225. Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time (C)

Meditations no. 572 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Seeing everything with God’s eyes.

EXPLAINING the resurrection to the Christians of Corinth, St. Paul writes: The first man, taken from the earth, is earthly; the second man is from heaven. As earthly man is terrestrial; as the heavenly man is so, so are the heavenly men.

Original sin, although it does not corrupt human nature and is erased by Baptism, leaves deep wounds in us: blindness of the intellect, so often hindered from knowing the truth; weakness of the will, which finds it difficult to pursue what the intellect presents to it as good; and anarchy of the passions, which incite to the affirmation of one’s own self and to the disordered satisfaction of appetites.

At the same time that we want to put God at the centre of our lives and direct all our actions to Him, we experience impulses that impel us to search for ourselves. For this reason, we will always have to struggle, with the help of grace, to reason and behave not like earthly man, who reduces the horizon to what his cloudy eyes perceive, but according to the heavenly man, in accordance with our condition as children of God.

We must be in Heaven and on earth, always. Not between Heaven and earth, because we are of the world. In the world and in Paradise at the same time: with our feet firmly planted on the earth and with our head and heart in heaven. And this is only possible if we try to have supernatural vision at all times. Supernatural vision, which means, above all, to live continuously with our eyes fixed on the eternity to which we are heading, without allowing ourselves to be dazzled by the glasses of the temporal.

We find a good example of this behavior in the first reading. Saul had gone out with his army in search of David, to kill him. With Abishai, David enters the camp at night, finds those who were pursuing him in a deep sleep, and comes to the tent where Saul is resting. His companion says to him, “God is putting your enemy in your hands today. Let me now drive him to the ground with his spear. I will not need to repeat the blow.” But David said to Abishai, “Do not kill him. Who raised his hand against the anointed one and went unpunished?” (… ). May the Lord save me from stretching out my hand against the Lord’s anointed.” They took the spear and the pitcher of water that were at Saul’s bedside and went away. When David was far away, he cried out and turned to Saul and said, “Here is the king’s spear; let one of your servants come in and take it away.” The Lord will repay each one according to his justice and faithfulness. The Lord has delivered you into my hands today, but I would not stretch out my arm against the Lord’s anointed. And he adds in words full of supernatural vision: Just as your life was great today in my eyes, may my life also be great in the eyes of the Lord and free me from all danger.

David has had the opportunity to get rid of those who wanted to kill him, but he sees in him not the persecutor, but the Lord’s anointed, and he respects his life. That must be our way of proceeding and our constant goal: to strive to acquire the habit - fruit of God’s presence - of seeing and judging all situations in which we find ourselves from God’s point of view, with our eyes fixed only on fulfilling his will, as our Father teaches us. Purity of intention. “You will always have it, if, always and in everything, you only seek to please God.

Let us now ask the Lord for help to discover whether, throughout our journey, this is the point of reference for all our actions - Deo omnis gloria! - even those apparently inconsequential ones, which constitute the fabric of ordinary life in which we have to sanctify ourselves and bring souls closer to God.

Frequently rectify the intention.

Rectitude of intention is opposed by distorted intention, the search for ourselves, however subtle it may seem. That is why, as St. Gregory the Great says, we must “examine very carefully our intention in all that we do, and not seek our own interests, if we want to serve the Lord.” For this reason we are invited to ask ourselves every week, in the Circle Brief, whether the end of our actions points directly to the Lord or is tainted by some other reason. Give “all” glory to God. -“Squeeze” with your will, helped by grace, each of your actions, so that there is nothing left in them that smells of human pride, of the complacency of your “I.” It is something about which we must be vigilant, to rectify, without ever taking it for granted. Purity of intention. “The suggestions of pride and the impetus of the flesh you know soon … and you fight and, with grace, you win.

But the motives that lead you to act, even in the holiest actions, do not seem clear to you. … And you feel a voice within you that makes you see human reasons … with such subtlety that there creeps into your soul the uneasiness of thinking that you do not work as you should-out of pure Love, solely and exclusively to give God all His glory.

React immediately each time and say: “Lord, I want nothing for myself. -Everything for your glory and for Love.”

