October 2003
Jesus’ way of acting and speaking is always a little puzzling. In this case, he breaks with the commonly held view of children as socially insignificant beings. The apostles don’t want them around him in their “adult” world where children are only a nuisance. Even the high priests and scribes become “indignant” when they see “the wondrous things he was doing, and the children crying out in the temple area, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David.’” They ask Jesus to reprimand them (see Mt 21:15-16). Instead, Jesus has a completely different attitude towards children: he calls them to him; he embraces them; he places his hands on them and he blesses them; and he even holds them up as models for his disciples.
«…for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these»
In another passage of the Gospel, Jesus says that “unless you change and become like children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3).
Why does the kingdom of God belong to those who are like children? Because children confidently abandon themselves to the care of their fathers and mothers; they believe in their love. When they are in their arms, they feel safe and unafraid. And when they sense that there is danger, they hold on even more tightly to their mom or dad, and they immediately feel protected. At times, we’ve seen a parent put a child in a high place, for example, and then tell him or her to jump. And the child takes a leap with complete trust.
This is the way Jesus wants the disciples of the kingdom of heaven to be. Authentic Christians, like children, believe in the love of God. They throw themselves into the arms of their heavenly Father, and they trust him unconditionally. Nothing frightens them anymore because they never feel alone. Even when a time of trial comes along, they believe in God’s love, for they believe that everything that happens is for their good. Are they worried about something? They put it in the Father’s hands, and with child-like trust they believe he will resolve everything. They abandon themselves completely, as a child does, without calculating the risks.
«…for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these»
Children are totally dependent on their parents for their food, clothing, home, care, education, and so on. So, too, do we “children of the Gospel” depend completely on the Father. He nourishes us as he nourishes the birds of the air. He clothes us as he adorns the wild flowers. He knows what we need even before we ask him for it (see Mt 6:26), and he gives it to us. Even the kingdom of God is not something that we ourselves achieve; we receive it as a gift from the hands of the Father.
Furthermore, children do not do evil, for they don’t even know what it is. Disciples of the Gospel avoid evil by loving. Thus, they keep themselves pure and regain their innocence.
Because children are not burdened by experience, they face life enthusiastically, always in search of new adventures. The “children of the Gospel” believe in God’s mercy, and, forgetting the past, they begin a new life each day in openness to the promptings of the Spirit, which are always creative.
Children do not learn to speak on their own; they need to be taught. The disciples of Jesus do not follow their own reasoning; they learn everything from the word of God to the point of speaking and living according to the Gospel.
Children are inclined to imitate their father. If you ask them: “What do you want to do when you grow up?” they often say that they want to follow their mother’s or their father’s profession. The same applies to the “children of the Gospel.” They imitate their heavenly Father who is Love, and they love as he does. They love everyone because the Father makes the sun rise and the rain fall on the just and the unjust alike (see Mt 5:45). They are the first to love because He loved us while we were still sinners (see Rm 5:8). They love freely, without selfish interests, because this is what the heavenly Father does.
This is why Jesus likes to be surrounded by children and points to them as models.
“Let the children come to me; do not stop them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
Children continue to surprise us. Betty, a six-year-old from Milan, wrote to me: “Yesterday Daddy asked me to go to the cellar to get something. The stairway was dark and I was afraid. Then I prayed to Jesus and I felt that he was close to me.”
Irene, Hillary and Laura, three sisters from Florence, got into the car with their mother to go shopping. They passed by their grandfather’s house and asked if they could go in to see him. “You go,” said their mother, “I’ll wait for you here.” When they returned, they asked: “Why didn’t you come, mom?” She replied: “Your grandfather hurt my feelings. This will make him realize what he did.”
Hillary replied, “But mom, we have to love everyone, even our enemies.” Her mother didn’t know what to say. She looked at her children and smiled, “You’re right. Wait for me here.” And she went in to see their grandfather.
We can learn from children to welcome the kingdom of God.
Chiara Lubich
No matter what, don’t give up!
My new job as a dental aide could not have started any better: a good salary and a bright future. After a few months, the rosy horizon darkened. “You’re too slow and the colour of the patient’s teeth doesn’t come out as it should be,” my boss started telling me – at first once in a while, then almost daily. I couldn’t understand. Every morning when he distributed the jobs, he would almost ignore me and it seemed that he was always on the verge of firing me. In the evening when we reported after a hard day’s work, almost always I had to do everything all over again. I lived through days of inner tension and struggle. I felt tempted to rebel; judgements against by boss started piling up within me, but I kept trying “to cut” and “start again” each day. One morning, I went to work under the pouring rain. The storm was like a picture of what I felt inside. Then I remembered the image of Jesus crucified which I have kept in my room for years; in those days I would gaze at it without getting a reply. I realized that I was like him when he cried out and then entrusted himself to the Father, believing in his love. And slowly, an idea made its way inside me: “Keep on loving, and no matter what, don’t give up!” When I got to work, I tried to interiorize all the suggestions my boss had given me, setting aside the subtle mistrust which had been with me for months. I then regained the inner freedom I had lost. A short time afterwards, my boss called me. He said he had just had a check-up with his eye doctor, who discovered that he had a defect in his vision. This was what caused him tension and altered his ability to distinguish colours. So that was the cause of our arguments! and of all the over-time work! Some days later, during a conversation with him, he said among other things: “I’m getting close to retirement age. I thought of proposing that you take over my clinic, because I saw that in the face of difficulty, you don’t give up.” F. L.
