"The voice of one crying in the wilderness ..." Other ASSOCIATION: a place and a route
I return from the retreat on "The Lordship of Christ." The Lord speaks ... oh! as he speaks, even the most fiery and turbulent hearts like mine .... and I love him for this, because it never stops, because with him each day is different, because this healthy and holy restlessness I feel inside me today creates a strange and special dynamism that I can not hold back!
so take advantage of these hours of light these days of post-retirement to give vent to my unusual desire to write and to leave any trace of my thoughts!
entrust everything to you, Fabrizio, Father, Brother, and you, Gianni, traveling companion and tender father, because I could define and fix what moves chaotically in my heart.
would like to talk, to me, what I think, of what I feel inside, deep down, what can not be silent because I seethe inside like fire that purifies, a word that I feel the urgency to get out, supported in this by the presence of our sister and friend who lives with me, by my side but I often find myself in front of a witness and as a stimulus, such as testing and verification of the truth of my and our feelings! I want to focus on profitable and effective comparison we have in this time of grace and I Caterina exciting and passionate woman, who lives milling time, which grabs the life, but with biting bites the delicacy of a butterfly that sits quietly on the flower . Catherine, do not miss a crumb from the Holy Table from which it feeds, and for us all is a sign and witness the hard work of God's desire: a daily effort that gives way to the inroads of the Spirit and to look carefully for signs of the times, and another! This is for me today Catherine: the distance between my experiment today, and his thoughts about our association is the most conclusive proof of an openness to what exceeds and surpasses Witness, and is the current experience, irritating and happy fracture of the fracture through which we introduce the progress of the Spirit.
is why in our different points of view, in our dialectic, the reasons that each of us two relies on the association own positions are taken seriously by both: certainly not making use of the charity which notionally silencing their case in favor of an ill generosity and openness, but with the seriousness and rigor that we comes from knowing the deep meaning of Christ and the Church that each of us, because the faith of my sister that face as long shaped by Jesus in the thickness and the truth of his life. Therefore I trust what I feel inside of my strong word that wants to go out, put forward in this, consoled and reassured by the fact that Catherine thinks differently from me but with me! One of my personal testimony, or if you want - My Lord - my feeble words could have perhaps not Orthodox because I believe that the only human voice of the Father figure and sign can only be that of Jesus! So much so that I can speak in front of me is Catherine. ... Talk to me, however, is to risk losing, it means learning to die, it means the risk of being judged and measured ... but .... But .... For the Christians who live together The presence of differences of thoughts "others" is certainly something that surprised and shocked, but it is a fact. As it was for Paul and Peter ... And I, I am with Catherine!
I believe that the unity we live in our Association, as well as in our Mother Church is a gathering customizing "that does not flatten the signals of a God who speaks, and always will speak to every heart! And I would like to enter this personalization of faith and expression of a Spirit that speaks, levandomi his shoes, as I feel this as strong as our Association will increasingly become a holy place, expression and sign of God I would so to speak ... . dare talk to the effrontery of those who believe that - making it because of my faith and my hope, hope I place in my being associated with and faith in Jesus Christ - may perhaps be able to open a legitimate dialectic as was Job, who dared to give the "you" to God! And because "our lives end when be silent in the face of things are really important. " (Martin Luther King). And the Association is important thing for me!
Infinity is never given! It is not that expressions of faith if not by the need to restart indefinitely the discovery of a new and always the same appointment with God, he never certain of having completed the course, he had finished searching! Our search for God and the Infinite is to leave themselves, and live a strangeness in opening to the Other and others. In this uprooting from us, but we must live in the venture to ask God how and where, and why ... without losing the sense of tradition, the sense of our history, the continuity of our faith! This takes discernment, that is, try God's way between loyalty to a received word (I think here in Acts ch. 2), a history, roots firm and docility to the new events that the Spirit inspires in each.
GOD AND DO NOT GO IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE SHOULDERS .
is always the case, I think. Or at least so in my life! I have seen two of Emmaus - without recognize - the Risen Christ be with them, walking shoulder to shoulder. ... but two people were defeated by the events, two men were tired and perhaps distressed by a hope that they seemed to have been disappointed, defeated by death. Sometimes I happen to live with defeat, and then Jesus comes closer, stands next to me ... but it happens, exactly. It is not the rule. "My" rule is to follow Jesus Christ crucified and risen, watch your back feeling reassured by his step ... different from mine, but still so loyal to my gait. So I think the song hemorrhage, which I love so much and so much more continuous and always suggest to my heart ...
