Father’s words taken from the Message to Mother Eugenia Ravasio:
“Most men know of all these events, but they fail to grasp the essential thing: that love was the guiding principle in it all! Yes, it is love. This is what I want to impress upon you. Now this love has been forgotten. I want to remind you of it, so that you can learn to know Me as I am, so that you will not be, like slaves, afraid of a Father Who loves you so much. You see, in this story we are only at the first day of the first century, and I would like to bring it up to the present time, the twentieth century. Oh, how My paternal love has been forgotten by Men! Yet I love you so tenderly! In My Son, that is to say, in the Person of My Son made man, what have I not done! Divinity is veiled in this humanity, it is shrunk, impoverished, humiliated. With My Son Jesus I led a life of sacrifice and work. I received His prayers, that man might have a clearly indicated path along which to walk always in justice, so as to reach Me safely! Of course, I can understand My children’s weaknesses! Because of this, I asked My Son to give them the means to get up again after they have fallen. These means will help them to purify themselves from their sins, so that they may still be the children of My love. They are, chiefly, the seven Sacraments. And the greatest means of securing your salvation, despite your falls, is the Cross, My Son’s Blood poured out upon you every moment, if you so wish, both in the Sacrament of Penance and in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.”
Our Father insistently points out to us the essential, as we had also reflected on in the last meditations. It is love! This is its deepest essence, as Sacred Scripture affirms: “God is Love and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him.” (1Jn 4,16)
With this, we also know what the goal of our spiritual life is: growth in God’s love. Let us express it concretely in the terms of our faith… It is a matter of the Holy Spirit-who is the love between the Father and the Son-modeling us according to the image of the Lord. He will transform everything in us, so that God’s love is not only visible to us from outside, but will shape our being so that we ourselves love as God loves. Let us remember Jesus’ words: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5,48). It refers to the perfection of love!
But before this transformation can happen, the Father sets before our eyes His works of love. We must understand them correctly, for each and every one of them is an expression of the infinite and unfathomable love of the Lord. He wants us to recognize this, because since the first temptation in Paradise the Devil has worked to prevent us from recognizing God as He truly is, and he tries to erase or at least distort His image in us. Added to this are our disorderly attachments to the transient, which so easily make us forget the Lord.
Thus, the Father presents us with His works: the life of His Son – and of the Father in the Son – in our midst, as well as the means He has chosen so that, despite our weakness, we can rise again and again. In this context, our Lord particularly highlights the Cross and the sacraments.
The theme of the sacraments leads me to say a few words about the pandemic, because one of its consequences is precisely the fact that many of the faithful no longer have access to the sacraments. An apocalyptic scenario!
Now, a few words for all those who are listening:
Harpa Dei has produced a small but very significant video, singing a hymn to the Virgin Mary, composed between the 13th and 15th centuries. In times of the plague, the faithful used to present this song to our Lord, together with certain litanies.
Now, we have adopted this sacred song for the current pandemic, and it is already uploaded on our YouTube channel. Furthermore, I have prayed with firm faith that everyone who hears this song with an open heart would be preserved from the pandemic, while those who are already infected would be able to start a healing process. Therefore, we ask that this sung prayer be spread everywhere as soon as possible. The Lord will know how to reward you!
Harpa Dei accompanies the daily scriptural interpretation or spiritual teaching of Br. Elija, their spiritual father. These meditations can be heard on the following website www.en.elijamission.net