{"id":328016,"date":"2016-02-26T05:00:27","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T04:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/word-of-life-march-2016\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:03:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:03:08","slug":"word-of-life-march-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/word-of-life-march-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of Life &#8211; March 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>God\u2019s kingdom is Jesus present among us. We experience this when we love one another. He is almighty and conquers every evil. <\/p>\n<div class=\"textLayer\">  This is what the Jews of the time of Jesus were waiting for: the arrival of God\u2019s kingdom. As soon as he began going around the villages and towns, Jesus started to proclaim: \u2018The kingdom of God has come near to you\u2019 (Lk 10:9). Then immediately after that: \u2018<em> The kingdom of God has come to you<\/em>\u2019; \u2018the kingdom of God is among you\u2019 (Lk 17:21). <\/p>\n<div>In the person of Jesus, God\u2019s very self had come into the midst of God\u2019s people and, decisively and with strength, taken back control of history so as to lead it to its goal. Jesus\u2019s miracles were a sign of this. In the person of Jesus, God\u2019s very self had come into the midst of God\u2019s people and, decisively and with strength, taken back control of history so as to lead it to its goal. Jesus\u2019s miracles were a sign of this.<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> In the Gospel passage that this Word of Life comes from, Jesus had just healed a man who was mute, freeing him from the devil who held him prisoner. It was the demonstration that he had come to conquer evil, every evil, and finally establish the kingdom of God.  This term \u2018the kingdom of God\u2019 was the Jewish people\u2019s way of saying that God acted for the sake of Israel, freeing the people from every form of slavery and evil, guiding them to justice and peace, flooding them with joy and good things. This was the act of that God who Jesus revealed as \u2018Father\u2019 \u2013 mysterious, loving and full of compassion, aware of the needs and sufferings of each of his children. We too need to hear Jesus\u2019s proclamation:  <strong> \u2018The kingdom of God has come to you.\u2019<\/strong>  Looking around us we often have the impression that the world is dominated by evil, that the violent and the corrupt have the upper hand. At times we feel ourselves at the mercy of hostile forces, of dangerous events stronger than we are. We feel impotent in the face of wars and environmental calamity, of massacres and climate change, of migration and financial and economic crises.  Yet this is where Jesus\u2019s proclamation is set. It invites us to believe that he, right now, is conquering evil and is establishing a new world. In the month of March twenty five years ago, speaking to thousands of young people, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/chiara-lubich\/\">Chiara Lubich<\/a> entrusted them with her dream, \u2018it is possible to make the world a better place&#8230;. almost a single family, as if belonging to just one country.\u2019 Then as now this looked like a utopia. For the dream to become reality, however, she invited them to live mutual love, in the certainty that acting like this they would have had \u2018Christ among you, Christ himself, the Almighty, and from him you can hope for all things.\u2019  Yes, it is he who is the kingdom of God.  And so, what do we do? Act in such a way as to have him always in our midst. Chiara went on to say: He himself will work with you in your countries because he will, in a certain way, come again into the world wherever you meet, because you will make him present through your mutual love, through your unity. And he will enlighten you about all that is to be done. He will guide you, he will sustain you, he will be your strength, your fervour, your joy. Because of him, the world around you will be converted to living in harmony; every division will be healed&#8230;. Love, therefore, love among you and love sown in many corners of the earth among individuals, among groups, among nations; love sown by every means possible so that the invasion of love, of which we have spoken at times in the past, may become a reality and so that, also through your contribution, the civilization of love we all await may begin to take on solid form. You have been called to this, and you will see great things.<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a>.  <em>Fabio Ciardi<\/em>  <a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a>. Address to the fourth international youth festival (Genfest) of \u2018Youth for a United World,\u2019Paleur sports stadium, Rome, 31 March 1990 in Chiara Lubich, Essential Writings, (London and New York, 2007), 366.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018The kingdom of God has come to you.\u2019 (Lk 11:20)<\/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":[1,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato","category-word-of"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328016","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=328016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}