and then not live accordingly, seeking prestige in society, wanting to be seen or using others for personal advantage.

Jesus asks his disciples to have a completely different logic when relating to others, as he himself had:

3. “The greatest among you will be your servant.”    

At a September 1982 meeting in Payerne, Switzerland, Chiara Lubich shared her spiritual experience with people who wanted to discover how to live out the Gospel:

“We must keep our gaze fixed on the one Father of so many children, and then consider all people as children of that one Father …

“Jesus, who is our model, taught us two things that are ultimately one: to be children of our one Father and to be brothers and sisters to one another … God was calling us to universal brotherhood and sisterhood.”

4. This is what is new, to love everyone just as Jesus did, because all people — you and me and every person on the face of the earth — are children of God, who have always been loved and wanted by him.

In this way, we discover that the brother or sister we should love in concrete ways (with our muscles too) is every single person we meet on a daily basis. This means my dad, my mother-in-law and my rebellious child. It means someone in prison, a street beggar, someone who is disabled, my manager and the cleaners at work. It means my colleague in a political party and the person who has different political opinions than I do. It means people of our faith and culture, as well as foreigners.

The characteristically Christian attitude toward every brother or sister is to serve them.

5. “The greatest among you will be your servant.”

“To strive for the primacy of the Gospel by putting ourselves at the service of everyone,” Chiara continued, “what is the best way to serve?

“To make ourselves one with everyone we meet, feeling what they feel within ourselves: helping as though their problems were our own, made ours by love … No longer living just thinking of ourselves but seeking to bear other people’s burdens and to share their joys.”

6. Each of our skills and good points, all that we might feel “great” about, is an opportunity to serve that should not be lost. Our work skills, our artistic talents, our knowledge, but also being able to laugh or make people laugh — or the time given to listening to someone who is unsure about what to do or who is in difficulty. There’s the energy of youth, but also the power of prayer, when physical strength lessens.

7. “The greatest among you will be your servant.”

Sooner or later, this selfless Gospel love kindles within the heart of our brothers and sisters the same desire to share, renewing relationships in the family, the parish, in workplaces and places where people relax, laying the foundations for a new society.

8. Here’s an experience from Hermez, a teenager from the Middle East: “It was Sunday, and as soon as I woke up I asked Jesus to help me love all day long. I realized my parents had gone to an early Mass, and it occurred to me to clean and tidy the house.

“I tried to do everything well, even putting some flowers on the table! Then I prepared breakfast and set the table.

“When they came back, my parents were surprised and happy seeing all I had done. That Sunday, breakfast together was especially joyful; we spent time talking about many things, and I was able to share many experiences I had had that week.

“That small act of love had set the tone for a fantastic day!

By Letizia Magri

Love always, Ceci & Brendon

October Word Of Life 2017

1. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 2:5)

While St. Paul was in prison on account of his preaching, he wrote to the Christian community in the city of Philippi. He had been the very first to preach the Gospel there, and many people had come to believe and had committed themselves generously to this new life.

2. Even after Paul had left them, they continued to bear witness to Christian love. Knowing this about them made him very happy, which is why his letter is full of affection for the Philippians.

3. Paul encouraged them, therefore, to go ahead and to grow both as individuals and as a community. For this reason he reminded them of their model Jesus, who they should learn from.

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

4. What is this “mind”? How can we know the deepest desires Jesus had so as to imitate him?

Paul understood how: Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had emptied himself and had come down among us. He became man and was completely at the service of the Father, so that we could become children of God. Paul told the Galatians about this, saying, “And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”

(Gal 4:6). And in fact, John had already written about it in his Gospel: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” (Jn 1:12).

5. Jesus had fulfilled his mission through the way he lived his whole life. He continually humbled himself so as to reach those who were the smallest, weakest or most insecure: lepers, widows, strangers or sinners. He raised them up; making them feel loved and saved at last.

6. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

In order to recognize and cultivate the mind of Jesus in us, let’s first be aware of his love and the power of his forgiveness. Let’s look to him, making his way of acting our own. It urges us to open our hearts, our minds and our arms to welcome each person just as they are.

7. Let’s avoid making any judgements about others, but allow ourselves instead to be enriched by all that is positive in those we meet, even when it may be hidden in a pile of wretchedness and errors so that it seems to us a “waste of time” looking for it.

