22 June 2019

By Stefania Caterina and Fr Tomislav Vlašić

Father Tomislav: Dearest Brothers and Sisters; in today’s reflection I want to connect two feasts in which we believe: the Feast of the Most Holy Body of Christ and His Precious Blood and the anniversary of the apparitions of Mary Most Holy which occurs on 25 June. The two feasts are connected insofar as we want to give our life, our existence to Jesus Christ, our Lord, as Mary Most Holy did, and become a living Eucharist.

The subject of this reflection is “The Church descends from Heaven”. It means that the universe participates in a particular way in every feast that we celebrate this year; we express our desire to welcome what descends from the Heart of the Good Shepherd, from the One and Triune God, and we desire to participate in the grace that descends from Heaven.

Nowadays many talk about the depression humanity experiences in this time in terms of economical, financial difficulties and the feeling of having no future. It is also said that God does not react in this time. But this is not true, and we want to show that He wants to react and that He does react. We have spoken about the Trinitarian power who wants to express itself through us, expecting that we participate in this unstoppable action of God in this time.

In the book “The Universe and Its Inhabitants”,[1] in part IV, chapter 2, “The manifold graces of God”, the Holy Spirit says: “The intervention of God in human history did not end after the coming of Jesus Christ. On the contrary, after Jesus Christ had ascended to Heaven, many far-reaching interventions of God occurred.” God wants to involve us. We shall be ready to welcome the graces of these feasts; the graces which are meant for this time and in the place where we find ourselves. Let us listen to the pages 245-246.

 “The action of God is very diverse; it is as manifold as grace which is the motor of all divine action. God acts through grace. What is grace? It is the power that flows incessantly from the mind of God that is always focused on good, for He is the Supreme Good. Every thought of God contains the power to transform into action; this power is grace. God could therefore do all by Himself without the help of any creature; yet, there is the greatness of the divine love: God has decided that His most noble creatures, who are the angels and the human beings, should participate fully in His action. Therefore, God fills His creatures with grace, which is the necessary power for the realisation of His plans; it is as if God transferred His power to each one of you, enabling you to accomplish your mission by which His designs are fulfilled.“

At this point we must be grateful to God for counting on us. It is a relationship with the One who continuously cares for us with love to promote our growth, to help us find our identity and accomplish our mission. It is very important for us to remember that God loves us and that we love Him and want to be increasingly open for His love.

 “In turn, humans and angels have to welcome grace. How? Here the Trinitarian action enters into play through a process that involves the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. The divine thought is born in the perfect harmony of the Three Divine Persons: the divine thought is, so to say, triune and one as God Himself is. From this thought the Trinitarian power comes forth, that is, the grace God applies to realise His will.”

This harmonious Trinitarian action is the foundation of the communion between creatures. It is fundamental for our live, our faith, our spirituality to become harmonious so that we may transmit it to others. We have said many times that the human thought is fragmented. The thought of God is not fragmented; it is uniform and at the same time takes on as many forms as there are beings in the universe. However, there must be a positive response by man. Let us listen.

 “At this point the creature comes into play. For example, let us think of a man God intends to entrust with a specific task. The Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, acts within the spirit of that man to enable him to know, understand and accept the will of God. The man must respond by welcoming God and offering himself to Him, allowing Him to act, that is, the man has to sanctify himself, for only then will he be able to understand what God requests from him. If this occurs, the Holy Spirit leads that man to Jesus Christ and reveals to Him the action of the Son of God, the Redeemer; this will, first of all, purify the man from sin and heal him deep inside.”

This passage is very profound and fundamental to improve in our elevation. The Holy Spirit acts incessantly in favour of those who are open to Him. He helps us understand and strengthens our will to welcome Him, just as Mary Most Holy did. Welcoming God means to offer ourselves to Him and to our neighbor in the way God offers Himself limitlessly. We, too, must offer ourselves limitlessly so that the Creator may redeem, sanctify, shape and take us to the fullness.

The Holy Spirit says that “man must sanctify himself”. What does that mean? The Old Testament says, “Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy” (Lev 11,44). Only God is holy, for He is perfect. Giving oneself to Him means to decide to live for Him, with Him, for His glory. The consecration to God means to put God in the first place, desiring to have the full life of God in us.

Christians often think that the term “consecration” means the consecration to a service or to a work. Many Christians are afraid of saying that they want to consecrate themselves and be holy. However, it is important to understand that our readiness to say “yes” to God and His love with trust and faith renders us free from within; then the Holy Spirit will lead us towards Jesus Christ and make us understand His work.

