Mother Church today continues in its call for joy. In our pilgrimage
to Easter Sunday, we are having a foretaste of resurrection, not only that of
Jesus, but also that of those who desire life eternal and who ask God to help
them walk along the Bridge He has built in his only begotten Son. God told
Catherine of Siena: “The Bridge is walled and roofed with Mercy. His also is
the Hostelry in the Garden of the Holy Church, which keeps and ministers the
Bread of Life, and gives to drink of the Blood, so that My creatures,
journeying on their pilgrimage, may not, through weariness, faint by the way.” Indeed,
we believe that “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will
certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his”. (Rm 6:5)
We believe that God is “about to create new heavens and a new
earth”. We firmly do! However, we are sometimes inclined to ask: When, O Lord?
It seems that you take so long to create a new earth in which peace and justice
reign, and the love of You and of our neighbours is practiced! You said through
Isaiah: “There shall always be rejoicing and happiness in what I create.” (Is
65, 17-18) But when?
He answers us through the same prophet: “See, I am doing something
new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Is 43, 19) It is not
sometime in the future that he will create a new earth, he tells us. “I am
doing something new! Now! … do you not
perceive it?” Our response could be: It is not so easy to see the new thing for
it seems that the wicked have the upper hand. We can only say: “I believe!”
The Father tells Catherine of Siena: “How will these wicked ones …
draw their foul soul out of the mire, when they themselves put it there?
Sometimes even do they become so brutish, that they do not consider their
children and relations, and cause them to fall with them into great misery!” [Is
this not what we see every day around us!] “And, nevertheless, in My mercy I
sustain them, I do not command the earth to swallow them up, that they may
repent of their sins. … Whether worldly people will or no, they render glory
and praise to My Name, not that they do so in the way they should, loving Me
above everything, but that My mercy shines in them, in that, in the abundance
of My charity, I give them time … I even wait for them, and command the earth
to give them of her fruits, the sun to give them light and warmth, and the sky
to move above them. And in all things created and made for them, I use My
charity and mercy, withdrawing neither on account of their sins. I even give
equally to the sinner and the righteous man, and often more to the sinner than
to the righteous man, because the righteous man is able to endure privation, and
I take from him the goods of the world that he may the more abundantly enjoy
the goods of heaven. So that in worldly men My mercy and charity shine, and
they render praise and glory to My Name, even when they persecute My servants;
for they prove in them the virtues of patience and charity, causing them to
suffer humbly and offer to Me their persecutions and injuries, thus turning
them into My praise and glory…” (Dialogue of Divine Providence)
I feel that these words comfort us especially when we do not see the
fruits of our work, and the devil tempts us to think that we are the fools and
the wicked are wise! But the devil is a liar and his words are snares and
deceptions!
In the face of the devil’s wickedness we have to remember two
things. First, Paul tells us: “[We] do not sow the body that is to be, but a
bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.” (1 Cor 15, 37). Is the
sower a fool who throws his seeds to the soil?
Second, today’s gospel reminds us what to expect when it
said: “Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honour in his native
place. When he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him”. (Jn 4, 44-45) We
have to expect and accept both rejection and acceptance. The royal official
whose son was ill in Capernaum shows us that acceptance may come from people
from whom we might not expect it. When Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son
will live” he believed and he returned home to find that his son was cured”.
We have reason enough to rejoice even in the face of injustice, of suffering,
of violence and death. Jesus tells us that “servants are not greater than their
master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them”. (Jn13:16) And
“when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless
slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’” (Lk 17, 10)
Why worthless?
Paul wrote: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.
Therefore, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but
only God, who causes the growth”. So, let us rejoice, be happy and be faithful
to our job, “for we are God's co-workers...” (1 Cor 3, 6-8). Amen!
Delivered on March 16, 2015, Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent
(Readings Is 65:17-21; Jn 4:43-54)
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