September 2003
These are shocking words. Jesus says that we should cut off our foot or our hand, that we should pluck out our eye if they cause us to sin. We know that these words are not to be taken literally, even though they have all the power of a two-edged sword (see Heb 4:12). They are his way of telling us that in the face of whatever might be an occasion of sin, we must be ready to give up everything, even things and persons dear to us, rather than lose what is truly valuable: “to enter life”, that is, communion with God and our salvation.
These words in the Gospels—“causes you to sin”—indicate all that stands between us and God, hindering us from carrying out his will; anything that is like a stick wedged in a wheel to prevent us from following Jesus, like a trap to make us fall into sin. There are times when our eye, our hand, or foot “cause us to sin,” that is, they would bring us to the point of denying Jesus, of betraying him, of preferring other things to him.
Santa Scorese, a 23-year-old girl from Bari, southern Italy, understood this very well. In 1991 she preferred death to losing her purity when threatened by a young man her age. God was worth more to her than her own life.
«If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell»
This Word of Life unmasks the “old self” (see Eph 4:22) in us. In fact, sin doesn’t come from external things, from the outside, but from within us, from our hearts. The “old self” lives in us when we give in to the allurements of evil and satisfy our worst inclinations: selfishness, hunger for power, glory, or money… The “old self” must surrender to the “new self” (see Eph 4:24), that is, to Jesus in us.
Are we ourselves capable of uprooting the inordinate passions in our heart and generating the divine life within us? Only Jesus, through his death, can make our “old self” die and, through his resurrection, transform us into new men and women. He can give us courage and determination in the fight against evil, as well as a faithful and radical love for what is good. From him comes that inner freedom, that peace and inexpressible joy which lifts us above all the world’s evils and enables us to experience, even now, a foretaste of heaven.
«If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell»
The “new self” in us must grow and be protected from the traps of the “old self.” What should we do? Back in 1949 I wrote: “There are many ways to have a clean room—picking up one straw at a time, using a small or big broom, or a big vacuum cleaner, etc. Or else we could move to another room where it is clean, and everything would be done. That is how it is in our journey to holiness. Rather than working hard to remove one fault after another, we can immediately set our own selves aside and allow Jesus to live within us. We can transfer to another person: to our neighbor, for example, who is beside us moment by moment, and begin to live his or her life fully.”
To love! This is Jesus’ entire doctrine. Let’s refine or purify our hearts to make it capable of listening to others, of identifying with the problems and worries of our neighbors, and sharing their joys and sufferings. May we break down the barriers that still divide us, overcome judgments and criticisms, and come out from our isolation to put ourselves at the service of the needy and the lonely, and build everywhere the unity Jesus desired.
If we live this way, God will draw us into an ever more intimate union with himself and render us almost unyielding and invincible in the face of the errors and attractions of the world.
«If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell»
Jesus also tells us to drastically “cut off” whatever (things, persons, or situations) could be occasions of sin for us, thus underlining the “deny yourself” of the Gospel (see Mk 8:34). A Christian has the courage to go against selfish tendencies so that they don’t become a lifestyle.
During this month let us go out of ourselves by loving those around us and cut off any attachments to all that we should not love. Let’s clean up all that needs to be removed from our heart. No sacrifice is too great if we want to preserve our communion with God. Every cut will make joy bloom in our hearts—true joy, that which the world does not know.
Chiara Lubich
August 2003
A God who speaks with us as with friends! The people of Israel were proud to have a God who was so close to them, who gave them such just laws and norms (see Dt 4: 7-8), as we read in this passage from Deuteronomy, which is part of the Old (or First) Testament.
Precisely because the word of God is extraordinarily fascinating there is the danger of believing that all we have to do is to listen to it; instead the word of God must be lived. This is the point.
In the New Testament as well, the apostle James warned the first Christians: “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves” (Js 1:22). Moses taught the same thing when he addressed these words to all the Israelites:
«Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decrees which I am teaching you to observe»
It is clear then that we must listen to the word of God and live it.
Besides, Jesus himself is present in his words, they are Jesus himself. His words are eternal, therefore suited to every moment. They are universal, valid for everyone over and above every race and culture. They are not simply exhortations, suggestions, commands, as human words might be; his words contain and transmit Life.
At the end of his great sermon on the mount, Jesus left us a famous parable in this regard (see Mt 7: 24-27). He compares a house built on sand to people who enthusiastically listen to his words, but then do not translate them into life. The winds and rains come, that is, other easier and alluring human proposals, doctrines that enchant and deceive with their passing glitter, and these people pitifully collapse because the Gospel message did not become life in them.