Or a woman who for twelve years was suffering from bleeding and had suffered much under many physicians, spending all their assets no better but rather grew worse, heard of Jesus, was in the crowd behind him , and touched his cloak. He said, "If I only touch his cloak, I shall be healed." It immediately stopped the flow of blood, and she felt in her body that she was cured of her disease. But Jesus, perceiving that the power had gone out of him, he turned to the crowd saying, "Who touched my clothes?".
The disciples said, "You see the crowd pressing around you, and say, Who touched me? ".
He looked around to see who had done it. And the woman in fear and trembling, knowing what had happened was, fell down before him and told him the whole truth. Jesus replied: "Daughter, your faith has healed you. It should be 'in peace and be healed of your disease. "(5.25 to 34 Mc )
... and then I think the text of Exodus, when God reminds Moses that his face can not be seen . This is not a God who denies or hides, even of a God that can not be known. This is a God who reminds us that we can not possess it as you have identify an object, nor with any human form. God is the One who is wholly other, free, allowing the freedom of human beings. God then is not who is behind our desires, that follows us, but one who, if we want, we will follow with a firm step. God is the one that lies before us: we are after him, behind him ...
"Moses said:" Please show me your glory! "The Lord replied," I will go ahead My goodness you all, proclaim the Lord's name in front of you and I will be gracious to whom I want to do grace and mercy on whom I will I have pity. " And he said: "You can not see my face, because man can not see me and live." And the Lord said, "Here's a place near me, you'll be on that rock, while my glory passes by, I will put a hole in the rock, and will cover you with my hand until I have passed, and then retire the hand and see me from behind, but my face you can not see '. "(Exodus 33, 18-23 )
Often in our community we do not say to the diligent and determined search for God because we think we have it all: Jesus Christ, the Bible, Faith, brothers, the Word Association ... today. We do not realize that we lack the research continues, and perhaps exhausting, which is characteristic of the faith from God's promise: "I will be in front of you." This Word gives me all the sense of impermanence in my last what seems to have some awareness, maybe because of my little health problems. It is the need we have to be led, guided by reason of a mission that was entrusted to all, and associated ... but I do not feel like mine, especially because one day on the occasion of Pentecost a few years ago I decided to entrust all of me same, my family, my history and myself proclamation of Jesus that saves. To the experience!
LA FATICA DEL DESIDERIO DI DIO
Il nostro cammino di Associati non è, e non deve essere assenza di fatica. Fatica della ricerca, non sempre facile, della comunione con i fratelli e le sorelle; fatica del dialogo, del confronto, della solidarietà, dell’amore.... Si tratta della fatica di una vita consacrata alla missione che Dio ci ha affidato. È la fatica di chi non si assenta, non si estranea dalle contraddizioni della vita e del mondo rinchiudendosi nel proprio piccolo mondo sicuro, nel suo vitello dorato. È la fatica di chi ha compreso che si tratta della vocazione a costruire ponti, relazioni, a stringere legami, a permettere incontri che producono unione, support, brotherhood, reconciliation and salvation through what we are humbly, through our witness, through our daily toil. The God that every believer entrusts the mission to be a faithful witness of love and freedom is the same God but that does not leave everyone to their fate, but walks with that believer, in front of him, her, promising a day of hope .
A journey, a journey ... so .... It is to walk and move on. A path is made of a starting point, an event, a person, and a path traced more or less, a route.
A PLACE
Each spiritual experience thus has a "place", an event that the original features, which defines it, an ecstasy personal or group, a glimpse of where God is manifested. "God is there" ... this place, this event can be a vocation, a conversion ... the mission! God is there ... this becomes our inner certainty, to our certain hope! Today for me is the Association.
A ROADMAP
Then there is a path. Once we understand and / or God we live in a time or place, it often happens that space or to identify the place as a moment of truth as an ideal meeting with the Infinite, and to make an absolute match our experience. But I think there might be a certain relationship between what we said there, especially that event, meeting, and what requires us to do, to travel and explore. There is thus a spiritual connection - I would say - between the desire and the ability to have a "home", a privileged place of encounter, openness to God, the Other and to others as the need to come out! A little 'as the experience of Mount Tabor ...