As we have heard, the first step will be to “purify the man from sin and heal him deep inside”. The spiritual live becomes a resurrected life if we allow Jesus Christ to heal us; if our celebrations are a path in which we let Him heal us on levels of soul and body, for we are meant to enter transformed into the new creation.

Without this openness to the Holy Spirit, who acts in our inmost place and beyond human logic, we cannot understand the action of Jesus Christ who offers His life for us to redeem us. This is the central point of the Eucharist. Without living this openness we remain poor despite Jesus’ sacrifice to take us to the Father.

 “After that, Jesus, as the High Priest, offers the man to the Father so that the Father, the Creator, gives him the abundance of life. At this point, the man receives the grace coming from the mind and action of the Holy Trinity; thus, he is enabled to act with all the power to accomplish the will of God.”

 In this passage, in which Christ has sacrificed Himself for us and now offers us together with Himself to the Father, the fullness of life descends. “At this point, the man receives the grace coming from the mind and action of the Holy Trinity; thus, he is enabled to act with all the power to accomplish the will of God.” The Easter passage, that is, the passage we experience in the Eucharist, leads us to complete freedom; no therapy, nothing can eradicate evil from within us except the Sacrifice of Christ and our participation in His Sacrifice with love and in freedom.

Further on in this text it is explained how the angels immediately know the will of God and immediately carry it out. You know that God thinks and accomplishes simultaneously. Therefore, the pure spirits who are faithful to God perceive and carry out, using the power of God. Very similarly the faithful brothers carry out their actions in communion with the angels. For the man of Earth this is difficult as he has to overcome a barrier. The greatest barrier in man, after original sin, is the fear of God. It is not a general fear. It is the offering of oneself to God and the ability to accept His love which liberates from this fear. In the relationship with God, who gives us pure, sublime, harmonious, perfect love, man is deeply liberated from the fear of God; thus, man resurrects; he goes from inner slavery, accusations and mistrust to the elevation with Christ.

If man does not overcome this fear, he will begin to decide by himself what is good and what is evil in a rational way, which is always the result of egoism and egocentrism. The Lord wants us to be mature individuals who have found their identity and their mission. We have to be aware that in our celebrations occur together with the children of God of the whole universe, the Archangels acting rapidly and the faithful brothers and sisters also acting rapidly and following the Laws of the pure Spirit.

At this point we are consciously oriented towards Mary Most Holy who is perfect and in tune with the Most Holy Trinity. She is always a creature but in Her dwells the perfection of life. She appeared to us, She stays with us and wants to communicate to us this perfection; She wants to generate us. Thus, in the universal communion of the mystical Body of Christ we can overcome our limits, our fears and our blockages to be the Church that descends from Heaven and communicates itself to others through an explosion of love. It is not a new Church but the Church of Jesus Christ that pours from His side.

As I have often said, the identity and mission of the Church of the Earth is defined by the Eucharist and the action of the Most Holy Trinity. We are speaking about the readiness to welcome the graces of this time; the graces which come through the sublime creatures, such as the Archangels, the faithful brothers and sisters, the saints and all those who are in Christ. We are part of this Church and want to welcome in our celebrations the divine action in the Eucharist and transmit it to others.

St. Paul said in the letter to the Corinthians in the liturgical text[2]: “For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me’.” In remembrance of Him with the whole Church of the universe; each one of us being determined to be open for Christ and this passage which leads to our transformation and to the new creation when we listen inwardly to the Holy Spirit who explains these times to us and God’s will for each one of us, entrusting us to Jesus Christ.

So, in this celebration our offering to God, the offering to Jesus Chris through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, must be like a flag carrying the Laws of the action of the Triune God which is in us and in favour of the whole humanity. We are people who have chosen to live in this time, to welcome God’s action and to manifest it to others. This is the Church that descends from Heaven.

I give you my blessing; may each one of you participate in this Church with inner commitment and openness to the Holy Spirit, the Saviour of the universe, Jesus Christ, through Mary Most Holy, the Blessed Mother, and to the Father who is waiting for us and attracting us, as He attracted Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. I bless you; may you continue to build the communion with the Church of the universe, the only, undivided Church, like the One and Triune God who has never been divided.

[1] See Stefania Caterina, Tomislav Vlašić, “Rewriting History – Voll. II –  The Universe and Its Inhabitants, publisher Luci dell’Esodo 2019

[2] See 1 Cor 11,23-26