“Let love be sincere; hate what is evil, hold on to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; anticipate one another in showing honor. Do not grow slack in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer.” (Romans 12:9-12 NAB)
We are a body and each day one of us has a function. Therefore we need to be charitable, one with the others, and not believe we are better alone. If the left hand works more than the right; one is going to remain atrophied. We all participate from the same body, therefore we have to live this charity, this love that is given. How have you lived the gift that God gave to you? If you have the gift of teaching, teach, if you have the gift of serving, serve. Jesus said that He did not come to be served, but to serve. People today do not want to serve. Today we live a comfort, we don’t want to serve, we want to have all come to us. “Give and it will be given unto you.”, Do not remain waiting for things and person arrive to you, make the first step. Do without waiting for a return.
“Love must be sincere.” It is necessary that we return to this, that the essence of Christianity maybe sincere love. Jesus says: “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Today they want to print falsehoods in us and I know that it is difficult to go against them. because today we don’t know that which is true or a lie, but we need to return to the essence, for Christ already taught us what is the truth. The word “Sincerely” is being drawn from our vocabulary.
“Detest the bad, embrace the good.” The only thing that you should detest is evil, the devil! Do not remain in the “more or less”! When we remain “on the wall”, we run the risk of falling on the wrong side. Today is the day that we return to God, to true charity. When we experience the truth we are truly free.
“be zealous and dilligent”. Do not have fear of being zealous with your brothers, with the things of God, serving-Him always in joy; this is the true charity. And we are invited to live it, it is not easy, it is a challenge, we are invited daily to live the fraternal life, the truth charity.
I praise and give thanks to God, that during all the time of this preaching, he may put in my heart what Monsignor Jonas Abib so spoke: “Forming new men and women, new families.” This is possible, yes!
“Fervorous in the Spirit, strong in tribulation.” Everybody experiences tribulation, may we be strong, we live the strength in God, we seek to overcome tribulation. It is necesssary to want to live charity, we are of the same family. Many times we fall in the temptation of leaving on the same path, but we are brothers, no one is better than the other, we have the same quality, we have differences, yes, but they are not barriers, they are riches. Whomever unites us is much better than whomever separates us.
We need to live the true love, because we are in a society, because many times, we leave the church and speak with no one. It is necessary to transform the realities and not form ourselves to them. We are invited to transform the world, returning to our essence. We all bring the responsibility of living sincere love.
[God’s will is ] that, upon leaving the Canção Nova campus, we leave desperate to transform a new world, that needs to begin in us. Begin in your parish. We need to live the true charity and love to the neighbor.
Father Bruno
Canção Nova Missionary
translated from Portuguese