Hope

Joy

With God

God is peace. Sweet consolation in the growing tiredness of this troubled life every day. We are anxious to find peace, for years and years of breathless work, sustained by this hope: tomorrow we will have some peace, tomorrow we will say to ourselves "we have worked enough, we have to live comfortably, we enjoy the years that still remain". And just then a flood of adversity will also take away the shadow of rest: diseases, uncertainties, economic insecurity, family difficulties continue to plague our frantic search for peace. Only God can be our rest. In Him there are no more tears, in Him there is no more sadness: peace, deep peace, infinite peace.

God is the light. How much we fought so that the flame of faith would not be extinguished! We have labored to shelter it from the winds that opposed the open ways of the world. They were evil murmurs that were released at every step. How the weak light waved! If it had been extinguished, the comfort of the voice of Jesus, of Him who said: "I am the light of the world" would have been extinguished. So where would we find the truth? But He watched over us...

Let us hope that when death closes our weary eyes, the lamp will still shine with us. It will then be the light of God, in the splendour of his infinite attributes, that fills with his riches our eyes, our mind, our heart: the eternal hour of all light.

God is love. Recognizing God is also loving him. Our poor heart that has sighed down here, from disappointment to disappointment, an affection that did not end like flowers fallen to the ground at the first gust! Poor heart! Every day you have seen loneliness grow, every day you have suffered for the vanity of human words. But there is Jesus in the little abandoned tabernacle, who persists in saying to the afflicted soul: "You will find, you will find Love. Don’t you feel that I am Love myself, all Love?" A day will come that there will be no more veils, nor fears: God will be ours in the blessed eternity of love.

TO GO TO GOD
Purity leads to heaven. Jesus made us clearly understand that in the kingdom of his Father there is no place for those who are not pure. He wanted to be called the Angel of God, and went through the houses of men leaving a light of immaculate whiteness. He said blessed the pure of heart, promising them the vision of God; he wanted the perfect candor of thought; he longed for his disciples a clear eye. And he did not hesitate to give all his blood to the world, so that all guilt might be washed away, so that the children of man might return their souls white. In heaven, in the footsteps of the Lamb, there are but souls.

Penance leads to heaven. Jesus knew the fragility of men. He knew Peter, he knew Judas. But he is still the One who came from heaven to save what was lost, to trace, holy pastor, the lost sheep, to be a doctor to many sick souls to death. He does not extinguish the Lucignolo that still crackles, does not break the cane that has yielded to the wind... He is salvation and tells the world that there is more joy in heaven for a sinner returned to penance, than for a thousand righteous. How can we not respond to this desire, to this invitation of the Heart of Jesus? If we have stained the soul, we must have confidence: pain redeems error.

We find purity through penance. Today Saul is a rebel who persecutes Christ, tomorrow he will be the Apostle Paul who, with resolute conviction, writes to the nascent Churches: "What I am, I am by the grace of God". Can every soul be happy ground for the miracles of Jesus Christ; did not the Lord say to his disciples: "Go [...] raise the dead"? Let us recognize ourselves as poor and sinners, let us set out anew, looking to heaven from where Christ calls and invites us.

God's eye
Creation is the temple of God. God adorned him with his glory, so that man might be comforted and more easily ascend with his mind and heart to the devout admiration of the magnificence of the Creator. But man, while enjoying what makes beautiful and great nature, does not know how to trace the author. Instead, the craftsman is always present, and who knows how many times he must witness the desecration of his works. In his freedom, man can turn to evil the gifts of God’s goodness, living as if God did not exist. The Saints did not do so, on the contrary, they had an affectionate worship of the least created things, because all, in one voice, sang for them the praises of the Lord.

Nothing escapes the eye of God. It is strange how we, who let ourselves be guided by the presence and judgment of other men, are so resistant to the thought that God is everywhere. It would be so sweet and so healthy thought! The way to go is hard, it is true, but there is God to walk the road with us: if we are weak, he is strong; if we fall, he raises us; if we lack bread, he feeds us; if we get lost, he saves us. The Lord says: "Walk at my presentation, and you will be perfect". We are full of imperfections and sins, because we live as if God were so far from us, while no one is as close to us as He.

