Devotion tu Jesus

Fourth Friday

Before meditation

"I will give to priests the gift of touching the most hardened hearts".

With these words Jesus nailed all, priests and faithful to a truth, accepted or not, remains true: "In the hearts and minds I alone can and will work." So many works that seem necessary, many initiatives that have to turn to talk and flattery are real excited and want to move.
All these can be defined as "heresy of action". In the field of human can be good, and I propose that any project in which I feel I have to commit everything: health, intelligence, desire, time and resources in quantity. If there are results, we must strongly be grateful to God who accompanies us, but the heart and mind is the exclusive field of God and not yield to anyone, and there may have hidden a special project and that only he knows and wants develop.

After living in the time and played lots of activities, we can claim to know well? We are sure to know the depths of the plan that God has for us and, among other things, we have used in the best way all faculties received? Maybe we cannot respond with such assurance. Then, what about the others? Of course many times do we understand and we dare to give advice, perhaps with some force, to understand following the invalidity of those interventions, or almost, because we did not understand the mood of the other! Well, only God can understand the situation and has the means to resolve it, in the case must be resolved; otherwise it helps to live it. When the moral situation is disastrous, this Jesus does not leave indifferent: we, in fact, his words "I will give to priests the gift of touching the most hardened hearts." We confirmed that only he can work in hearts. This is understandable since it is He who created hearts, equipping them with all the gifts necessary for a project under which each has a specific function and its place in life. All this is in the mind, in the Heart of God, but who can read the mind of God?

We have the word of Jesus assures us that the intervention of the Heavenly Father in the moving of things, "Even the hairs of your head are all numbered" (Luke 12.7), "Look at the birds of the air do not sow or reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them." (Matthew 6:26), "See how the lilies of the field do not work or spin." (Matthew 6:28), etc. Even before the word of Jesus is the Bible to emphasize these interventions is the existence of the heavenly Father created both the individual and collective human life?

However, we must confess that despite the words of the Bible, of Jesus and the miracles He performed the wedding at Cana, in the feed thousands of people, healing the sick, in the resurrection from the dead like Lazarus, who in the face of our expectations and expectations, then we do not feel so sure or certain of the protection of Jesus and the teachings of the Bible. Evil has a deep root; the word is out of reach, both by human initiative. St. Francis already stated, "Evil grows when it finds favorable opportunities." For some time it works to overcome this decadence and moral disorder. But where's the result? We cannot yet be victorious, for victory must be through the purification of the senses: God, the only one who can say the right word and raise the need to abandon evil. The hands of God, are good, those to whom God has given His Spirit and speak and act under the influence of that Spirit. And the Spirit of God that is always operating does bloom well, heal hearts.

The heart is my field. I alone can act beneficially and those who I have in my own spirit. It is a promise of a sacred and omnipotent God, "and I will bless the salvation of souls if my priest lives near his time praying to my Tabernacle. To must return my ministers at the Holy Altar, often live closer together and remain in my Church, not believe in their hearts to work, because my blessing will be away from all their work hours if you do not live in my presence "; words of Jesus are words that need no comment, they are so clear. Words that although referring especially to the priests who have the task of continuing his work, are also valid for those who feel within them the need to do something to heal society, enlighten minds, touch hearts. "Your actions are so small as to remain in your hands, become omnipotent when they go into my own hands."

There are complex and difficult cases of people who live far from the church, morality, marital separations, and other very painful at the time that seem to have no solution, perhaps Jesus is waiting and we want to solve them? No and yes. No, because their hearts are hard and he alone can act in them, yes, because Jesus wants us to be involved. How can we if we have human limitations, little or no health, education or limited intelligence? These limits are not an obstacle for Jesus, because when his Spirit invests a heart, this is capable of things beyond any power or human thought.
St. John Vienna, the Care of Ars said, presented by the Rector of the seminary the bishop for ordination in the study is defined as very poor. The Rector to the Bishop: "The Rosary recites well? Oh excellence and is also very. Well it is promoted to ordination, with the Rosary and Eucharistic Life will be so good."