8. The strongest desire in the mind of Jesus, which we can make our own, is love freely given, the willingness to be at the service of others with our talents, whether great or small, and to courageously and positively build up good relationships wherever we are. This love knows how to face difficulties, misunderstandings and differences with a gentle spirit, determined to find the ways of dialogue and mutual agreement.

9.“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

Chiara Lubich let the Gospel guide her entire life, and she experienced its power. She wrote, “Imitating Jesus means understanding that we Christians only make sense if we live for others, if we think of our existence as a service for our brothers and sister, if we organize our lives on this basis.”

“Then we fulfill what Jesus has most at heart. We will have fully grasped the Gospel. And we will be truly blessed.”

Letizia Magri

Word of Life September 2017

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Mt 16:24)

Jesus was in the midst of his public life, proclaiming the kingdom of God was near, and he was preparing to go to Jerusalem. His disciples had some insight into the greatness of his mission. They realized he was the one sent by God, whom the whole people of Israel was waiting for.

They looked forward to being freed from Roman rule, to the dawn of a better world where there would be peace and prosperity.

But Jesus did not want to encourage these illusions. He said clearly that his journey to Jerusalem would not lead to triumph but rather to rejection, suffering and death. He also revealed that he would rise again on the third day. Those words were so hard to understand and accept that Peter protested and opposed such an absurd idea. He tried, in fact, to dissuade Jesus.

After a firm rebuke to Peter, Jesus turned to the disciples with a shocking invitation.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Mt 16:24)

With these words, what was Jesus really asking from his disciples both then and now? Does he want us to despise ourselves? Does he want us to devote ourselves to a life of austerity and discipline? Is he asking us to seek out suffering so as to be more pleasing to God?

This Word of Life exhorts us rather to walk in Jesus’ footsteps, to accept the values and demands of the Gospel in order to be ever more like him. This means living all of life fully, as he did, even when the shadow of the cross appears on our path.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

We cannot deny it: each of us has our own cross. Suffering in its various forms is part of human life. Yet it seems beyond our understanding, the opposite of our desire for happiness.

But it is precisely in this that Jesus teaches us to discover an unexpected light. It is like those times when you go into a dark church and discover how the stained-glass windows look so wonderful and bright, rather than dull and dreary as they did from the outside.

If we want to follow him, Jesus asks us to reverse our value system, shifting ourselves away from the center of our world and rejecting the logic that seeks our own good. He suggests that we pay more attention to other people’s needs than our own, spending our energy in making them happy, as he did. He did not miss a chance to comfort and give hope to those he met.

Following this path of liberation from egoism, we can grow in humanity, we can win the freedom that allows our personality to be completely fulfilled.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Jesus invites us to be witnesses to the Gospel, even when this faithfulness is tested by little or big misunderstandings within our social environments. Jesus is with us, and he wants us to be with him in staking our lives on the boldest of ideals: universal brotherhood and sisterhood, the civilization of love.

This radicalness in love is a deep need of the human heart. We see it in key figures of non- Christian religions who followed the voice of their conscience right to the end. Gandhi wrote, as preserved in his secretary Pyarelal’s book, Gandhi: The Last Phase, vol. II: “If someone killed me and I died with prayer for the assassin on my lips, and God’s remembrance and consciousness of his living presence in the sanctuary of my heart, then alone would I be said to have had the non-violence of the brave”

Chiara Lubich found, in the mystery of Jesus crucified and forsaken, the remedy for every personal wound and every disunity among persons, groups and peoples. She shared her discovery with many people.

“Each one of us experiences sufferings in life that are at least a little like his,” she wrote in 2007 for an event organized by movements and communities from various churches held in Stuttgart, Germany. “When we feel these sufferings, we can remember that he made them his own. They are almost his presence, a sharing in his suffering.

“Let us do what Jesus did. He was not paralyzed by suffering, but added these words to his cry, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit’ (Lk 23:46), re-abandoning himself to the Father. Like him, we too can go beyond suffering and overcome trial by saying: ‘I love you in this, Jesus forsaken. I love you; it reminds me of you and is an expression of you, one of your faces.’

