Church of Jesus Christ of the Universe

by Mauro

26.10.2024

Saturday XXIX Week of Ordinary Time – Year II

Ep 4: 7-16; Ps 121; LK 13: 1-9

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The Lord be with you.

Every time we celebrate Holy Mass we are faced, precisely, with overcoming the doubt within us. The Lord in his pedagogy, to help us overcome doubt, makes us go through and overcome certain trials. And it almost seems that if we do not see signs, we do not make it. However, the passage, precisely, the one that takes us from death to life, really takes us to resurrection; it is that faith that we know what happens here, we know how much the whole Trinity loves us, we know that the whole action of the whole Church has been at work all along to recover each of us and all of us together. Entering that faith does not need signs, it gets us into a new dimension. That is the passage.

In some ways, looking for signs – and this applies also when we want to become better (to mention something good) – leads us always to stay under what we could be, under “the Great Barrier.” But living faith means going beyond “the Great Barrier,” by faith. Then, everything comes our way.

This is the week of the Communion of Saints. If we move into that faith, they all come to us. Otherwise, we do not see them. We have them around us, but… There is a whole action of grace, but we always wait for a confirmation, and it seems that we recognise this action only when “I make a sign of the cross now and it stops raining.” And then? I do not know if you understand what I mean.

Let us try to take part in Mass and celebrate it today according to the intentions of Most Holy Mary, offering ourselves for her intentions, to live what She lived. She lived in that manner I described. We think that if St Gabriel also appears to us, we would believe as She did. That is not true. If it really were so, I guarantee you that St Gabriel would appear to each of us, if it would serve to make us believe.

Because God leaves nothing undone to bring us to faith. Do we need an angel? He would send him to us. Do we need the faithful brothers and sisters? We would see them. We do not see them because even seeing them we run the risk of not making this leap in faith, of lowering them too to our level. It is going beyond that.

Let us get ready.

And God Almighty have mercy on us, have mercy on this humanity, have mercy on our purposes, intentions; forgive all our faults and lead us to eternal life.

Even today St Paul and the Gospel (please begin to look at readings always from this perspective) are as always an affirmation of how God guides the history of every man and woman and everyone together, so that all may come to the full knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. But why? Because only by knowing Christ we encounter Life. And it is right there that we all get confused, and it is normal I would say. We think that life is all what we do and live every day. From the beginning of time, after original sin, what is Life for the Lord is to know Him¹. Because, if we do not meet Christ first, we do not even live. Until we really meet Jesus Christ, His Person, His mind, we do not live, we just survive.

Life is the greatest gift we have, we always say. But why? Because through that gift we can return to the One who begot us. Not because we have to die or we have to live badly here, but the measure of how we live here depends on how much we meet Him. Then everything is good, everything is beautiful, everything is right when we start from seeking and encountering Him. Everything we do outside of this is wasted time, misspent and only procures disappointment, discontent.

St Paul to the Ephesians states just that. In the mind of Christ, all that He established even “apostles, teachers …”: but all for what? For us to help each other come to know Christ. Unfortunately, we have come to always tie our identity and mission, and even the identity and mission of the Church, i.e. the people of God, to the Earth. So, maybe, to build a healthy structure, healthy relationships, a world where there is no more hunger, no more war. All beautiful things, but we cannot do them if we do not start from Christ. He wants us to do all this together with Him, but we must start from Him. And then also our identity as individuals and all together, that we form the Church, is made to help us know Christ, not for anything else. Perhaps, you will say to me, “obvious”, but try to live it instead of just saying “obvious”. I am not wrong in thinking that, instead, we see our identity and abilities in the measure of living well here. But that is not the point.

Next year, we know it is the Jubilee Year – I repeat it at every Liturgy, and I will continue –, it is a central year for each of us and for the whole Mystical Body, for the whole Church. It is a central year because even all our preparation, formation, calling, to live together,… everything we have done, also the consecrations, everything leads there, it leads to live our priesthood, it leads to become that instrument as a people that must be a sacrament of salvation for humanity, the last one, to recover everything that can be recovered.

We started preparing ourselves for the Jubilee Year in August, when instead the humanity of the Earth will start on December 24 to experience the Jubilee Year. What I am telling you is what I think for myself and what the three of us think. Often, we prepare for great solemnities whit novenas, and we think about what we can do to prepare. We also know that St Francis did forty days of preparation, did lent for Advent, he did Lent, then lent for the Assumption and for the feast of St Michael. I think it is right that we also try to think, each one personally, how to prepare for that event, for next year. And everyone knows how. I do not tell you to fast or make sacrifices that, although useful, can also become dangerous because they go to cover holes, to make you feel proud as well. I think it would be good if each of us looked ourselves and, perhaps, discovered that there is reconciliation to be done. To be able between now and next year or at least by the end of next year to reconcile, to give forgiveness, to receive it also, not to run away from a situation that we would rather not look at, which instead we leave in God’s Heart; a situation for which we have prayed for and for which it is maybe time to get through it. Everyone knows his own situations, everyone knows how to see them.