On him quote these words of Jesus: "Never enough you will understand and explore my most beloved priest, aroused by my goodness, it was a living example for them. His profound humility, detachment from everything and the poverty of his home I'm hard to blame a lot of comfort. His only desire was to stay close to me day and night. On him they saw nothing but me, even the most stubborn sinners. And what were the benefits? Not immediately, but gradually, even the stones, he walked, talked, shook and converted. "So I want them. Only for this reason I have chosen! You pray, suffer, and offer me constantly to the Father, why come back to me. Do not feel alone anymore. I just".

Second Meditation

Second Promise: "I will put peace in their family".

Lay people will find through this friend of devotion ... peace in their families. In the letter to his spiritual father St. Margaret Mary writes: "This Sacred Heart also promises that by this means (the devotion of his heart) will bring together the divided families and help those who are in some need."
Why Jesus did promises so much? The reason is that Jesus knows very well what family and what purpose it has.
In light of the teachings of Jesus and the Church we try to understand something. In the family home has so much life in the biological sense (it was the creature as the body) than in any other way (spiritual, moral, social). Hence the family is the coveted prize in which human education, moral and spiritual needs are to have first place in order of time, both on the design. That is a good education on the duties that the family has in the relationship between parents and their children. The family holds, and follows its purpose only if the two are saved. What is that purpose? Preach the gospel, that is, to put in the hearts of children, feelings, thoughts, new horizons, real relationships with others.

Should follow the children from birth, even in the womb because even at this stage the mother passes to her unborn child reactions to the facts that surround it and the moods that occur in her. Facts and moods that affect more than imagine the child's life. Then when he is born of these facts and feelings are multiplied because they grow in terms of its ability to sensitivity that surrounds him, both of which are spectator events.
The focus of all this comes as part of preparation for the family and then in the same run.
Then there are all the first expressions of childhood, elementary gestures of affection, the first words that the child be taught that a Christian parent, and must include your loved ones even more than Jesus and his Mother. Certainly Jesus, the God-man, and appreciates these expressions of humanity makes fruitful of his brothers. It is the most expressive: "Let the little children come to me and not hinder them."
(Mk 10:14).

Those children who accepted Jesus certainly were not able to understand that those who received them was the Son of God, nor were they able to understand his message, but the encounter with him has certainly left a mark on their lives. In this regard we can cite the "Catechism of the children" "Let the children come to me." Catechism of the Italian Bishops Conference, which is dedicated to teaching parents to help in the very first.

"In the family home has so much life in a biological sense, as in every other way (spiritual, moral, cultural, social). Even the social, of course, because God has created man as a social being, and that its ability to be the social still receives from family, which is fundamental and irreplaceable school of social living: not an abstract sociality, but one that comes to us from revealing the mystery of the brotherhood of all men with Jesus, in whom and with which all successful recognize the right children of the same God the Father.
The spirit of brotherhood is manifested in all the attention that every situation, giving rise to charity. Who could sum up the totality of relationships within the family in these three words: acceptance, abuse, reconciliation.

Acceptance
Husband and wife in mutual relations must start from the assumption of mutual acceptance. The other is not acceptable just to satisfy my taste or my points of view, but what is accepted! The process of conversion must be done together, and so each of the two refines and improves its capacity for good and bad attitude to the sterilization. One of the aggressive zeal does not correct faults of others and cannot be correct.
The couples who lives in the mutual acceptance Charity creates space welcoming to children and start them in the spirit of welcome as they age evolves. It grows by accumulating small habits because you are not yet able to make autonomous choices (personal). So you learn to speak, to walk, to express feelings. If the pulses, and these habits are good and transmitted with intelligence, will help to gradually discover the good, and the inevitable imbalances caused by the way of seeing and operate their own human spirit which it evolves, will be easily exceeded. If you try to do this, the children will take shape and grow the awareness of the value of the person and the great destiny assigned to it which is fully realized in the school of Jesus.

In this aspect of the reception children is a precondition to expand the family, adoption, custody, care of elderly, alone, the attention for anyone in need, and this will become a way of being, a style of relationship with everyone.
Then will come the kingdom in the facts of marriage: the love of God be a guarantee for men.

Service
We disembarked at the service step is logical and straightforward. In fact in the testimony of Jesus would say that the two almost come together. When Jesus is, you always feel the great spirit of hospitality that is in Him After all, the Incarnation was not the amiable host of man by God? The service can define the specific charge of the Christian. Love is not fundamentally that if you were in the service of a loved one.
In the family when everyone with his gifts, his ability, his willingness to change and gets involved, takes his share generously, it becomes a beacon of evangelical irradiation. The early Christians were indicated by the pagans as "Those who loved each other." St. Francis, recognizing the company as a way of salvation and health, has joined the clergy and people to God in the very word of God, showing that the service can do union, union necessary for evangelization bears fruit.

