June 2002
Jesus’ way of behaving was so new with respect to the mainstream mentality that it often scandalized respectable people. Like the time he told Matthew to follow him and then had lunch with him. Matthew was a tax collector, and consequently, not very popular with the people; on the contrary, he was considered to be a public sinner, an enemy at the service of the Roman Empire.
Why, ask the Pharisees, does Jesus eat with a sinner? Wouldn’t it be better for him to stay away from certain people? This question offered Jesus the opportunity to explain that he specifically wants to encounter sinners, just as a physician goes out to the sick. And he concludes by telling the Pharisees to go and study the meaning of the words of God written in the Hebrew Testament by the Prophet Hosea: “For it is mercy that I desire, not sacrifice” (See Hosea 6:5).
Why does God want us to be merciful? Because he wants us to be like him. We must be similar to him just as children are similar to their father and mother. Throughout the Gospel, Jesus speaks to us of the Father’s love for the good and for the evil, for the just and for sinners: for each one, without discrimination and without excluding anyone. If he has preferences it is for those who would not seem to deserve to be loved, as in the parable of the prodigal son.
“Be merciful,” explains Jesus, “just as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36): this is perfection (See Mt 5:48).
«Go and learn the meaning of the words, ’I desire mercy, not sacrifice’»
Jesus extends the same invitation to each one of us today: “Go and learn…” But where should we go? Who can teach us what it means to be merciful? One person alone, Jesus, who went in search of the lost sheep, who forgave those who betrayed and crucified him, who gave his life for our salvation. In order to learn how to be merciful like the Father, perfect like him, we need to look at Jesus, who fully reveals the Father’s love. He said: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9).
«Go and learn the meaning of the words, ’I desire mercy, not sacrifice’»
Why mercy and not sacrifice? Because love is the absolute value which gives meaning to all the rest, even to worship, even to sacrifice. In fact, the sacrifice most pleasing to God is concrete love towards our neighbor, which finds its highest expression in mercy.
Mercy always helps us to see people in a new way, the people with whom we live every day at home, at school, at work, without looking back at their faults and mistakes. It enables us not to judge, but to forgive the wrongs we have received. Indeed, to forget them.
Our sacrifice will not consist so much in long vigils and fasting, or in sleeping on the floor, but rather in opening our heart to all those we meet, good and bad alike.
This was done by a man who worked in the admission and accounting department of a hospital. His village had been burned to the ground by his “enemies”. One day he saw a man arriving with a sick relative. He immediately recognized from their accent that they were those “enemies”; in fact, the sick man was frightened and didn’t want to reveal his identity for fear that he would be sent away.
The hospital employee didn’t ask for any documents; he helped him even though he had to overcome the hatred he had been harboring within himself. In the following days, he was able to assist the patient on various occasions. On the last day of his stay in the hospital, when the “enemy” came to pay his bill, he said to the employee: “I must confess something that you don’t know”. And he replied: “I knew who you were from the very first day.” “Why did you help me if you knew that I was your ‘enemy’?”
For us too then, as for him, mercy is born from love which sacrifices itself for others following the example of Jesus who reached the point even of giving up his life for everyone.
Chiara Lubich
May 2002
Matthew, the evangelist, begins his Gospel by recalling that Jesus, whose story he is about to narrate, is Emmanuel, which means God is with us, and he concludes it by repeating these words of Jesus, his promise to remain with us always, even after he has gone back to heaven. He will be “God is with us” until the end of the age.
Jesus addresses these words to the disciples after entrusting them with the task of bringing his message to the whole world. He was well aware of the fact that he was sending them like sheep in the midst of wolves and that they would meet with adversity and persecutions. This is why he doesn’t want to leave them alone in their mission. And so in the very moment in which he is leaving, he promises to stay! They’ll no longer be able to see him with their eyes, they won’t be able to hear his voice, they won’t be able to touch him, but he will be present in their midst, as he was before; indeed, more than before. Up until then, his presence was localized in one precise place, in Capernaum, on the lake, in the mountains, or in Jerusalem. Instead, from now on, he will be wherever his disciples are.
Jesus was also thinking of all of us living out day after day what can sometimes be a complex lifestyle. Because he is incarnate Love, he might have thought: I would like to be with them always, to share their daily worries, to give them advice; I would like to walk down the streets with them, enter their homes, enliven their joy with my presence.
This is why he wanted to remain with us and make us feel his closeness, his strength, his love.
Luke’s Gospel tells that after having seen him ascend to heaven, the disciples “returned to Jerusalem with great joy”. How could it be? They had experienced the reality of those words of his.
