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Who is Jesus Forsaken for me

Who is Jesus Forsaken for me

Feb 27, 2017 | Non categorizzato

spiritualityCA0008_baumgarten_gesu-abbandonato

Watercolour © A.M Baumgarten

My name’s Noemi, from Paraguay and I am 26. I was asked to explain who Jesus Forsaken is for me. Since I was a child, I have experienced suffering due to the loss of my mother at the age of seven, then of my grandma who raised me up to the age of 17, and of my dad a year later. Recently I was diagnosed with a chronic disease. As Chiara Lubich made us understand, Christ Crucified has never been only pain, misunderstanding, failure, solitude, etc., but also precious moments where I experienced the strong presence of God, like all the many personal graces and many more. While studying in Sophia, in one of the lessons, the professor asked us: “Do you know why Jesus Forsaken is the God of our times?” A classmate raised his hand and said: “Because he stands for pain and must be embraced.”  The professor then told us about that passage in the Gospel in which Jesus dies on the cross and the centurion exclaimed: “This man was really the Son of God!” For the Jews of his time, Jesus was cursed by God. The culture and religious beliefs had not allowed them to recognize the divinity in that man. Instead the centurion, a pagan, managed to see God where the human eyes of his contemporary fellowmen could not. «There is no pain here – continued the professor – here there is Light that makes us see and Wisdom which makes us understand who God really is: He who reveals himself by concealing himself, who empties out himself to make the other emerge, to make himself the other, because He is Love. So this is Jesus Forsaken.» This new comprehension of his identity struck me like lightning and allowed me to find the sense and passion for my studies. This was in order to offer together with the others, through diverse disciplines – all expressions of that sole Wisdom– the answers to the problems of our martyred world, because Jesus Forsaken is concrete, not just a theoretical concept and not even only spiritual. I understood that the organ of thought was the heart that was pierced on the cross and that allows us to see God and be seen by Him. Knowing him better has also helped me to understand not only who God is, but who I am: nothing. Before the Creator I cannot but be nothing since only God is. Jesus in his abandonment became the key to the interpretation of my life, my story, but also the story of my people with their miseries and wealth, along with the desire to live and commit myself for my people by exploiting the gifts He has given me. This vision of Jesus crucified and abandoned is a gift which God, through Chiara Lubich, gave not only to the Focolare Movement, but to the Church and the entire humanity, especially there where God is absent. He has shown us that the farthest from God is closest to Him, just as what happened to the centurion. Jesus Abandoned is not only the “key” to the solution of our personal problems. This is just the first step, the premise to give Him, to look for Him and love Him in the sufferings of humanity.

Word of Life – March 2017

Feb 27, 2017 | Non categorizzato, Word of

for ages 4-8 | for ages 9-14 | for ages 15-17 | MP3 Audio | Print

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. “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!’” The Apostle Paul also experienced this kind of forgiveness, and it completely changed his life. He, the very one who was persecuting Christians,1 met God’s free-given love. It came in a completely unexpectedly way as he was travelling. God then sent him out in his name 2 as an ambassador of reconciliation. 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.3 Through Paul the Gospel message reached and fascinated even pagans, those thought to be furthest from salvation: “Be reconciled to God!” he said. 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: “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. “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 behaviour should make this truth credible. “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 neighbour, 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.” 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

  1. See Acts 22:4 ff.
  2. See 2 Cor 5:
  3. See Eph 2:13 f