“And, if in the next moment we throw ourselves into loving our brother or sister and doing what God asks of us, we will almost always experience that suffering is transformed into joy…

“In the small groups where we live … we can experience greater or smaller divisions. Even in these sufferings we can recognize his face, overcome the pain within ourselves, and do everything possible to become brothers and sisters again … The pathway and model of the culture of communion is Jesus crucified and forsaken.”

Good

1. Word of Life - August 2017

“The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made” (Ps 145:9).

This psalm is a hymn of glory that celebrates the kingly nature of the Lord who governs the whole of history. He is eternal and majestic, yet he expresses himself in justice and goodness, more like the closeness of a father than the power of ruler.

2. God is the focus of this hymn, which reveals his tenderness, superabundant like a mother’s. He is merciful, compassionate, slow to anger, great in love, good to all …

The goodness of God was shown to the people of Israel, but it extends over all that his hands have made, over each person and all of creation.

3. At the end of the psalm, the author invites all living beings to make this hymn their own, thus adding a harmonious chorus of voices to his own proclamation:

“The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.”

4. God himself entrusted creation to the hands of men and women, as if it were like an open book in which his goodness is written. We are called to cooperate with the Creator’s work, adding pages that speak of justice and peace, acting according to his plan of love.

5. Unfortunately, however, what we actually see around us are the many wounds inflicted upon people, often the defenseless, and upon the natural environment. This happens because of many people’s indifference, and the selfishness and greed of those who exploit the great wealth of the environment purely for their own ends and at the expense of the common good.

6. In recent years, the Christian community has developed a new awareness and sensitivity in its respect for creation. In this context, we can recall the many appeals of church leaders encouraging us to rediscover nature as the mirror of divine goodness and the heritage of all humankind.

7. In his message for the Day of Prayer for the Protection of the Environment, on September 1 last year, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople said:

“We need to have constant vigilance, information and education in order to understand clearly the relationship between today’s ecological crisis and our human passions … which result in and lead to the current crisis that we face.

8. “Therefore, the only way out of this impasse is our return to the original beauty … of frugality and asceticism, which can guide us toward a more careful management of the natural environment.

9. “In fact, the voracious need to satisfy our material needs assuredly causes spiritual poverty, which in turn culminates in the destruction of the environment.”

10. And in his encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis wrote:

“Care for nature is part of a lifestyle which includes the capacity for living together and communion. Jesus reminded us that we have God as our common Father and that this makes us brothers and sisters.

11. “Fraternal love can only be gratuitous … This same gratuitousness inspires us to love and accept the wind, the sun and the clouds, even though we cannot control them … We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it” (228–9).

12. Let’s take advantage of time we have off work, or all our our chances during the day, to lift our gaze to the depths of the sky, the majesty of the mountaintops and the vastness of the oceans, or even just to see a tiny blade of grass sprouting by the roadside. This will help us to recognize the Creator’s greatness, the one who is “lover of life,” and to find hope again in his infinite goodness, which surrounds all things and accompanies them.

13. Let’s choose a modest style of life for ourselves and for our families, a lifestyle that respects the demands of the environment and is in keeping with the needs of others. Let’s share the goods of the earth and of our work with the poorest of our brothers and sisters. And let’s give witness to the fullness of life and joy by becoming bearers of tenderness, kindness and reconciliation to the world around us.

Letizia Magri

Rest

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28).

“Weary and carrying heavy burdens”: these words suggest images of people (men and women, young adults, children and the elderly) who are weighed down in all sorts of ways as they journey through life, hoping the day will come when they can be freed from all this.

In this passage from Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus invites us: “Come to me…”

He was surrounded by a crowd that had come to see and hear him. Many of them were simple people: poor, with little education, unable to know and to follow all the complex religious obligations of their time. What is more, they were saddled with the taxes and bureaucracy of Roman rule, a weight that was often impossible to bear. They were constantly worrying and were looking out for the offer of a better life.

In his teaching, Jesus gave special attention to them and to all those excluded by society because they were seen as sinners. He wanted everyone to understand and welcome the most important law, the law that opens the door to the Father’s house: the law of love. God, indeed, reveals his wonders to those with open and simple hearts.