We too will be full of joy if we truly believe in Jesus’ promise:
«And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age»
These words, the last words that Jesus addresses to the disciples, mark the end of his earthly life and, at the same time, the beginning of the life of the Church in which he is present in many ways: in the Eucharist, in his Word, in his ministers (bishops, priests), in the poor, in the little ones, in the marginalized… in every neighbor.
We like to underline one particular presence of Jesus, that which he himself indicated to us in the Gospel of Matthew: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” He would like to be present everywhere in this way.
If we live what he commands, especially his new commandment, we can experience this presence of his even outside of church, in the midst of a crowd, wherever this presence of his is kept alive, everywhere.
What is asked of us is mutual love, made up of service and understanding, of sharing in the sufferings, anxieties and joys of our brothers and sisters; a love which endures everything, which forgives everything, typical of Christianity.
Let us live in this way so that everyone may be given the opportunity to meet with him already on this earth.
Chiara Lubich
april 2002
In John’s Gospel, “seeing” Jesus is of capital importance. It’s the evident proof that God truly became man. In the very first pages of the Gospel we read the impassioned witness of the Apostle: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory” (Jn 1:14).
We hear the exclamations of those who saw Jesus especially after his resurrection. Mary of Magdala announced: “I have seen the Lord” (Jn 20:18), and the apostles as well: “We have seen the Lord” (Jn 20:24). Also the disciple whom Jesus loved “saw and believed” (Jn 20:8).
The only apostle who didn’t see the risen Lord was Thomas, because he wasn’t present on Easter day when the Lord appeared to the other disciples. They all believed because they had seen him. Thomas would have believed too, he said, if, like the others, he had seen. Jesus held him to his word and eight days after the resurrection, he showed himself to Thomas so that he too would believe. When Thomas saw Jesus standing in front of him, he burst forth with the most profound and complete profession of faith ever pronounced in the New Testament: “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28). Then Jesus said to him: “You have come to believe because you have seen me.”
«Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed!»
Like Thomas, we too would like to see Jesus, especially when we feel alone, when we are undergoing a trial or suffering hardships…. We can relate to those Greeks who went up to Philip and said: “Sir, we would like to see Jesus” (Jn 12:21). How beautiful it would be, we tell one another, if we had lived during the time of Jesus: we would have been able to see him, to touch him, to listen to him, to speak with him…. If only he could appear to us too, as he appeared to Mary of Magdala, to the Twelve, to the disciples…
The people who were with him were really blessed. Even Jesus said so in a beatitude reported in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke: “Blessed are your eyes, because they see [me]” (Mt 13:16). 10:23 “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see” (Lk 10:23). And yet, Jesus told Thomas of another beatitude:
«Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed!»
Jesus was thinking of us. We can no longer see him with these eyes of ours, but we can see him with the eyes of faith. Actually, our situation is not very different from those who lived during the time of Jesus. Then, too, it wasn’t enough to see him. Many of the people who saw him didn’t believe in him. With the eyes of their body they saw a man. Other eyes were needed to recognize him as the Son of God.
Many of the early Christians hadn’t personally seen Jesus. They, too, lived the beatitude which we are called to live today. In the first letter of Peter we read: “Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of (your) faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Pt 1:8-9).
It was very clear to the early Christians that the faith Jesus was speaking of comes from love. Believing means discovering that we are loved by God. It means opening our hearts to grace and allowing ourselves to be invaded by his love. It means entrusting ourselves completely to this love by responding to it with our love. If you love, God is present in you and bears witness to himself within you. He gives us an entirely new outlook to the reality around us. Faith makes us see events from his viewpoint. It makes us discover his plan for us, for others, and for all creation.
«Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed!»
Theresa of the Child Jesus is a luminous example of this new way of seeing things with the eyes of faith. One night, because of tuberculosis which would lead to her death, she spit up blood. She could have said: “I spit up blood.” Instead, she said: “My Spouse has arrived.” She believed without seeing. She believed that Jesus was coming to visit her in that suffering and that he loved her: her Lord and her God.
Faith helps us to see everything with new eyes, as it helped Theresa of the Child Jesus. Just as she translated that event into “God loves me”, we too can translate every event of our life into “God loves me”, or “It’s you who have come to visit me”, or “My Lord and my God” (Jn 20:28).
In heaven we will see God as he is, but even now faith opens our heart to the realities of heaven and enables us to glimpse everything in the light of heaven.
Chiara Lubich
March 2002
In this “pearl” of the Gospel, Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman near Jacob’s well, he speaks of water as the simplest of elements, but one that proves to be the most desired, the most vital for whoever is familiar with the desert. No great explanations were needed to convey the importance of water.