In fact, his love for God, his brothers, the church, his city has always been accompanied by attitudes, from the facts of service, service, lived in joy as a gift without reservation that expresses itself beyond all that can prevent, and we the kiss of the leper, obedience to the Church, the care for the poor sisters of Santa Clara, understanding and sensitivity for the brother who screams in fear at night, the encounter with the wolf of Gubbio. Lay in the service must be based on the testimony, particularly in the style of the interactions social, political and even economic.
This announcement is particularly shines in the family and the style of service it is the most convenient.

Third Meditation

Maybe try it so difficult to believe that the events have such a connection and meaning and that such a succession of strange things like that can really contain so vital. This is one of the misfortunes of life is not sufficiently illuminated by the supernatural. Supernatural when this happens, then we understand the linkage of the supernatural with the natural order.
Every creature, spiritual or material, small or large, that acts on us, in our faculty produces a concussion. There is in fact the action exerted on us, physical action, moral or intellectual; exercised in our minds, our hearts or our senses. This action does it contain? Nothing other than the actual grace. It is called the present because one side is the fact that action is exerted on us and on the other hand, urges us to action for the very fact that the pulse contains. But then grace is everywhere? Yes, everywhere there's nothing quite random and only in our lives as Christians, the natural is closely and consistently linked to the supernatural. The material is the vehicle of the supernatural. Here is just a part of the great mystery of the Incarnation. We know that our Lord Jesus, Son of God united himself to our human nature, and taking our nature has "restored all things," says St. Paul. How? Taking all things, the instruments of his grace, that all things can bring us the grace, everything that God does in the world brings his grace.
So many thanks? Certainly, many thanks! Since there are everywhere! In fact, God acts constantly and with all kinds of tools. At this point we have, candidly, to confess our ignorance. This bustle of life, we have looked pretty much like the child who hears the ticking of the clock, without understanding all the inner movement of the watch which is what drives the tick.
Since Jesus promised special help to those who cultivate the loving devotion to His Holy Shows that the heart is not present in our lives, because they do not want it to be spoiled or smothered in the drive toward the sky, for which we have been given. It is further proof of how we take in the Heart and accompany us to the eternal happiness.
This Jesus is here, that he sees, hears us, and loves us. In his heart we lay down our will to be more and better to his friends and his devotees. We want to bless.

Fourth Meditation

The liturgy leads us to ponder the end of time, in the conclusion of the earthly manifestation of that reality and that will last forever in which the Church constantly reminds us. Fact, already begun with the resurrection of Jesus and now present in mystery, but that will explode with the glorious return of Jesus.
The word that God has given us to reach, such as light and guidance in the journey of life, there is an absolute principle! He wanted us to always adjust as pilgrims, as the exiles on the earth, as wanderers in the desert, always to a great "Reality promise" that was gradually acquiring new and more specific meanings to the word as they illuminated it becoming clear. "Promised land" to Abraham, to Moses and the people freed from slavery. Then "the messianic kingdom" for David and his descendants waiting for the Messiah, the liberator.
Then with the coming of the Messiah becomes clearer the nature of this promised kingdom, the promise of liberation, of restoration and reorganization of the Universal ... the glorious Kingdom of God which will be inaugurated by the Messiah and that will last forever.
And in fact, to go straight to the core, which actually reminds us of the revelation?

1. That the Kingdom of God promised that the new times have already been initiated with the Resurrection of Jesus.
   
   
2. In fact, that the whole universe has only one principle, one point of consistency, only one end, Jesus, through whom and in view of which all things were created, everything exists, everything is reconciled, summarized, consecrated as Kingdom of God.
   
   
3. Jesus, glorious, present, acts in the world today through the Church and his Spirit, which implements and refines his work making the fullness of grace and transferring people into his kingdom.
   
   
4. That this mysterious action will manifest at the end of the time when Jesus will return in glory and triumph, and the whole universe will be delivered by him to the Father as the Kingdom that God may be all in all.