But Jesus invites us too, today, to come closer to him. He showed himself as the visible presence of God who is love, a God who loves us immensely just as we are, with our talents and shortcomings, our aspirations and failures!

And he invites us to trust in his “law” — which is not a burden that crushes us, but a yoke that is easy. It fills the hearts of those who live this law with joy. It demands our commitment not to turn in on ourselves, but rather to make our lives an ever-fuller gift to others, day by day.

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

Jesus also makes a promise: “I will give you rest.”

In what way? He gives us rest first of all through his presence, which becomes more decisive and deep in us if we choose him as the cornerstone of our life. Next, he does so through a special inner light  that shines upon our daily footsteps and makes us discover life’s meaning, even when things around us are tough. And then if we start loving as Jesus himself did, in love we find both the strength to carry on and the fullness of freedom, because the life of God grows within us.

A Christian who is not always striving to love does not deserve the name of Christian. The reason is that all Jesus’ commandments are summed up in one: to love God and love our neighbor, in whom we see and love Jesus.

Love is not a mere feeling, but it translates into real life, into service of our brothers and sisters, especially those who are close to us, starting from the little things, from the humblest of services.

When you love someone, you are in that person in a real way; you are in that person through love; you live in that person through love; you do not live in yourself; you are ‘detached’ from yourself, ‘outside’ yourself.’

And it is because of this love that Jesus’ light gains ground in us, just as he promised: ‘To those who love me … I will reveal myself’ (see Jn 14: 21). Love is a source of light. And by loving, we have a greater understanding of God who is love.”

So, let’s accept Jesus’ invitation to go to him, knowing he is the source of our hope and our peace.

Let’s accept his “commandment” and strive to love, just as he did, in the endless opportunities to do this throughout the day — in our families, in the parish, at work — responding to offenses with forgiveness, building bridges rather than walls and putting ourselves at the service of anyone weighed down by difficulties.

Far from being a burden, we will discover that this law gives us wings to soar on high.

Send

1. Word of Life June 2017

“As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (Jn 20:21).

In the days following Jesus’ crucifixion, his disciples stayed indoors, fearful and confused.

 2. They had followed him along the roads of Palestine, where he proclaimed God’s tender love for each person. 

3. Jesus had been sent by the Father, not only to give witness to this love, but also to open for humanity the path to God. 

4. He revealed a God who is Trinity, who is a communion of love in himself, and who wants to gather all into this embrace.

5. During the time of his mission, many people saw, heard and experienced Jesus’ good works, his words of welcome, forgiveness and hope … 

6. But then came his condemnation and crucifixion. This is the context in St John’s Gospel, where we are told how after he rose again on the third day Jesus appeared to his disciples and sent them out to continue his mission.

7. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

It is as if he said, “Do you remember how I shared my life with you? How I satisfied your hunger and thirst for justice and for peace? How I healed the hearts and bodies of so many marginalized people, the outcasts of society? How I defended the dignity of the poor, widows and foreigners? 

8. Now you must continue: proclaim the Gospel you have received to everyone. Tell them that God wishes to be met and known by all. Tell them that you are all brothers and sisters.”

9. Each person, created in the image and likeness of God who is love, longs for this encounter. All cultures and societies strive to build relationships of community. 

10. But how challenging it is, how many difficulties and obstacles there are to reaching this goal! Every day this deep aspiration runs up against our weakness, our narrow mindedness and fears, our mistrust and judgement of each other. Yet the Lord, with great trust, goes on saying to us as he did in the past:

11. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

How can we respond to such a bold invitation? Doesn’t the mission of creating fraternity in a fractured world seem like fighting a losing battle?

On our own we will never make it. 

12. That is why Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit, as a special gift who sustains our efforts to love each person, even if that person is an enemy.

13. In a Word of Life meditation from 1994, Focolare founder Chiara Lubich wrote, “The Holy Spirit, given to us through baptism … is the spirit of love and unity, who made all believers one in the risen Lord and with one another, overcoming every difference of race, culture and social class … Our selfishness builds barriers of isolation and excludes those who are different from us … So, by listening to the Holy Spirit’s voice, let us try to grow in this fellowship … overcoming the seeds of division carried within us.”

