Meditations


End of a year

Monastery

Today another year ends. One has a good saying that it is a day like any other, that all the years end and time passes, but there is no doubt that a day like this is still a day that has a special resonance in our hearts.

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FOR THE END OF THE YEAR

Today another year ends. One has a good saying that it is a day like any other, that all the years end and time passes, but there is no doubt that a day like this is still a day that has a special resonance in our hearts.

As if we were touched for a moment by something deeper and more secret, more eternal and more mysterious; of the kind of things we do not think about every day, but that sometimes overlook and place us in front of problems that seem bigger than us.

In a day like today, we think of the past, we think of the time that runs and does not return, but even more, we think about the future. It is still and always the future that fascinates us, it is still the life we have not yet lived. Well, in the perspective of Jesus walking before us already risen, we believers must make a thought about the future, but a different thought from what everyone does, a new thought rooted in the faith we have.

I believe that everyone, in some way, thinks, nobody can do without it, and everyone thinks of the future according to a certain perspective. We could say that a part of men thinks of the future simply as an unknown quantity, something that is not known. Another part thinks of the future almost as a threat, something from which many evils can come, and which can destroy a certain good that one possesses in the present. Another part may think of the future as a hope, a vague undefined hope, perhaps sufficient to console the heart and, at the same time, elusive, imponderable, which perhaps will never be realized.

There is something true in all these thoughts about the future, but certainly, the future of a Christian does not end here. It is true that for us too, the future is an unknown factor, we know nothing about it, we can foresee very few things and even these with a low degree of certainty. We will not know if and how long we will live, we will not know what the facts and events will bring ... Yet, we can not be people looking to the future as if it were just a mystery, just a secret.

In the same way, we can not exclude that the future may conceal some threat, or at least hide in itself risks, dangers, unfavorable changes in life: we would not be realistic if we did not admit this. However, one can not accept that the Christian lives his existence under the impulse of fear of his future, even more if he is attacked with selfishness in his present, if he only fears that the future steals one of his idols.

Not even the vague hope adapts to a Christian. Of course, hope is the most beautiful thing in life, but not the vague hope that does not rely on anything, if not a desire of the spirit, a hypothesis or an idea.

For us Christians, the future is something much more constructive: the future is a good that can really be done. We will never be convinced enough that the future, despite being unknown, threat and human hope, gives everyone the opportunity to live as protagonists, because, if you want, each of us has the opportunity to do good becoming so, creators of the own future. Because good is concrete, good can be thought of, planned, realized.

No one can prevent it with the help of God. Therefore, of many things, we are not certain, but we can be absolutely certain of the good that we would like to do. Inventing good is the great work of Christians. Doing the good that is not there yet, what we have not done, but what we can still do.

At the end of a year, it is not crying, nostalgia, sadness, basic feelings, but the profound confidence that the future still exists and that all the good that is not yet complete can be done.

This is the certainty that enlightens believers in Lord Jesus. So, it is true to say that we Christians do not think only of the future, but we think the future we would like to do for ourselves and for others: a future of good, truth, peace, justice, love, not at the level of great words, but at the level of small gestures, of concrete things, done one by one, that leave behind them, a trace of that new good that was not there before and has begun to be there because the Christians have done it.

This is a magnificent perspective of life and it is the perspective of God the Creator, who never ceases to create goodness and entrusts today the good he wants to create, to the work of his children, first of all to us who call him Father. Therefore, December 31st should not be regret, but thanksgiving for the good received and for all that God has given us, and a project that takes the momentum from this thanks, for all the good we would like to do again: let's clearly say that we would like to to do much more, that we would like to reach God's measures, in the good that we would do.

This is the profoundly clear look, happy for the optimism of Jesus and full of hope that we possess in our eyes, which we must give, for ourselves and for many others. We look at the future like this, we smile in the God who comes to meet us, we believe in the good we will do, we are happy that the future offers us to do what we have not yet done: this is the greatness of our faith, our hope, our being Christians in love. So let's start like this, the year of tomorrow.

