{"id":305694,"date":"2017-11-29T02:10:11","date_gmt":"2017-11-29T01:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/focolare-word-of-life-december-2017\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:35:55","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:35:55","slug":"focolare-word-of-life-december-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/focolare-word-of-life-december-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Focolare Word of Life – December 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

for ages 4-8<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0for ages 9-17<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Print<\/a>\u00a0| Audio<\/a><\/strong> <\/p>\n

\n

A young woman is in her house in Palestine \u2014 a distant, little known corner of the powerful Roman Empire. Suddenly she receives an unexpected, rather disturbing visitor: a messenger from God, asking something of her and awaits her reply. \u201cRejoice!\u2019\u2019 the angel says to Mary. Then he reveals God\u2019s abounding love for her, inviting her to collaborate in fulfilling God\u2019s plans for humanity. With a sense of wonder and joy, Mary accepts the gift of this personal meeting with the Lord. She gives herself entirely to this yet-unknown plan because of her complete trust in God\u2019s love. With her generous and wholehearted \u201cHere am I\u201d, Mary decisively puts herself at the service of God and people, giving a shining example of how to accept God\u2019s will. “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word (Lk 1:38).” <\/strong><\/em> Meditating on this Gospel passage, Chiara Lubich<\/a> wrote in 1981: \u201cTo fulfil his plans, God needs people who surrender themselves to him as humbly and as readily as a servant. \u201cMary is the true representative of humanity, whose destiny she took on. With this attitude, she gives God all the space he needs for his creative action. \u201cHowever, the term \u2018servant of the Lord\u2019 is not only an expression of humility, but also a title of nobility, given to the great servants in salvation history, like Abraham, Moses, David and the prophets.” \u201cTherefore, by using these words, Mary also affirms her greatness.\u2019\u2019 “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word (Lk 1:38).” <\/em> <\/strong> We, too, can discover God\u2019s presence in our lives and listen to the word he says to us, asking us to fulfil part of his design of love, part of his design of love for history, here and now. Our weakness and sense of inadequacy may hinder us. So let us believe the angel\u2019s words, \u201cfor nothing will be impossible with God\u201d (Lk 1:37), and trust in God\u2019s power more than in our own strength. This experience will free us from our limitations and from presuming that we\u2019re self-sufficient. We will find new energy and talents we did not know we had, enabling us to love in our own way. \u201cRight at the start of our marriage,\u201d shared one couple, \u201cwe opened our house to the families of children in our city\u2019s hospitals. More than 100 families came to our house, and we continually tried to create a family atmosphere for them. \u201cWe often received providence, which helped us cover our expenses, but we needed first to be open to welcoming people. \u201cNot long ago, we received some money and decided to put it on one side, being sure it would be useful for somebody. In fact, soon afterwards another request arrived. \u201cIt is all a game of love with God, and our part is just to be ready and play along.\u201d “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word (Lk 1:38).” <\/em> <\/strong> Chiara\u2019s words about accepting the Word of God as Mary did can help us live this phrase of the Gospel. \u201cBeing completely available, knowing that it is not merely human word … As it is the Word of God, it contains a presence of Christ. \u201cSo you can receive Christ, in his Word, within you. Then put it into practice actively and readily, moment by moment. \u201cIf you do this, the world will once again see Christ walking through the streets of our cities. Christ in you, clothed like everyone else. Christ at work in offices, schools and the most varied places; Christ amongst all.\u2019\u2019 Now that we are preparing for Christmas, let us find some time, as Mary did, to spend \u201cone on one\u2019\u2019 with the Lord, perhaps by reading a page of the Gospel. Let us try to recognize his voice in our conscience, which will be enlightened by his Word. We will become more sensitive to the needs of the brothers and sisters we will meet. Let us ask ourselves, how can I be a presence of Jesus today? How can I contribute, where I am, to making all people one family? Saying \u2018\u2018Here am I\u2019\u2019 to God will allow him to sow peace around us and increase the joy in our hearts. Letizia Magri<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word (Lk 1:38).”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2822,92],"tags":[2900],"class_list":["post-305694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato","category-spiritualita-2","category-word-of","tag-spiritualita-dellunita-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}