Another very nice way is: publicly admitting one’s flaw, admitting it in the nucleus, admitting it in a couple, openly admitting, “I am realizing that I have this. I am realizing that I am like this.” Admit it. Not wanting to change yourself, just admit it! Just saying it, publicly. In my opinion, this is a good way to prepare ourselves.

We have said many times that limits are our field of action, where our priesthood operates: becoming more and more aware of this, and then realizing in this communion of saints, which we also go to celebrate this week, that the saints – because in any case even if we are limited we are still saints, in the sense as St Paul understands it, addressing the saints who are in Ephesus, in Corinth – who are closest to me are those with my limit. To know that my group is made up of that limit, that this limit is our strength when we go and offer ourselves on the altar and take all these souls with us; that through this limit in the hands of God we become a bomb against Lucifer. It is important in these months ahead of us to have this awareness.

Still talking about the limit, I say one more thing. Last time I mentioned how God had forbidden the apostles to talk about Him until they really met Him. We read this week St Paul, just yesterday he said, “I who am the prisoner of Christ.”² In other passages he defined himself “in chains for Christ”³. Do not think it is because he was in prison or in chains. That’s what he was as well, but he was Christ’s prisoner and he was chained for Christ, because of the love he had for Christ: not chained by men, but he had chained his old man. Do you understand what I mean? He had put his old man in prison. Because in the same passages he says, “I am in chains” … “but the word of God is free. I am in prison, but I am free. I am in prison, but I reach anyone. I may be in prison but now more than ever I can operate.” The old man should be put in prison, old thoughts, old ideas, old habits, old religiosity, the old way of thinking should be put in prison. Do it for the sake of Christ. This is also a beautiful preparation: chain the old man, in prison.

Another step in my opinion that is important in this time is, starting from the limits, to learn, however, to share (aloud), who in the couples, who in the nucleus, also our own steps of transformation, the miracles that God has done in us. To share how we recognize that perhaps through a trial, through a struggle God has transformed us, imprisoned the old man and freed the new man. Share it.

When St Paul says, “Exchange among yourselves the word of God,” that is the word of God. It is not God’s word just to say, “The Gospel says, St Paul says, and St Joseph says, Our Lady says, Father Tomislav says, Mauro says.” Share what God has done in you, your transformation. If we want to recognize the events that are happening on Earth, we must also recognize those that are happening in us. I repeat, seeing one’s own limitedness is an event, confiding it is an event; then seeing that I can do something I would never have done, a thought I would never have had, is an event. Sharing it, exchanging it.

We always think that communion is saying, “I think this way, I would do this way, I would decide this way.” We always put the “I” in front. How beautiful, however, when in sharing to say, “God did, God changed my mind, He made me beat my head, but I changed and I thank Him.” It is no longer “me, me, me”, it is God, it is God’s action. Those are subtleties, yes, but, if we do not go through those, now, we do not move.

And it is not just about our own transformation. To also say to the other person, “You have really changed! I recognize that God has transformed you. When I think about how you were last year or how you were yesterday and I look at you today, then it is really true that God exists. I just have to look at you.” This is exchanging, communicating, this is attracting souls. This makes it possible that at that moment “where two or three are in my name, I am there.”⁴; at that moment a Mass is celebrated, even if we do not do as we do today, because the souls come, they listen, they watch, and afterwards you bring them to the Mass, but before you call them.

It is always about the usual dynamic: the old man, the one we must imprison, with whom does he mirror? How does he compare himself? He always compares himself according to the spirit of the world, and then he always compares himself on his own abilities, on what he knows how to do, what he has understood; he always compares himself, even in good faith: “In my opinion it is so, I have seen so.” I would say he always compares himself using his mind, the soul. He compares himself on concrete things.

The new man is the opposite. The new man rejoices in the freedom that arises within him when he sees his own limit, and he feels that God goes beyond his limit; when he sees that he cannot make it, but still feels peace within himself, “It is impossible for me but not for God.” The new man rejoices in the simple but true things, in that peace that remains. The old man wants signs. The old man would like to change things; the new man is only interested in contemplating God’s action that puts everything in order. This is not the same thing! The old man seeks wisdom; the new man does not. The old man wants to know; the new man is satisfied with everything God tells him, he wants no more and no less. He lives that life which is knowing the Father, but he knows that it is the Father who manages that life, who gives in the right measure, at the right time; that it is the Father who has put the right instruments around you, who has given you the right weights. And at this point the new man lets the Holy Spirit instruct him from within, because, as St Paul said to the Ephesians, God has foreseen apostles, teachers, shepherds, He has foreseen everything. And the new man does not try to be he teacher, apostle, shepherd; he wants to be who he is in God.

In my opinion, this time, if we live it in this way will ensure that when we open this Holy Door, this people – not just some, all together – we will truly enter into a year of “harvest,” to uplift many souls and see them begin more and more to know true life. The world presents another life; that is where the clash is.

I ask Mary Most Holy to accompany us more and more. I ask Her, together with St Joseph, to truly open within us those deep joys that come from knowing that we are beloved and saved children. And that our joy, in this way, may be poured out on all those who are, instead, still undecided and in struggle, in trial, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.