CLOSING OF THE YEAR

This meeting with Jesus in the imminence of the closing of the year wants to be a moment of pause that we take to take a look at what we are about to leave behind us and, if possible, to draw up a program for the new year.

In this we certainly do not escape the custom, for another very good, that a balance must be done, and God seems to agree if it offers us the opportunity to gather at his feet and make us feel his voice.

But, even if today, as almost always it has been, we find ourselves bent on ourselves to revive what we have or have not done, to laugh at our miseries, I fear that not even this time, will be able to do something useful, and consequently, the beautiful program that we already have in mind or what we will do will suffer the same fate as the previous ones. We know that it is not the proximity to the sun that benefits the earth; but his focus on it: the rays, hitting directly, favor first, the awakening of life and then, its development.

It is not by being crouched next to my misery and my infirmity that I can improve, even if I do so in the name of the Lord to foster compunction in me.
The goodness of the intention does not work miracles or transformations; indeed, it can be very dangerous if it is not an attitude of persistent contact with God.
It is this contact that I must take care of with all my strength because, despite all my miserable history of weaknesses, it is still true that in God's mind an idea continues for each of us to which we must correspond.

We are called to the imitation of His Son, an imitation to be reproduced certainly, in a limited way, in innumerable different forms, but which, all together, must prolong the presence of Him on the earth.

This is why he comes to us in Holy Communion and makes us one with himself!
This is why He becomes mine...
That being the case, what do we still want?
Why waste one more moment thinking about our deficiencies?
Why do we want to remain planted in our baseness, when above us lies in the sincere effort to elevate myself to Him?
Why be discouraged even if our life has been a succession of misery?
He is close to me, he wants to be mine and wants me to be his!
Oh! Paul, as he had understood all this: "I will gladly boast of my infirmities so that the power of Christ may dwell in me I do not lack any charisma The Lord your God has inhabited in you and nothing has failed you".

As it is true that only one Eucharistic meeting can make a saint!
But if we are not saints, we do not blame the faults, as if they were an insurmountable barrier; God laughs at them, the real cause is the lack of faith and on this God can not smile anymore!

It is the only, true, obstacle!
We are sincerely saddened by having offended Him, and our pain will grow to the extent that we will discover the Love that nourishes us, but our hope and our trust will also grow when we realize that this Love wants nothing more than to use its infinite power to rebuild ourselves in him.
This is the task that He leaves me, the study that I must carry out with all diligence!
Woe to the digressions, even if sometimes they might seem justified!
What was he saying to Santa Josefa?
"I just need the heart opened and tell me that he wants to be good ... I'll take care of the rest".

Thus it proves that nothing is impossible to Him, and there is nothing that He does not want to do, to model us according to the wishes of His heart.
It is at our disposal.
He, too, before the Father, feels committed and wants at all costs to carry out a good term, we mean, his mission on each one of us.

This explains that almost devotion that He has for our needs and for our happiness, which is not momentary; it lasted thirty-three years and, still, He intercedes for us in heaven.
To this idea every description is lost and the fact seems incredible. Only the grace of God can make us understand the love He has for us in this Sacrament.
And this grace comes to meet us every day, in complete abandonment.
He gives himself totally to us, putting ourselves at our disposal, to create a complete union with him ... Do we feel this truth to the end of our being?
We are careful: we are before him; let's not give an answer as long as it's ...
Let's go to the bottom ... and we are not afraid to tell us frankly "I did not want this union ... because I have never made a commitment to live closer to Him to personally feel what the beats are for me. .. and feel with my ears how much you think of me ...!"

And to think that even in the most desperate situation, I can always find everything in Him, all I say. The saints are the clearest proof: close to God they have been enlightened by Him and have been brought to Him in complete poverty of spirit.
Not to make up for their deficiencies, to complete their personality, but to replace their nothingness with the fullness of Jesus.
Their past life, good or bad, their sins and their merits, count for nothing in their eyes; they find all their hope, all their desires, all their self in Jesus.