14.With the Holy Spirit’s help this month, every time we interact with others, no matter what it is, let us too remember and practice the words of love: welcome, listen, empathize, dialogue, encourage, include, care, forgive, appreciate someone … In this way, we accept Jesus’ invitation to continue his mission, and we will be channels of the life he gave us.

15. This was the experience of a group of Buddhist monks visiting the international town of Loppiano, Italy, where its 800 inhabitants try to live the Gospel faithfully. They were deeply touched by experiencing Gospel love for the first time.

16. In 1998, Chiara remembered how one of them said: “I put my dusty shoes outside the door; in the morning I found them clean. I put my dirty clothes outside the door; in the morning, I found them washed and ironed. Others knew that I was cold, because I was from Southeast Asia; they raised the temperature and brought me blankets 

17. … One day, I asked, ‘Why are you doing this?’ ‘Because we love you, because we love you very much,’ was the answer.’ This experience paved the way for genuine dialogue between Buddhists and Christians.

Letizia Magri

Word of Life - May 2017

1. “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mt 28:20)

Matthew ends his Gospel with the final events of Jesus’ life on earth. Jesus has risen from the dead, having fulfilled his mission. He had proclaimed God’s healing love for all, reopening the way that leads to fraternity.

2. Matthew sees Jesus as Emmanuel, “God with us,” the one promised by the prophets and awaited by the people of Israel. 

3. Before returning to the Father, Jesus gathers together his disciples, the group who had most closely shared in his mission. He entrusts them with continuing his work — a tough assignment!

But Jesus reassures them. He will not leave them on their own. Indeed, he promises to be with them every day, to support, accompany and encourage them “to the end of the age.”

4. With his help, they will bear witness to meeting him, to his word and his acts of welcome and mercy toward all. In this way, many others will meet him and together form the new people of God, founded upon the commandment of love.

5. We could say that God’s joy is to be with me, with you, with us every day to the end of our individual lives and to the end of human history. But is that true? Can we really encounter him?

6. In a Word of Life commentary from 1982, Focolare founder Chiara Lubich wrote, “He is around the corner; he is next to me and to you. He hides himself in the poor, the despised, little ones, the sick, the person seeking advice, or deprived of freedom. He is in the ugly and the marginalized … As he said, ‘I was hungry and you gave me food’ (Mt 25:35) … Let’s learn how to find him where he is.” 

7. He is in his Word, which, if put into practice, renews our lives. 

8. All over the world he is in the Eucharist. 

9. He also works through his ministers, the servants of his people. 

10. He is present when we are in agreement among us (see Mt 18:20). Our prayer to the Father then becomes more effective, and we find light for our daily decisions.

11. “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” How much hope this promise gives us! It encourages us to find him as we go along our way. Let’s open our hearts, and our arms too, to be welcoming and to share. Let’s do this personally and as communities, in our families and our churches, in our workplaces and on festive occasions, in our civil and religious associations. We will meet Jesus, and he will amaze us with joy and with light, the signs of his presence.

12. If we start each morning thinking, “Today I want to discover where God wants to meet me!” we too will have wonderful experiences like this one shared in Glimpses of Gospel Life:

13. “My husband’s mother deeply cared about her son, even to the point of being jealous. A year ago she was diagnosed with cancer, and her only daughter was not able to give her the level of care and help she needed.

14. “During that time, I went to a summer gathering of the Focolare called a Mariapolis, where I encountered God’s love in a way that changed my life.

15. “The first fruit of this conversion was the decision to ask my mother-in-law to come and live with us, setting aside all my fears about it. The light that had been lit in my heart made me see her with new eyes. Now I knew that it was Jesus in her that I cared for and helped.

16. “To my surprise, she responded to all I did with just as much love. Months of sacrifice went by, but when my mother-in-law passed gently on to the next life, she left us all with a deep sense of peace.

17. “It was around that time that I realized I was pregnant, after nine years of waiting! This child was a tangible sign of God’s love for us.”

