34. December 27, St John, Apostle & Evangelist (I)

Meditations no. 557 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

We entrust the apostolic work with youth to St Raphael and St John.

Our Father taught us that the immediate aim of the St Raphael work is the integral formation of all who take part in this work. And each of us has to do whatever we can to foster it. Today we celebrate the feast of the Apostle St John, to whom our founder entrusted this apostolic work, along with St Raphael the Archangel. Now is a good moment to consider this in our personal prayer.

Young people are especially open to receiving an intense formation; it is a time when the direction and meaning of one’s whole life is set. It is a time for ideals, when the soul is vigorously receptive and open to the light of sound doctrine and the appeal of love. It is a time for magnanimously carrying out generous undertakings. Our Father wrote: Do the St Raphael work in such a way that young people, in childhood or adolescence, feel moved by the ideal to seek Christ, to find Christ, to deal with Christ, to follow Christ, to love Christ, to remain with Christ. This is the best moment to solidify the spiritual edifice that must last for a lifetime. We need to help the young people who draw near the Work to become souls of interior life, wholehearted Christians who ardently seek holiness.

The St Raphael work offers the suitable “materials” to construct the solid, unshakeable edifice of Christian life. To achieve the St Raphael work’s whole formative task, we count on a great variety of means and apostolic activities. Among these means, some have already become traditional, and have been used with proven effectiveness for the good of souls since the beginning of our Work: the classes of formation, catechesis and visits to the poor of our Lady, meditations, spiritual retreats and, in general, the liturgical acts of piety in our residences.

These means are perennial and must always be used everywhere in carrying out the St Raphael work, since they characterize this apostolate and enliven all the other activities that unfold around the St Raphael work.

Along with these traditional means, there is room for many new initiatives. There are so many endeavours of every kind, so many external manifestations that should be put into practice and that are like nets for fishing-a divine fishing-the souls who are in contact with the St Raphael work! Certainly, among these external manifestations, two are indispensable: catechesis and the visits to the poor. Then there are activities dealing with sports, science, literature, movies, whatever you want, excursions and countless other possibilities. But they are always imbued with a deep apostolic sense: if not, they’re of no use.

Many of these apostolic instruments can change over time, in accord with new circumstances, but not the circles and classes of formation or the other specific means of the St Raphael work, for they are the cement that gives solidity to the whole edifice. We need to be faithful to them, my children, our Father said. That’s where we have to start. And we need to persevere with them, always carrying out the same work.

The St Raphael work is always effective if we use the means our Father indicated.

According to the commission of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, writes St Paul to the Corinthians, in my use of the authority which the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down.

Faith leads us to view all the traditional means of the St Raphael work as willed by God, and therefore capable of laying the foundation for an excellent building. God, who has entrusted us with an immense task of apostolate and formation, has also provided us with the means. And ordinarily the effectiveness of these means depends on our determination to put them into practice even in the smallest details.

My beloved daughters and sons, writes our founder, you should have a great assurance in the supernatural effectiveness of your apostolic work. If you faithfully employ all the traditional means, everything will go well. Difficulties of one kind or another may sometimes arise, but they are always overcome. They are matters of “ordinary administration.” You will conquer them by your sacrifice, by your prayer and by your joy.

We should foster in our prayer the conviction that we are God’s fellow workers, and that He does not abandon us. Then no difficulties will be able to hinder our apostolic action: neither humble beginnings, nor slow initial growth, nor the apathy of certain persons, nor scant material means. Our Father began to work faced with these obstacles, and the fruits of his apostolic work throughout the world have been incalculable.

The seed we want to sow in the hearts of young people is divine: the seed is the word of God. It is a seed of first-rate quality, whose sowing can only be carried out through the specific means of the St Raphael work. This seed always bears fruit if the sowing is preceded, accompanied and followed by all the necessary care. Time, vigilance and, above all, prayer and mortification, are essential.

We have often meditated on the Gospel passage of the first miraculous catch. Our Lord tells the Apostles to lower their nets for a catch. Simon wavers: we have toiled all night and took nothing. But at your word I will let down the nets. Our Father comments: there is a sense of complete assurance in Christ: because You say so, because You want it, I will do this and whatever else you command. I will do it confidently, without fear. I will work, I will speak, and I will labour at whatever task is necessary, without fear.

Our Father is telling all of us, using words from Sacred Scripture: Let each man take care how he builds. Are we each striving to ensure the supernatural effectiveness of our efforts by our refined faithfulness to the “norms of construction.”

Faithfulness to the specific ways of doing the St Raphael work.

All of us in the Work are asked to contribute toward the growth of the St Raphael work. We want to make sure that the hearts and minds of many young people are formed in the warmth of the spirit of the Work. This is a supernatural task, where the human means count little compared to the supernatural objectives. Therefore we have to be convinced that our apostolate will be effective as along as we employ with the utmost fidelity the apostolic means our founder recommended. If the fruits are still slow in coming, it would be the moment to renew our faith and our humility: faith, in order to live those apostolic means with more determination if possible; humility, in order to examine what we have done up till now and to rectify wherever needed. But we can never give in to the temptation to modify the apostolic ways of the Work by introducing apparent improvements, making concessions regarding something that does not belong to us.

At times we will have to be patient, waiting for the right moment to gather in the harvest. First the ground must be ploughed; then furrowed; then the seed sown; afterwards the harvest arrives. It may happen that the saying is fulfilled, One sows and another reaps. Faced with this possibility, my child, you have to be ready to sow abundantly, so that those who come after you may reap more abundantly. And from the outset we should feel blessed along with those brothers of ours who will hear the words that Christ, the divine Sower, will tell them through St. John (Jn 4: 38): ego misi vos metere, quod vos non laborastis; alii laboraverunt et vos in labores eorum introistis; I have sent you to reap that for which you did not labour; others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.

The seed always sprouts and bears fruit: thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold. No one remains fruitless, because seed from good wheat, and such is the spirit of the Work, always produces good wheat. By our effort to do the St Raphael work well, souls improve. They acquire knowledge and virtues for a lifetime, and draw closer to God, feeling bound to the Work by a grateful affection that leads them to help out in our apostolates.

Once again we draw close to our Lady, Regina Apostolorum, and ask her to teach us to live with refined fidelity the spirit and apostolic ways proper to the Work.