Spring water is for our natural life, whereas the living water that Jesus is speaking of is for eternal life.
Just as the desert blooms only after an abundant rainfall, similarly the seeds buried in us at baptism can bud forth only if sprinkled with the word of God. Then the plant grows, it gives off new shoots and shapes into a tree or into a very lovely flower, all because it receives the living water of the word of God which sparks life and preserves it for eternity.
«Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life»
Jesus’ words are addressed to all of us who are thirsty in this world: to those who are conscious of their spiritual aridity and who still suffer thirst, and to those who are not even aware of the need to drink from the fountain of true life and of the great values of humanity.
Actually, Jesus is extending an invitation to all men and women today, revealing where we can find the answer to our questions and the fulfillment of all our desires.
It is up to us, therefore, to draw from his words, to let ourselves be imbued with his message.
How?
By re-evangelizing our life, measuring it against his words, trying to think with the mind of Jesus and to love with his heart.
Every moment in which we seek to live the Gospel is like drinking a drop of that living water. Every gesture of love for our neighbor is like a sip of that water.
Yes, because that water, which is so alive and precious, has something special about it. It wells up within us each time we open our heart to others. It’s a wellspring of God which gives water to us in the measure in which it flows out to quench the thirst of others through small or big acts of love.
«Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life»
We’ve understood, then: to avoid suffering thirst, we must give to others the living water that we draw from him within ourselves.
Very little is needed, at times a word, a smile, a simple gesture of solidarity, to give us a renewed sense of fulfillment, of profound satisfaction, a surge of joy. And if we continue to give, this fountain of peace and life will pour out water evermore abundantly and never dry up.
Jesus revealed to us yet another secret, a kind of bottomless well from which we can draw. When two or three are united in his name, by loving one another with his very own love, he is in their midst (see Mt 18:20). And it is then that we are free, that we are one, full of light, with rivers of living water flowing from within us” (see Jn 7:38). It’s the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise because it is from Jesus himself, present in our midst, that quenching water wells up for eternity.
Chiara Lubich
February 2002
This is the answer Jesus gave to the first of the temptations in the desert after having fasted for “forty days and forty nights”. It concerns one of our most basic needs, food.
Thus the tempter proposes to use his powers to transform the stones into loaves of bread. What evil could there be in satisfying an inherent need of human nature?
However, Jesus is aware of the deceit behind the proposal: the suggestion is to use God, expecting that he put himself at the service of our material needs. Actually, Jesus is being asked to assume an attitude of independence rather than one of filial abandonment to the Father.
This then is Jesus’ answer, which is also an answer to all our questions concerning hunger in the world and to the increasingly dramatic demand for food, housing, and clothing on the part of millions of human beings. He who will feed the crowds by miraculously multiplying the loaves and who will base the final judgement also on giving food to the hungry, tells us that God is greater than our hunger and that his word is our primary and essential nourishment.
«It is written: ’One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God’»
Jesus presents the word of God as bread, as nourishment. This thought, this likeness sheds light on our relationship with his word.
But how can we nourish ourselves with the word of God?
Just as wheat is first seed, then an ear of grain, and finally bread, similarly, the word of God is like a seed placed in us that must sprout. It’s like a piece of bread that is to be eaten, assimilated, transformed into life of our life.
The Word of God, the Logos pronounced by the Father and incarnated in Jesus, is a presence of his among us. Every time we receive it and seek to put it into practice, it’s like nourishing ourselves with Jesus.
While bread nourishes us and helps us to grow, the word of God nourishes and helps Christ to grow in us, our true personality.
The fact that Jesus came on earth and made himself our food means that a purely natural food like bread can no longer be enough for us. We need that supernatural food, God’s word, in order to grow as his children.
«It is written: ’One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God’»
The nature of this food is such that we can say of it, as of Jesus in the Eucharist, that when we eat it, it is not transformed into us, but we are transformed into him, because we are, in a way, assimilated by him.
Thus the Gospel is not a book of consolation in which we take refuge solely in painful moments, but it is the code that contains the laws of life, laws which are not only to be read, but assimilated, eaten, with the soul, thus making us similar to Christ in every instant.
Therefore, we can be another Jesus fully accomplishing his doctrine to the letter. His are the words of a God, charged with unexpected revolutionary force.
This is what we must do: nourish ourselves with the word of God. And just as the necessary nourishment for our body can nowadays be concentrated in a single pill, likewise, we can nourish ourselves with Christ by living his words one at a time, because he is present in each one of them.
There is a word for each moment, for each situation of our life. Reading the Gospel can reveal it to us.
Let us live now love of neighbor out of love for God, which is like a concentrate of all his words.
Chiara Lubich