Letizia Magri

Stay with us

Word of life, April 2017

1. ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening’ (Luke 24:29).
This was an invitation two travelers made to a stranger, having met him on their way from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus. The stranger had come upon them while they were ‘talking and discussing’ all that had recently happened in that city, and he seemed to be the only person to know nothing about it.
2. So the two of them welcomed him to walk with them, and they told him about ‘a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people’ (Lk 24:19). They had put their trust in him, yet he had been handed over by the chief priests and the leaders of the people to the Romans, condemned to death and crucified. It was an immense tragedy, and they could make no sense of it.
3. As they walked, the stranger helped them understand the meaning of what had happened, based upon Scripture. It rekindled hope in their hearts.
4. When they reached Emmaus, they urged him to join them for supper: ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening.’ While at table together, the stranger blessed the bread and shared it with them. This gesture opened their eyes to who he was: the man once crucified and dead was now risen!
5. The two of them immediately changed their plans. They went back to Jerusalem to find the other disciples and tell them the great news.
6. We too can be disillusioned, appalled, disheartened by a terrible feeling of powerlessness in the face of injustices done to the innocent and defenseless.
7. Our own lives have their share of pain, uncertainty, darkness… How we would like to transform it all into peace, hope, light for ourselves and for others!
8. Do we want to meet Someone who can understand us to the core of our being, Someone who can shed light upon our journey through life?
9. Jesus, the God-man, freely accepted to experience the tunnel of pain as we do, to meet each of us in the depths of our situations. He felt physical pain, but he also felt inner pain: from betrayal by his friends to the point even of feeling forsaken by that very God he had always called Father (see Mt 27:46; Mk 15:34).
10. Through his unshakeable faith in the love of God, he overcame such immense pain, entrusting himself once more to the Father (Lk 23:46), and from the Father he received new life.
11. Jesus has brought all of us onto this same path, and he wants to travel with us.
12. In the April 1999 Focolare Word of Life, Chiara Lubich wrote, ‘He is there in anything that hurts us …
13. Let’s try to recognize Jesus in all the distress and the tough situations in life, in all darkness, in our personal misfortunes and those of others, and in the sufferings of the world around us.
14. They are him because he has made them his own. It would be enough … to do something practical to lessen “his” suffering in the poor … for us to … find … a new fullness of life.’
15. A seven-year-old girl shared her experience: ‘I was very sad when my daddy was sent to prison. I loved Jesus in him, so when we went to visit, I didn’t cry in front of him.’
16. A young wife said: ‘I accompanied my husband, Robert, through the last months of his life, after the doctors gave him no hope of recovery. I never left him for a moment. Seeing him, I saw Jesus. Robert was on the cross, really on the cross.’
17. Their love for one another became a source of light for their friends, who were drawn to compete in solidarity, never letting up and spreading to many others, giving rise to an association for social development called Abbraccio Planetario (‘global embrace’).
18. ‘What we experienced with Robert,’ said one of his friends, ‘inspired us to follow him on a real journey towards God. We often ask ourselves the meaning of suffering, illness and death. I believe everyone who had the gift of sharing a part of the journey alongside Robert now has a very clear answer.’
19. This month all Christians celebrate the mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection. It is a chance to rekindle our faith in God’s love, which allows us to transform pain into love. Every detachment, separation, failure, and death itself, can become for us too, a source of light and peace.
20. Sure of God’s closeness to each of us, in any situation, let’s repeat with trust the disciples’ prayer at Emmaus, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening.’
Letizia Magri

Reconcile

1. We can live like the first Christians and witness in our lives to God’s overwhelming love. If we, his followers, are truly reconciled among ourselves, we can speak convincingly of God’s reconciling love for the world.

2. “Be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20).

All over the world, there are blood-soaked wars. They seem endless, and they embroil families, tribes and peoples. Twenty-year-old Gloria told this story: “We got news of a village that’d been burnt down. Lots of people lost everything. With my friends I collected some useful things: mattresses, clothes, food. We set out and after an eight hour journey we met all those people in such terrible need. We listened to them, dried their tears, hugged them and tried to comfort them. One family told us, ‘Our little girl was in the house they burnt down. It felt like we were dying with her. Now, through your love, we have the strength to forgive the men who did this!’”

3. The Apostle Paul also experienced this kind of forgiveness, and it completely changed his life. He, the very one who was persecuting Christians, met God’s free-given love. It came in a completely unexpected way as he was traveling. God then sent him out in his name as an ambassador of reconciliation.