We live and we dream of a homogeneity in our Association that must survive the reality oppositions which also occur, often: there must be above or below the voltages that occur something that unites us, but this escapes us ... or at least escape me! And so in my heart has crept doubt that the road ahead is not just this, and it always finds you all my certainty if not deteriorated maybe just shock. But here I pause to think: certain oppositions between different witnesses do not necessarily have to oblige us to choose between solutions imposed by too narrow a conception of unity ... this is not about to reject or to approve or to fly over the instances of each and beliefs of others. There is a theology of difference, a Bilingualism edifying one hand and find a system that lives in peace remain, remain in Christ ... to live and grow and develop with him and for him, together, loving one another as brothers and secondly another system perhaps more operational, more scientific (!) based on the effectiveness of our tool "The Experience" proportionate to action "ad extra". Identity - reading - can become a disease. ... And is to reject the data of the difference, its wealth! This is the case of the Christian who feels guilty in bringing a sign, a name, the convictions that might give the impression that he does not conform to the standard model of its environment, or feeling guilty for not modeled on institutions and programs safe. The fear of others or the fear of being different becomes intolerant to the novelty, of the breath of renewal of the Spirit! God help me and free me from this disease! So I'm here to write on this blank sheet of paper. ... With fear and respect of one who knows that the black ink that focuses on the paper also seems to linger and linger in my mind, in my heart deep down ... down ... and has done so for a little time ....!
I think really it is time to dare. ... To ask God to work and affect our common history. And to leave for our trip. And I would say, humble but firm and steadfast, that this is the time, today and not tomorrow, to decide to establish a PLACE, the place of each one, where to stay and stand with one hand and one to the Brothers in Christ, grow and develop In following him, and also to decide a ITINERARY , that path, but still common staff, through which to give space to our common vocation to reach the Infinite along the way of testimony, the announcement of Christ the Saviour with the instrument that for 20 years makes us one!
I do not really know what might result in my feeling today: what it means for all of us associated with the shipment to proceed forward along the road, a route, specifically how to make our calling, and how to translate my inner anxiety.
However I have the urgency and the need to shout that we can not stand still, that there is no date - at least to us associated with - a life lukewarm and negligent ... that we must go further than our "comforts" parish; we have to go out rather than remaining mired in issues often "by henhouse," that we must roll up your sleeves and follow the steps that were Rebels of the Three Brothers: the humility and the radicalism of Sant'Alberico, loyalty and fidelity of Santo Stefano , the passion and the madness that were holy to Saint Robert ... I think this will stop today!
We have to become rebels against a history that seeks to conform and to flatten down!
Let us imitate the original insights that were so of St. Robert and head towards our Cîteaux: maybe it will be a "horrible and lonely place " as Deuteronomy says, but we start, please! Standing still is not good for us, neither we nor our individual communities ... not be satisfied if the bean can have a calf fat fat!
Courage, then we leave and set out towards our vocation to holiness.
Don Tonino Bello said: "S iate especially men. Until the end. Indeed, to the top. Why be human means to be holy to the top. So do not stop halfway, the Pope can not stand fair measures ". It means everything dressed, leaving the deeply human life in the depths of our being, the divine breath that brought us forth to life, and that makes it authentic, passionate, full of value. Living for the Lord, embodied love for others, seeking positive relationships, the desire for justice and peace, made some great little gestures of daily life, true to ourselves, our history and obedient to a process that began 20 years ago by a few brave ... brave brothers in differentiating the choices, style, presence!
"The final decision will be weighed only tears," says the philosopher Romania Cioran. I wonder and ask: "What are these tears?" ... Does that mean that will be given importance only to the pain? It means that the pain will be to save mankind? I do not believe ... ours is a God of Joy! But I think that will be weighing the passion, the torment, our ability to be hot or cold ... everything, but NOT WARM! Whether they are tears of sorrow or tears of joy, what matters is to have lived. Fully. To tears, in fact. Giving us life, throwing his neck as a child and in this race to what "we should be , inflame the world," as St. Catherine!
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