The new Israel has already begun, a new heaven and new earth has already begun in Jesus, and every Christian with the gift of the Holy Spirit has already been deposited, the deposit and the beginning of this future reality. But these realities pose a tremendous mystery! The eternal destiny of men, happy in the kingdom of God's children in honor of Jesus, or where it will be out of darkness and tears, it is determined in the short time of their earthly existence, through the relationship established with God's will, by refusing or 'welcome, although in the last moments of life, the gift that the Father in the Son of his love that he gave in atonement for our sins.
And this division will be made public, in a tremendous Judgment, preceded by trials and suffering of the righteous purification, to convert sinners, when the Son of Man will appear in clouds with great power and glory.

Some conclusions that must determine our orientation day.
These realities and their elements already present in mystery, even if in the world and within ourselves and with the latest events announced, shine up to discover the essence of the Christian life itself, determine its nature, shall determine the attitude among earthly and its use personnel in various fields of social and religious life.

The Christian.
Who has chosen Jesus and follows him know that by virtue of his baptism, the Holy Spirit received his engagement in Jesus, is in a new condition in the face of creation and of which all earthly Jesus is the center, and Redeemer goal:

1. This condition allows him to overcome all the negative conditions of reality and discover the best values on the basis of this fact forever to prepare.
   
   
2. It gives you the awareness of being called to work for this glorious reign by forcing himself to become a new man around to help better according to Jesus in the Church with the Church his brothers to make the passage to God, the kingdom of God in Jesus.
   
   
3. Commits him to cooperate because the word of God, the truth revealed by Jesus, love, property, all the gifts that Jesus has poured out his heart to the world, are aware of all the men to their salvation, in sanctification of the world, because we live the consecration which Jesus brought into the world so in preparation for the glorious manifestation of the kingdom in the kingdoms of men and the community of nations the truth, justice, love, peace as the family of God.

So do not interpret well the spirit of the Gospel of Jesus and the Church by those who actually take these easy excuse to escape and disengage relinquishing any useful assistance to the earthly city, or who accuse the Church to use the truth about the end times as opium asleep man and distracts him from any interest in worldly conditions improve. The Second Vatican Council has reminded many times, for example in the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (No.39).
Now the Christian knows that this commitment concerns him personally and for life; known fact:

1. What he will have to work with faith and love, the mystery, as a small, humble instrument chosen by God for a supernatural work where who gives the increase, the growth is only God, where only the end of time you will see the result.
   
   
2. What he will have to work hard and firm, because it will meet resistance in his heart to oppose the man of sin and lust, because it will have to fight against the forces of evil, bad to the Gospel, which dominate the world.
   
   
3. What a great tribulations await him and the Church and that it is useless to investigate how, when, and scrutinizing the signs of the end that no one knows, but rather what it should be addressing all present and future suffering in the certainty that on the day of God are intended to help people to prepare for the final coming of Jesus and that all co-operate with the glorification of those who shall be found written in the Book of the elect, and they think her body as the cause of so many special forces, and fighting the causes of pain, it will rise glorious and Who will shine like a star will have contributed to the salvation of his brothers.
   
   
4. That in contrast with the enemies of the Church and the Gospel, in the persecution, discrimination can be made the subject of which, in mockery and irony, in the certainty that you will find the strength that Jesus came into the world as a humble servant in the death and suffering, for redeem it, and now secretly and quietly released by his enemies as he left to free his executioners, glorious return to judge the living and the dead, and only then everyone will see that it is Jesus, and then it will be worth only "what is Jesus'". But knowing that those who have rejected Jesus will rise to shame and everlasting contempt for, while suffering persecution, Christians pray as Jesus and seek the salvation of his persecutors.

Here is the light that actually comes from the last in this life, here is the criterion;
Judgments, choices, attitudes offered to the believer. But he personally has the short time available and quick of his earthly life, for him it will be determined and decided at the time of death, when the Lord calls him "You will when you least expect it." So monitors, please, works hard, makes the short time as possible to make this partnership with God and the Church to grow the Kingdom of God in his soul, to prepare the saints for the Kingdom, in 'waiting for the manifestation of the Lord Jesus.
He knows, however, that the decisive factor in the value and effectiveness of this work is the love for God and for others, and therefore makes sure that all his life is guided by this active and growing love.