Let us live, then, in the presence of God: it will be like a resurrection for us! Often our life resembles a wheat field after a storm: everything is broken and mortified, a real cry. But then the sun returns, and a breath of new life. So it is in the heart: if God rises on the horizon of the soul, everything relives; he relives faith, hope and love. So let us not cut that thread that is lowered from above into the fabric of our existence: we would fall into mud or into the void, and our only heritage would be death. Where there is God, instead, there is life. And we are created for life and to remain alive forever!

In the desert
In the desert there is silence. Great is the silence in a world that is in confusion and din. And blessed is the desert that gathers the heart of man and makes him attentive to the voices of God. The example of Jesus clearly says that one cannot know and carry out the work of the Lord, if one does not escape the noises of the world and does not put himself humble before him. The voice of the Lord usually resounds softly. The soul knows that God speaks to her; the soul knows that the world doesn’t intend and contrary the words of God: it therefore makes so that the thought of the Lord can reach her. Separate from time to time, from the world; look serenely at the immaculate blue of the sky and let the sky approach the earth. " Speak, O Lord, that your servant hears you".

In the desert there is mortification. Loneliness is already mortification: mortification of heart, mind and tongue. In the desert there is nothing that flatters and soothes the senses. Icy cold or scorching heat; wind that carries away or deadly air; you have to be content with some locusts or a little wild honey, or you die; there is not green that grows again, not home that rests... It is the desert! Jesus was there for forty days and forty nights; and by the end of the long mortification, the devil approaches him and tempts him. But Jesus wins! He would have won even without the harshness and fasting of the desert, because he was Jesus. But the example is for us that, if we do not love silence and penance, we cannot win in any way the assaults of the devil. Let us not be frightened by the desert.

In the desert there is God. If the desert means silence, loneliness, mortification, it is easily understood how the soul puts itself in more intimate relationship with God. He has such a rich heart of treasures for us, the Lord! And we do not know how to deserve them, and we do not even know how to ask them! Jesus taught us to pray, insisted that we be persevering, tenacious in our prayer, and assured us that we would get everything. Why don’t we get it? He also told us to pray in secret, in solitude, and we don’t remember. We love the desert: we will find the Lord closer. And with the Lord the desert also blooms and is populated with angels.

WITH ME OR AGAINST ME
Who is Jesus Christ? It is good that the soul often asks itself, and often reflects what would be his life without Him. Jesus Christ is the Son of God made man. In these words there is the whole story of a love that earth and heaven had never seen. With incomprehensible charity, the Father of heaven, to redeem the rebellious slave, sends the Son to death on a cross. And this Son comes among men, who seek him to death, and loves them as brothers, and opens his Heart to them in the sublime teaching of word and example, and leaves to these brothers, viaticum in the fragile existence, his Body and his blood. And it suffers, it dies, it rises! For us, for our salvation!

Who is the devil? He is the angel of darkness. Once he was all light, he was the most beautiful of the Angels of God. But he defied the gift, and despised the giver: and his fall was great. Hell was for him and for the angels like him rebellious: he, who had tasted the dearest sweetness of God, had the torment of all bitterness forever. He became the enemy of God and the men God destined for salvation. His joy, satanic joy, is that of leading souls to ruin, that of making vain the painful redemption of Jesus Christ, that of contaminating what is pure in souls, which are temple of God.

Who do we want to serve? It seems impossible for a Christian to ask this question. Yet there are many and many souls who, forgetting the martyrdom of the Son of God, are anxious only to help Satan in his ardor of death. As if they were saying to Jesus: "You see, you are the light and I want darkness: you are the truth and I worship the lie; you are crucified and I insult your cross and I turn my back... The devil wants to crucify me through the pleasure he kills; I know that he drags me to death, but I follow him, I want him". Words that are condemnation without shelter. Jesus said categorically: "Either with me or against me; you cannot serve two masters". Let us think of the irreparable consequences of choice and let us not miss the last chance to convert to life and light.