178. Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (A)

Meditations no. 561 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Jesus Christ teaches us the value of friendship to bring souls closer to God.

IN THE first reading of today’s Mass, we read the solemn proclamation that the Lord addresses to the prophetic figure of the Servant of Yahweh, outlined in the Book of Isaiah; a proclamation of universal scope, which will embrace all nations. It is very little that you are my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the survivors of Israel. I have appointed you to be a light to the nations, so that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. And when the fullness of time came, God, whose eternal plan is that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, sent his Son so that, through him, all nations might see the light of salvation.

Jesus Christ, the Word of God incarnate, carried out the mission entrusted to him by the Father by deeds and words, establishing on earth the divine luminary that illuminates all men. This was his only desire, as expressed in the words recorded by St. Luke: ignem veni mittere in terram, et quid volo nisi ut accendatur?; I have come to bring fire to the earth, and what do I want, but that it should burn? He did not carry out this mission by means of ostentatious deeds that would have dazzled the nations of that time. Although there were many miracles in Israel to testify that he was indeed the promised Messiah, and although his preaching often reached the great multitudes, his mission was more immediately addressed to a small group of men and women, in view of the building up of his Church, attracting them one by one, by his word and by his example.

To those who followed him, he instructed them in the things of his Father God through an open, familiar dialogue, full of trust and naturalness, as reflected in those words of unusual affection that he addressed to the Apostles at the Last Supper: “I have called you friends, because all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”

The Lord’s whole life was filled with friendship; with sincere friendship, the channel through which he entered the lives of those around him. The disciples allowed themselves to be won over by this friendship. They understood that Jesus was someone who loved them, to whom they could communicate their joys and weaknesses. That is why they went to him confidently, when they did not understand something, so that he could clarify it for them: edissere nobis parabolam, explain the parable to us, they asked him. For this reason they also accepted his remonstrances with docility when he corrected them, recording the fact for the benefit of future generations. At other times, in intimate conversations, Jesus shared with them his joys and his sleepless nights, and took care of them with solicitude, even of their physical rest: come alone to a secluded place, and rest a little. For there were many who came and went, and did not even have time to eat.

In this way, with a kind treatment accompanied by the right word, Jesus formed his disciples, so that in due time they could continue his saving work. Meditating on these and other texts of the Gospel, our Father wrote: “Whoever does not see the apostolic and supernatural efficacy of friendship has forgotten Jesus Christ: I no longer call you servants, but friends (Jn 15:15).

And of friendship with his apostles, with his disciples, with the family of Bethany: with Martha, Mary and Lazarus.

And of those scenes that St. John tells us, before the resurrection of Lazarus, that et lacrimatus est Iesus: he forgets the trusting words of the two sisters when they want to communicate to Jesus Christ the illness of Lazarus, and they send him this message: Lord, see that the one whom you love is sick (Jn 11:3).

The first Christians followed Christ’s way of acting.

The Apostles and the other disciples learned the Master’s lesson well and transmitted it to the Christians of the first generations. In one of his writings in defense of Christianity, Tertullian gives us a first-hand account of the lives of these brothers and sisters of ours in the faith. There we read that the pagans, admiring the fraternity that existed among the followers of Jesus, commented among themselves: “See how they love each other.”

The second reading of the Mass reminds us of the way St. Paul acted. The Apostle to the Gentiles writes: Paul, called to be an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Sosthenes, our brother, to the Church of God which is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, and to all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ everywhere. The mention of Sosthenes is not accidental. Paul surrounded himself with true collaborators - more than fifty are listed in all his writings - whom he loved dearly. He quotes them in his letters and missed them when they were absent, while he rejoiced when he received news of them. He made these collaborators sharers in his ministry, in order to go further in the mission entrusted to him. On the other hand, according to the circumstances, he attended with constant solicitude to the faithful scattered throughout the communities he had founded.

To reach everyone, he used the most suitable means at that time, the epistolary genre, writing letters on various subjects, according to the needs of each place, in which he included extensive greetings and exhortations to specific people. It was the way to maintain a continuous, family dialogue with his beloved children, to know their problems and to overcome their difficulties: sometimes he praised a faithful behavior that filled him with joy, sometimes he exhorted them to live a more integral faith. On three occasions he wrote to his closest collaborators, Timothy and Titus, to give them advice and encouragement in the complete fulfillment of the apostolic ministry.

Those who knew him learned from Paul to have an open and understanding attitude towards others, full of generosity and optimism, strong, disinterested and cordial. The behavior of Aquila and Priscilla, an exemplary couple who had a great friendship with St. Paul, is illustrative. One day they heard Apollo speak, an eloquent man who acted with fervor of spirit and taught with care about Jesus, although he knew only the baptism of John. Unable to contain their apostolic zeal, Priscilla and Aquila took him with them and explained to him more accurately the way of God.

