408. Twenty-seventh Wednesday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 364 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Divine filiation is the key to our daily struggle.

Our Father wrote in an early Letter: We read in the eleventh chapter of St Luke: one day Jesus was praying. What must Jesus’ prayer have been like! The disciples were nearby, perhaps watching him, and when he finished, one of them said: Domine, doce nos orare, sicut docuit et Ioannes discipulos suos; Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples. And he said to them, “When you pray, say ‘Father, hallowed be your name…’”

My children, what a marvellous scene! The disciples speak to Jesus, and as a fruit of their conversations our Lord tells them how to pray and teaches them the great wonder of divine mercy: that we are children of God, that we can speak to him as a child speaks to his or her Father.

We are children of God! This fundamental reality of our life takes on special meaning at the moment of struggle or weariness. Whenever we feel the weight of our errors, when perhaps discouragement begins to creep in, then is the moment to approach our Lord along the path our Founder taught us. We should remind Jesus, our Founder wrote, that we are children. And when children are tiny and innocent, what a lot of effort it takes for them to go up one step! They look as though they are wasting their time, but eventually they manage to climb up. Now there is another step. Crawling on their hands and knees, and putting their whole body into it, they score another success - one more step. Then they start again. What an effort! There are only a few more steps to go now. But then the toddler stumbles and - whoops! - down he goes. With bumps all over and in floods of tears, the poor child sets out and begins to try again.

We’re just like that, Jesus, when we’re on our own. Please take us up in your loving arms, like the simple child’s big, kind Friend. Stay with us until we have reached the top. And then - oh, then! - we will be able to respond fully to your Merciful Love, with the daring of young children, telling you, sweet Lord, that after Mary and Joseph, there never has been and never will be a mortal soul - and there have been some who have been really crazy - who loves you as much as I do.

By acting in this way, we come to see why cheerfulness is a necessary consequence of our divine filiation, of knowing that our Father God loves us with a love of predilection, that he holds us up and helps us and forgives us. Nothing will then shake our optimism. We know God our Father only asks for the cooperation of our good will shown by our daily struggle.

This spirit leads us to make an effort to pray and do the other Norms of our plan of life well.

Draw strength from your divine filiation. God is a Father - your Father! - full of warmth and infinite love. Call him Father frequently, and tell him, when you are alone, that you love him, that you love him very much, and that you feel proud and strong, because you are his son.

We find the path to this constant conversation with our Father God in the Norms of our plan of life. Therefore we should take great care of the Norms every day: there our heavenly Father welcomes us and gazes on us with love.

It is under the “umbrella” of God’s mercy, our Father wrote, that Christian existence should develop. Ever mindful of that, the Christian should strive to behave as a child of God…

At first it will be more difficult. You must make an effort to seek out the Lord, to thank him for his fatherly and practical concern for us. Although it is not a question of sentiment, little by little the love of God makes itself felt like a rustle in the soul. It is Christ who pursues us lovingly: Behold, I stand at the door and knock. How is your life of prayer going? At times don’t you feel during the day the impulse to speak more at length with him? Don’t you then whisper to him that you will tell him all about it later, in a heart-to-heart conversation?

In the periods expressly reserved for this rendezvous with our Lord, the heart is broadened, the will is strengthened, the mind, helped by grace, fills the world of human reality with supernatural content. The results come in the form of clear, practical resolutions to improve your conduct, to treat everyone more charitably, to spare no efforts - like good athletes - in this Christian struggle of love and peace.

Prayer then becomes continuous, like the beating of our heart, like our pulse. Without this presence of God, there is no contemplative life. And without contemplative life, our working for Christ is worth very little, for “vain is the builder’s toil if the house is not of the Lord’s building”.

Frequent consideration of our divine filiation is not a dry or rigid exercise. It comes from wanting our Father God to be present in all our thoughts, affections and desires. Like children who try, often unconsciously, to behave like their parents, acquiring their ways and customs, their points of view, we try to become like our heavenly Father. We try to see things as he sees them and love others as he loves them.

If we truly strive to seek Jesus throughout the day, everything in our life takes on a new meaning, although we always carry out the same tasks. Your life and mine, our Founder wrote, has to be as “ordinary” as that. We try to do our duties well, every day. We carry out our divine mission in the world by fulfilling the little duty of every moment. Or rather, we try to fulfil it, because sometimes we don’t succeed, and when night comes, we have to tell our Lord in our examination of conscience: “I have no virtues to offer you today; I can only offer you shortcomings, but by your grace I will be victorious.”

Frequent consideration of our divine filiation fills us with joy.

By frequent consideration of our divine filiation, the fruit of God’s grace and our own effort, our life takes on new meaning.

You are like the little pauper who suddenly finds out that he is the son of the King! That is why now the only thing that concerns you on this earth is the Glory of your Father God, his Glory in everything.

We then see people and events in their true light; nothing on earth can rob us of our peace. We walk through life sure and confident. Although we are very small, the Creator of the universe is our Father. How great you are, O Lord, we can say in the words of Sacred Scripture, for there is none like you … What other nation on earth is like your people Israel, whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name, and doing for them great and wonderful things? I must also warn you, our Father wrote, against the danger of routine - the real sepulchre of piety. Routine is often disguised as an ambition to do or embark upon great feats, while daily duties are lazily neglected. When you see this beginning to happen, look at yourself sincerely before our Lord: ask yourself if the reason why you may have become tired of always struggling on the same thing, is not simply that you were not seeking God; check if your faithful perseverance in work has not fallen off, due to lack of generosity and a spirit of sacrifice. It is then that your Norms of piety, your little mortifications, your apostolic efforts that are not reaping an immediate harvest, all seem to be terribly sterile. We find ourselves empty and perhaps we start dreaming up new plans merely to still the voice of our heavenly Father, who asks us to be totally loyal to him. And with this dream, or rather nightmare, of mighty wonders in our soul, we become oblivious to reality, forgetting the way that will lead us most certainly straight to sanctity. It is a clear sign that we have lost our supernatural outlook, our conviction that we are tiny children and our confidence that our Father will work wonders in us, if we begin again with humility.

Frequent consideration of our divine filiation will fill us with peace and strength when things get harder. The important thing is for us always to have recourse to our Father God, especially when our shortcomings threaten the cheerfulness of our dedication. This is our sure course to avoid going astray on the pathways of the earth.

Let us turn to our Blessed Lady, Mary, and place in her hands our renewed decision to dwell often on our divine filiation. She is a mother, who anticipates our requests, our Father wrote. Knowing our needs, she comes quickly to our aid. If we recall that God’s mercies come to us through the hands of our Lady, each of us can find many reasons for feeling that Mary is our mother in a very special way.