Righteousness is also absent where there is a lack of a periodically renewed intention directed to God. So the fact of doing the same things every day easily gives way to routine. It is the flat, grounded, two-dimensional vision about which our Father warns us: if you lose the supernatural meaning of your life, your charity will be philanthropy; your purity, decency; your mortification, simplicity; your discipline, whip, and all your works, sterile.

Jesus insists on the rectitude of intention with which we are to carry out all our actions: beware of doing your righteousness before men so that they may see you; otherwise you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. And he emphasizes with different examples: when you give alms, do not go proclaiming it (…). When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who are fond of praying standing in synagogues and at the corners of the marketplaces, to show themselves before men (…). When you fast, do not pretend to be sad like the hypocrites, who disfigure their faces so that men will notice that they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have already received their reward. They have performed these actions, worthy of merit in themselves, seeking human glory, flaunting virtues, and they have achieved their goal: to believe, perhaps deceived, that other men will place them on a sad pedestal as faithful fulfillers of the Law; they were “justified” by those present, but perhaps not by God, who judges according to the intentions of the heart.

We have to ask ourselves: Do I lift my soul to God when I begin a work, while I am doing it and when I finish it? What moves me in family life, in apostolic contact with my companions, in the fulfillment of my social duties? Is it a habitual intention of my actions to be concerned for the Church, for the Pope, for the Work, for the Father, for my brothers and sisters, for all souls?

If we live in this way, facing God, it will also be natural for us to abandon ourselves confidently into his hands, since the only thing that moves us is to please him. Thus, no difficulty in the interior life or in the various activities of the day will make us lose our peace. Our Father warned: Have you done your duty? Has your intention been right? … Yes?” “Then do not worry that there are abnormal people, who discover the evil that exists only in their eyes.

Rectitude in our dealings with people.

IN this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus Christ teaches us to look with God’s eyes, as David did with Saul, at those who behave as our adversaries. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you and pray for those who slander you. … As you would have men do to you, do likewise to them.

Faced with a way of acting by other people that is annoying and even offensive to us, we have learned to react in accordance with St. Josemaría’s advice: Rather than in ‘giving,’ charity is in ‘understanding.’ That is why you look for an excuse for your neighbor - there are always ones - if you have the duty to judge. It is easy to find excuses to justify one’s actions, in which we always see extenuating circumstances; this must be our attitude in the face of the mistakes, carelessness or even offenses of those around us, because the Lord tells us: be merciful, as your Father is merciful.

Our Founder, coming out in the face of the susceptibility that so often clouds our judgment, moves us to reflect: you complain that he is not understanding. … -I am certain that he does everything possible to understand you. But when will you make a little effort to understand him? And he warns us: as long as you interpret the intentions of others in bad faith, you have no right to demand understanding for yourself.

We should not be surprised that we do not feel human sympathy, at first, for all the people we meet; especially for those who, at least apparently, have behaved badly towards us. We may not feel humanly attracted to people who would reject us, if we were to approach us. But Jesus requires us not to return evil for evil; not to miss opportunities to serve them with our hearts, even if it costs us; never to fail to keep them in mind in our prayers. Let us ask the Lord for light, to see if we habitually behave in this way: not only not to return evil for evil, which would be revenge, but to take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself to us, and to serve with our hearts, those towards whom, for some reason, we feel dislike. And to pray for them generously, because “what best defines the Law of Christ is charity; and we truly practice this charity when we tolerate the burdens of our brothers and sisters out of love”.

The Lord reminds us in the Gospel: love your enemies, do good and lend without expecting anything for it; and your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because He is good to the ungrateful and to the bad. Far be it from our conduct, therefore, to remember the offenses that have been done to us, of the humiliations we have suffered, however unjust, uncivil, and crude they may have been, because it is unbecoming for a child of God to have a register ready, to present a list of grievances.

We conclude our meditation by repeating to our Mother the request of the Hail Mary: turn those merciful eyes to us, although we know well that she has eyes only to look at her children and never takes her gaze away from us. We ask her to teach us to see all people and everything that happens around us with the eyes of God, and thus always have supernatural vision.