With that ardent charity, which excelled beyond simple human solidarity or goodness of character, the first Christians always acted. They had, by reason of their supernatural vocation, no social or human programs to fulfill; but they were imbued with a spirit, with a conception of life and of the world, which could not fail to have consequences in the society in which they moved.

With a personal apostolate similar to ours, they became proselytizes and, during their captivity, Paul already sent to the churches the greetings of Christians who lived in Caesar’s house (cf. Phil 4:22). Are you not moved by that charming letter that the Apostle addresses to Philemon, which is a living testimony of how the leaven of Christ - without directly intending it - had given a new meaning, through the influence of charity, to the structures of herite society? (cf. Phil 8:12).

This is the message that the Church has wished to remind all the faithful in our day: that “since it is proper to the state of the laity to live in the midst of the world and of temporal affairs, they are called by God so that, with the fervour of the Christian spirit, they may exercise their apostolate in the world as leaven”; and she exhorts, especially young people, to be “the first and immediate apostles of young people, exercising their personal apostolate among their own companions, taking into consideration the social environment in which they live”.

We elevate friendship by leading our friends to be friends of Christ.

Following the doctrine of the Gospel and in the light of foundational grace, St. Josemaría described the actions of his daughters and sons as an apostolate of friendship and confidence; a phrase that expresses the kind Christian obligation to foster the human value of friendship in all the environments in which we find ourselves, through a dialogue that is also a channel for transmitting the greatness of the faith. Cultivating a true friendship with those around us is like a spontaneous consequence of the call to Opus Dei, and entails an authentic interest in the problems and concerns that affect people, sharing activities, tastes and hobbies with them, dedicating time to them …

From this coexistence you take the opportunity to bring souls closer to Christ Jesus, and it is logical that you should not shy away from it. Indeed, it is necessary that you seek it, that you foster it, because you are apostles, with an apostolate of friendship and confidence, and you cannot shut yourselves up behind any wall that isolates you from your companions: neither materially - because we are not religious - nor spiritually, because noble and sincere contact with everyone is the human means of your work as souls.

Because our friendship must be noble, sincere, self-sacrificing, it is logical that we want to give our friends the greatest good we possess: God himself. For this reason, dialogue and confidence come naturally from true friendship; a confidence in which they share their problems and illusions with us - because nothing of them is alien to us - and in which we too open ourselves to speak to them of love for Jesus Christ, which is what gives meaning to our existence. Friendship then becomes purer, because it opens itself to the gift of more important goods, following the example of the Lord who “has changed us from servants to friends, as he himself said: you are my friends, if you do what I command you” (Jn 15:14). He has left us the model of friendship that we must imitate. Therefore, Saint Ambrose advises, we must share the will of our friend, reveal to him confidentially what we have in our hearts and not be ignorant of anything that he carries in his heart. Let us open our souls to him, and he will open his own to us.”

The Lord wants us to have many friends, to speak to them about God, to make them know and love Jesus Christ, to leave no one alone in their difficulties. The apostolate of friendship and confidence must, for this very reason, help them to walk towards God, to concretize a plan of spiritual life. For this we must know how to speak with the gift of tongues. In this too, we must learn from the way in which Jesus Christ addressed the people. Sometimes he speaks to them from the boat, while they are sitting on the shore; sometimes on the mountain, so that the whole crowd may hear well; at other times, amid the noise of a banquet, in the stillness of the home, walking among the fields, sitting under the olive trees. He addresses each one, according to what each one can understand: and he gives examples of nets and fish, for the seafaring people; of seeds and vines, for those who work the land; to the housewife, he will speak of the lost drachma; to the Samaritan woman, taking advantage of the water that the woman goes to fetch from Jacob’s well. Jesus welcomes everyone, accepts the invitations that are made to him and, when he is not invited, sometimes it is he who invites himself: Zachaee, festinans descende quia hodie in domo tua oportet me manere (Lk 19:5); Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for it is fitting that I should stay in your house today.

Let us also contemplate our Mother Mary, Regina Apostolorum, who goes with solicitude to the house of her cousin Saint Elizabeth, where John the Baptist is to be born. God, through the Archangel, had not asked her to go and care for her relative, and Elizabeth had not asked for her help. However, Mary sets out cum festinatione, with joyful alacrity, with ineffable joy, to render services to her cousin. We ask her to obtain for us the cordiality and diligence necessary to establish deep bonds with those around us, so that they too may become friends of Christ.