419. Twenty-eighth Friday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 373 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The Blessed Trinity dwells in a soul in grace.

In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. St Paul tells us that by baptism we enter into communion with the Trinitarian mystery: we are united to Christ, we share in the marvellous reality of our divine filiation, and we become temples of the Holy Spirit. Our thanksgiving should be continuous, since the Blessed Trinity has fallen in love with man.

Our Father wrote: My daughters and sons, you’ve often heard me say that since God dwells in the centre of our soul in grace, we all have a “direct line” to God our Lord. But what are all human comparisons worth, compared to this marvellous, divine reality? Waiting for us at the other end of the line, is not only the Great Unknown, but the entire Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For where one of the divine Persons is present, there the other two are as well.

We are never alone. It’s a shame that we Christians forget we’re a throne for the Blessed Trinity. I advise you to develop the custom of seeking God in the depths of your heart. This is what it means to have interior life.

Our Founder always gave us this advice and taught us to put it into practice in all circumstances. Someone may say to me: “Father, I seek him in my soul… , but I don’t find anything.”

I would tell that child of mine: perhaps you’ve had little interior life, or perhaps you’ve had a lot, but now God wants to test you. Does your soul seem to be an empty cistern? Well, seek God’s love! Seek the Lord and his strength, seek his face continually. But do so with the same determination people put into winning a clean human love. Seek God like that, and be sure that everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

Where there’s no water, what do people do? They build a cistern, and then carry water to it in buckets, emptying them one by one. When you find it impossible to recollect yourself for prayer, you have to prepare yourself by carrying water to the cistern: by acts of love and reparation, spiritual Communions, invocations to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to our Lady, St Joseph, and our holy Guardian Angels. All this is the water we bring by dint of our own effort.

We may have to keep doing so for a long time, but if we persevere, the moment will come when we won’t need to go in search of water, for a well will have formed. Perhaps at the beginning the water doesn’t rise easily, but it is a well of living water, present in the depths of your soul. You don’t know where the water comes from, nor how it collects there, nor when it’s going to flow… but you can always drink from it. And if you are persistent, the water in the well rises and rises, until it forms a spring of clear water where you can always quench your thirst, drinking with both hands, with your mouth wide open.

Do you understand, my children? There’s always water available. Each of you, with the help of the triune God hidden in your soul, can manage never to be an empty cistern, but a well of water that rises until it becomes a spring of marvellous, clear water, the water of love. But, my daughters and sons, you have to put your whole heart into this effort.

God’s constant self-giving, especially in the Eucharist, makes us want to be contemplatives.

Our Lord seems to be determined especially to make us understand how dearly the Blessed Trinity loves each of us: Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. No concern of ours escapes God’s fatherly love; he continually knocks on the door of our heart in search of love.

The path to the divine spring our Father speaks of lies in our heart, since we have God in the centre of our soul in grace. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Without becoming sanctimonious, you’ll come to find it easy to enter into prayer while you work, when you walk along the street, when you don’t look at what will separate you from God. You need to seek out our Lord in prayer and in the Eucharist, in the Bread and in the Word. But I insist, we have to be persistent: I would express it graphically by saying that, if necessary, we should carry on our shoulders whatever effort it involves.

Ay a deer longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? The liturgy applies these words to our eagerness to be united with Christ in the holy Sacrament of the Altar. The Eucharist is the greatest divine gift, the height of Trinitarian self-giving to his creatures, and an inexhaustible source of interior life. Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

We need to seek out our Lord eagerly in the Eucharist, not only when he is on the altar or in the priest’s hands during the Sacrifice of the Mass, but also when he remains reserved in the tabernacle. Jesus Christ is really present there, with his Body, with his Blood, with his Soul and with his Divinity … I like to repeat this truth time and time again, making acts of faith.

My daughters and sons, treat him well for me! Don’t leave him alone in the tabernacle. Keep him all the company physically possible; and then with your heart, when you’re working, go to the tabernacle and say loving things to him. May he see that you are dedicated, faithful, loving, with a sincere desire to be filled with God.

Humility is required to become a contemplative.

Together with unshakeable faith, we need to foster the virtue of humility. Our Lord said during his discourse on the Eucharist: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. God the Father draws us toward Christ by the action of the Holy Spirit. We cannot merit this gratuitous gift by our own efforts. We need a receptive, humble disposition.

To draw close to our Lord, we need to trample on ourselves through humility, like grapes in a wine-press in order to produce good wine. If we trample on our wretchedness, which is all we are, then he comes and takes up his abode in our soul. He speaks to us and we to him, in a trusting conversation between a child and his father.

Be pious, pray a lot. Pray like strong men and women, sure of the treasure we possess, for God is with us. And pray like children, confident that our Father God always hears us.

With the security of our divine filiation, by humble and constant conversation with our Father God, we prepare ourselves to be filled with his grace, to be divinized. Perhaps you’ll ask me again, “But how can I become deified if I’m nothing?” And I’ll answer you again: it’s true, we are nothing, we are worth nothing, we have nothing. Therefore, draw close to him, enter into yourself: better yet, step on top of yourself, through humility. And from the perspective of your littleness, you’ll see all the Love of God that dwells in your soul, making your actions fruitful. Decide to trample on yourself, and then it will no longer be you who live but Christ who lives in you.

We must strive to be truly souls of prayer, with a deep spirit of reparation. And we have to fight resolutely against the devil, since Satan never rests, and works impudently even within the Church. We have to pray more, behave well at each moment, struggle decidedly every day. Only thus can we see and know if we are truly friends of the Lord, or if we aren’t.

My daughters and sons, put care into your piety and acts of worship. Whoever doesn’t give importance to a genuflection before the Blessed Sacrament or a bow of the head before an image of our Lady, not only as a sign of respect but of love, doesn’t deserve the name “Christian”…

My children, let us open wide the doors of our soul to God. Use human reminders, aspirations, a word that stirs your memory, in order to keep up a continuous conversation with our divine Guest. And make use of the intercession of our Mother, of St Joseph, our Father and Lord, and of your holy Guardian Angel.

We finish our prayer with our Founder’s words: What are we before God? Nothing! And nevertheless, he is in our soul and we are his children, and children of his very Mother. Have recourse to our Lady. I remember my mother’s lessons, her caresses, the prayers she got me to repeat, her constant concern for me. These memories lead me to consider the role of the Mother of God and our Mother. Mary will give to our life, as she did with hers, the divine significance that draws God’s loving gaze and heaven’s grace.