4. This is how Paul became a passionate and credible witness to the mystery of Jesus who died and rose again. He spoke of Jesus who had reconciled the world to himself so that everyone could know and experience a life of communion with him and one another. To Through Paul the Gospel message reached and fascinated even pagans, those thought to be furthest from salvation: “Be reconciled to God!” he said.

5. Despite our failings that discourage us or the false certainties that fool us into thinking we have no need, we too can meet God’s mercy. His love is so excessive! We can let it heal our hearts and in the end set us free to share this treasure with others. Like this we will give our contribution to God’s plan of peace for all humanity and the whole of creation. This plan overcomes the contradictions of history, as Chiara Lubich suggests in this passage:

6. “On the cross, in the death of his Son, God gave us the highest proof of his love. Through Christ’s cross, he reconciled us to himself. This fundamental truth of our faith is fully relevant today.

7. “It is the revelation all humankind awaits. Yes, God is close to all people with his love and he loves each person passionately. Our world needs to hear this proclamation, but we can proclaim God’s love if first we proclaim it, again and again, to ourselves — until we feel surrounded by this love, even when everything would make us think the opposite.… All our behavior should make this truth credible.

8. “Jesus said clearly that before bringing our offering to the altar we should be reconciled with a brother or sister if they have anything against us (see Mt 5:23-24) … So let’s love one another as he loved us, without being closed or prejudiced, but being open to welcome and appreciate the positive in our neighbor, ready to give our lives for one another. This is Jesus’ main command, the mark of Christians, valid today just as it was at the time of Christ’s first followers. Living this word means becoming reconcilers.”

9. Living like this we will enrich our days with acts of friendship and reconciliation: in our own family and among families, in our own Church and among Churches, in every civil and religious community to which we belong.

Letizia Magri

Hearts of stone

Word of Life - February 2017

“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you.” (Ez 36:26)

1. The word ‘heart’ makes us think of affections, feelings and passions. However, for the bible writers it meant much more. Together with the spirit, the heart is the centre both of life and of the person; it is the place where decisions are made, the place of our inner life, our spiritual life. A heart of flesh is docile to the word of God and allows itself to be guided by the word, giving rise to “peaceful thoughts” about others.  Instead, a heart of stone is closed in on itself and is unable to listen or be merciful.

2. Do we really need a new heart and a new spirit? It is enough to look around and see the violence, corruption and wars that are caused by hearts of stone which are not open to God’s plan for creation. If we look honestly within ourselves, we can see that we are often motivated by selfish wants. Does love truly guide our decisions? Are we guided by what is good for others?

3. Seeing our impoverished humanity, God was moved to compassion. He knows us better than we know ourselves and he knows we need a new heart. He promised this to the Prophet Ezekiel, thinking not only of individuals but of all his people. God’s dream is to recreate one large family of peoples, as was his original intention, which is guided by the law of mutual love. History has often shown that while, on the one hand, we cannot fulfill God’s plan on our own, on the other He has never tired of getting involved, to the point of promising that he himself would give us a new heart and a new spirit.

4. He kept his promise to the full when he sent his Son on earth and when he poured out his Spirit on the day of Pentecost. A community began – the first Christian community in Jerusalem – which was an icon of humankind living as “one heart and one soul”.

5. All of us, you who are reading or listening to this commentary on the Word of Life and I who am writing it, are called to be part of this new humanity. Moreover, we are called to edify this new humanity around us, bringing it into the places where we live and work. What a great mission has been given to us and how great is God’s trust in us! Instead of feeling depressed at seeing how corrupt society seems to be; instead of resigning ourselves to evils that are bigger than us, and shutting it all out as if we were not concerned, let’s widen our hearts “according to the measure of the heart of Jesus. How much work that means! Yet this is the only thing necessary.” This is what Chiara Lubich asked us to do and she went on saying:  “It means loving everyone we meet as God loves them. And since we live in time, we must love our neighbors one by one, without holding in our heart any left-over affection for the brother or sister met a moment before”.

6. Let’s not trust in our own strength and abilities, which are inadequate, but let’s trust in God’s gift to us: “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you.”

7. If we respond willingly to the call to love each person, if we allow ourselves to be guided by the voice of the Holy Spirit in us, we will become living cells of a new humanity, builders of a new world, in the great diversity of peoples and cultures.