VATICAN - Ave Maria by Mgr. Luciano Alimandi -
Vatican
City (Agenzia Fides) - Part of the Summer season is generally, if
possible, devoted to holidays. A period particularly suitable not only
for well earned rest and relaxation for the body, but also for
restoring the truths of the spirit, I mean, those great truths which
nourish the soul. In fact the soul, created by the Supreme Truth and
Supreme Good, rests – as Saint Augustine says so wonderfully – only in
God: “you have made us for yourself, o Lord, and our heart is restless
until it rests in You” (Confessions I, 1,1).
The Lord made us for Himself. It is not man who gives himself his being
or the reason for his existence. Our being, that is our soul, and our
purpose, that is our vocation, are given by God, the Creator and Lord
of all creation.
We human beings are free to choose whether or not to correspond to the
Father's plan for our sanctification, as we are taught in a magisterial
manner by Saint Paul: “Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven
in Christ. Thus he chose us in Christ before the world was made to be
holy and faultless before him in love, marking us out for himself
beforehand, to be adopted sons, through Jesus Christ.” (Eph 1, 3-6).
For Christians therefore the calling and the commitment for holiness
never goes on holiday. Tension towards conversion of heart should never
take time off, Winter or Summer. In fact true repose consists in
becoming increasingly aware the presence of God within us.
We can say that holiday time is particularly suitable for rediscovering
the call to holiness, because the holiday rhythm, also for those of us
who are priests, is an opportunity for reflection and meditation,
silence and prayer, absolutely necessary in order to re-concentrate the
mind, the light and the guide of the will, on the essential truths of
the faith and of all human existence which does not end with death,
instead it leads to eternity! We can only reflect deeply on our call to
holiness, renew our spiritual life, if we are united with the Holy
Spirit, the Spirit of Truth who sanctifies us in Christ Jesus.
In the Sequence of Pentecost we invoke the coming of the Paraclete with
words rich in significance, firmly based on Revelation and Church
Tradition, and therefore unchanging. Words which underline the role of
the Holy Spirit, rightly called “sweet relief”, bringing calm to the
soul, “in fatigue, repose” (from the Sequence of Pentecost).
If we pray this sequence, not only at Pentecost, but every day, we
receive a special gave, because we are addressing the Third Person of
the Most Holy Trinity, calling him to come: “Come, Father of the poor,
come, Giver of gifts, come, Light of hearts”.
If we were to pray this sequence more frequently and with faith we
would experience more keenly the wondrous presence of the Holy Spirit
in our life. In the Gospel Jesus promises that the Father will give us
all that we ask for with confidence, but especially the gift of gifts,
the Holy Spirit: “ If you then, evil as you are, know how to give your
children what is good, how much more will the heavenly Father give the
Holy Spirit to those who ask him!' ” (Lk 11, 13).
Since we are body and soul, if we rest only the body, our rest is
incomplete. Just like the body, the soul too needs to restore lost
energies. We all experience this.
When a new week begins we realise how much spiritual energy will be
necessary in order to live it well and when Sunday, the Lord's Day,
comes at last we breath a sigh of relief because this is the day of
complete rest for soul and body, a time to recharge spiritual and
physical energies.
The soul rests when it finds its vital core, which is communion with
God, made possible by Jesus who gives us His Spirit: “…he breathed on
them and said: "Receive the Holy Spirit. ” (Jn 20, 22). Jesus came down
to earth that we might ascend to Heaven thanks to the working of the
Holy Spirit who
“lifts us ever higher”!
Man “rests” completely when he rediscovers the essential bond of his
being, communion with God, with the Holy Spirit who is Love. The soul
is calm when it rests in the hands of God, which are the hands of Our
Lord Jesus Christ. He urged the apostles to rest when they returned
from their apostolic work: “ 'Come away to some lonely place all by
yourselves and rest for a while' ” (Mk 6, 31), as if to say: remain in
me, because in communion with Me everything assumes true and lasting
value!
These words of the Lord, “come to a lonely place”, are especially
addressed to priests, who, as the Holy Father, Benedict XVI, has so
often taught, are called to a life of intense communion with God: “ no
one can give what he does not personally possess; in other words we
cannot pass on the Holy Spirit effectively or make him perceptible to
others unless we ourselves are close to him. This is why I think that
the most important thing is that we ourselves remain, so to speak,
within the radius of the Holy Spirit's breath, in contact with him.
Only if we are continually touched within by the Holy Spirit, if he
dwells in us, will it be possible for us to pass him on to others. ”
(Benedict XVI, meeting with the clergy of the diocese of
Bolzano-Brixen, 6 August 2008).
(Agenzia Fides 24/7/2009; righe 65,
parole 932)
But
we must be cautious when interpreting God through our feelings,
especially when they are feelings of discouragement, fear, and anxiety.
We almost always tend to feel at those times that God has abandoned
us. Mother Teresa experienced these feelings also, intensely in fact,
but showed us the way through them: to continue on the path of the will
of God. That is, to love, and serve, and remain humble before our
"neighbour." It is to surrender to this sense of weakness and unknowing
that has become the cross I must carry, the way Jesus surrendered to
the Passion that lay before Him.
