Dear friends in Christ,
Throughout the course of our lives, we find ourselves confronted with the principle that binds us together. There is a mystical presence that operates within us. It moves among us with a gentle and tender whispering sound that is so loud to a heart immersed in deep silent prayer and spiritual discernment. Surely there is something within us that tends towards what is beautiful, perfect, and true. It is the principle of love, God’s love. It is God’s love present among us that creates a deep desire for great sanctity, for joy, for goodness, for justice and peace, for truth and beauty, for sacrifice, for unity and love. And like a great magnet that draws everything to itself, absorbing all the small particles to itself, we are also being drawn together and guided by this principle of love, the mystical presence of God. Our Lord says, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them” – Matthew 18:20.
We read in the book of Genesis 2:7, “then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” The Most Holy Trinity gave something of Himself to the man. He breathed His spirit, this principle of love, into the human person. My friends, this is what binds us together. Every human person on this planet has the same breath of life, the same spirit from God. Everyone. Therefore, we are drawn together by what is common to all of us. And when we draw near or rather drawn to this burning yet never consumed fountain of love, it takes hold of us, it fills us, yet we are never satisfied. It creates a hunger, a thirst for more. We taste His sweetness, and we gasp and pant for more. But the more we eat His Body, the more we become Him. Deep down in the heart we are overwhelmed by a presence that we cannot describe, and like Zachariah, we are speechless. That is why the most intimate conversation with God, happens in silent prayer.
Sin separates us from God and from each other. It breaks unity and peace. The gospel of St. Luke tells us that “As Jesus drew near the gate of the town of Naim, behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother…” Luke 7:12. But we must ask ourselves, who is this dead young man, if not a figure of sinful and separated mankind from God? If sin means separation from God, then those who commit sin are dead, and therefore separated from God and from the community of faith. And the Lord Jesus who raised the dead man and returned him to his mother, is truly the Lamb of God who takes a way the sin of the world, and of whom St. Paul writes, “God was reconciling the whole world to Himself in Christ, not counting their sins against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” 2Cor. 5:19. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is this principle of unity and peace present among us and binding us together into one community of Faith. For He himself says, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself” John 12:32.
Technology can promise us some consolation and superficial hope, and even go so far as to cover a great distance to try to unite people, but it will never be a replacement for Christ whose perpetual presence physically brings us together to share and delight in what is so common to all of us. Only God’s love creates true unity. Technology remains, but a means to an end, not a replacement.
I would like to end with these beautiful lines from Pope St. John Paul II’s message to the youth given on the 15th World Youth Day in August of 2000:
"It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to suffocate. It is Jesus who incites in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”
May the Most Blessed Mother Mary, St. Joseph, and the holy Angels guide you and lead you to this fountain of love, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Comentários