Then Jesus compares people who put his words into practice to a house built on rock: there might be trials, temptations, doubts, confusion, but these people remain steadfast along the way of the Gospel, they continue to believe in the words of God because they have experienced how true they are.
Living the word of God leads to an authentic revolution in our lives and in that of the community with whom we share the Gospel.
The words of Jesus should be lived with the simplicity of children! He tells us: “Give and gifts will be given to you” (Lk 6: 38). We have experienced so often that the more we give the more we receive! We have never been empty-handed because each time we gave to someone in need we found ourselves with a hundred times as much. And when we didn’t have anything to give? Didn’t Jesus say: “Ask and it will be given to you” (Mt 7:7)? We asked … and our home was filled with all kinds of goods so that we could continue giving to others.
When we are weighed down by a worry over some particular situation which we feel surpasses our strength, by anguish which paralyzes us, let us remember the words of Jesus: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened…” (Mt 11:28), and, casting all our worries onto him, we will see peace return and with it the solution to our problems.
The word of God breaks our ego, it annuls our selfishness, and replaces our way of thinking, of wanting, of acting with that of Jesus. By living it, a divine logic takes over, a Gospel mentality sets in and we see everything with new eyes. Our relationships change: by living the word of God together and sharing the consequent experiences, people who didn’t know one another before discover that they are brothers and sisters, they become a people, the living Church. One single word of the Gospel lived by many could change the course of history.
If the word of God is put into practice it works miracles. Our hearts are filled with a new, boundless trust in the love of our Father who intervenes and helps his children every day. His words are true; if we live them, he too puts them into practice, to the letter, and he gives us what he promises: the hundredfold here on earth, the fullness of life and the never-ending joy of heaven.
Chiara Lubich
Can religious leaders be partners on the pathway towards peace?
“Without brotherhood there is no peace” On the surface, religious pluralism, seems to be a source of division and war. In reality religious pluralism is- Chiara Lubich said in her address -a challenge: all religions are called to work together to re-established the unity of the human family, because in all religions “the Holy Spirit is present and active in some way”. The phenomenon of terrorism, which cannot be fought with conventional means,
shows that religions can make a significant contribution for reaching peace. “The root cause of terrorism” is “grievous suffering” in a world where the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, Chiara Lubich emphasised. There is a great need for more equality, more solidarity, and above all for a more equal distribution of goods. “But, as we know, goods do not move by themselves: we need to first move people’s hearts.” “From whom, if not from the great religious traditions, could there begin a strategy of brotherhood capable of marking a complete turnabout even in international relations?”. In fact without brotherhood- Chiara affirmed -there is no peace. Without losing one’s identity The idea of unity and love is rooted in all religions: “In practice, this means that we are partners on the road to brotherhood and peace.” Chiara underlined that persons of great religious traditions of humanity can meet and understand one another without losing one’s identity. The founder of the Focolare Movement indicated the way of love as the principle means for reaching understanding. “If we begin to dialogue with one another, if we are therefore open with one another in a spirit of good faith, of reciprocal esteem, of respect, of mercy, we are then open to allowing God – as John Paul II once said – to be present amongst us.” Chiara Lubich expressed conviction that it is really with the presence of God that we can find viable solutions to the present problems. The secret of dialogue The Focolare Movement has a wealth of experience in interreligious dialogue: “In an atmosphere of reciprocal love it is possible to establish dialogue with one’s partners. In this dialogue one tries to empty oneself in order to ‘enter’ the other. This ‘making ourselves one with the other,’ Chiara indicated, is the secret for establishing that dialogue that leads to unity. It requires true poverty of spirit: “We need to empty our heads of our notions, to free our hearts of our affections, and our will of its inclinations” in order to be at one with the persons before us and truly understand them. The other remains touched by such an attitude and he or she starts to ask about it (such is Chiara’s experience). “And so we could pass on to a ‘respectful announcement’, and, out of loyalty to God and to ourselves and also in all honesty to our neighbour, explain what our faith upholds regarding a given topic without imposing anything on the other, without intending to convert the other, but simply out of love. It is the moment when, for us Christians, dialogue leads to the announcement of the Good News.” A great simplicity Afterwards, Cornelio Sommaruga, president of “Initiatives of change”, underscored the “extreme simplicity” with which Chiara Lubich shares her message of love. Rajmohan Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi’ grandson, professor at the University of New Delhi, and co- promoter of the seminar, added: “This woman reaches people’s hearts. Not with a loud voice, as many others do, or a forceful manner, but with softness and passion. The interreligious dialogue promoted by Miss Lubich is of great importance, especially in our times”. Rabbi Marc Raphael Guedj, founder of “Racine et Source” (Root and Source) spoke of being very impressed by Chiara, a person who speaks of love by being love, wisdom, the wisdom of daily life,… love that transforms the world”. by Beatrix Ledergerber-Baumer for KIPA agency, 3 agosto 2003 (our translation)