Beloved brothers and sisters, we find ourselves in this time of the Church that is one of the most marvelous times, liturgically speaking. This time, Lent, is a moment in our life of faith, in which the Gates of Heaven are open, wide open so that grace and more grace may be poured over each one of us. Therefore, it is the favorable time, time of grace, time for conversion.
There exists a Holy Father of the Church, called Saint Irenaeus, who is going to say that the great glory of God is a man fully alive. Man fully alive and much more that a human being simply lives. We are all living. Living is to be living under the grace of God and corresponding to this grace. Nothing in this world glorifies more the Heart of God, Nothing realizes more the heart of God, than that His sons will be with life and life in abundance. It was Jesus Himself who said, I came in order that all may have life and life in abundance.
In that depending on the Lord, all already is given in our life. The cross is the great proof of this. Living under the grace of God signifies that we cannot and we should not live a life in which intimacy with the Lord is not the essence of our existence.
Intimacy with God is the theme of the Gospel of today, for this speak of what is the one of the steps of lent. Prayer—intimacy among two persons that love each other.
Many times, we do not follow that which we ask for not because God does not want to give it. That which competes for that which may come to us realized in all felt in this life. and that we ask God, God will not give it—for excellence—He already give it. The problem is that we ask poorly, very poorly in the great majority of times. I have said in many reflections as we can perceive, that we are in search of the cures from God, difficultly we are convinced of that which we seek should be what God cures.
The prayer is pouring itself in the presence of the Most High It is taking the masks in his Presence and presenting ourselves, emptied in order that he can provide us with His love, As we are accustomed to seek God for that which He can give and not for that which He is and signifies in our life. It is therefore, that we do not receive. ALIAS, God knows us, He is Father! There exist things that in the first moment are marvels, but in our hand they become a risk of death. An example, most profound is the father that gives a knife for his son to play with. The knife as made is marvelous, for without it it would be very difficult to cut our food, now, it is the hand of a child, who does not have the sufficient maturity, it can become something fatal for his life.
“That which you want others to do to you, you do to them in this consists the law and prophets.” that word is the skill that is not because the bad are bad, but because the good are not better, they are not saints! For the other side, in order that we not come to fall into hyprocrisy, in pharasaical moralism, we need to make a question to each one of us. How much to the world exists inside of each one of us? The truth is that the world brings each one of us and we bring the world into our interior. Ah if we may have the courage to make others that they may want want they may do to us, in the small attitudes in our life day by day. We would have a family, society, a world quite different! For This, in order that I may live in such reality, only I can be moved to the force of love. If I seek to connect Christ to others.
The world is lost, the world does not have much more; I am not of the world . . .” But I need to ask myself and to ask you again, how much of the world exists inside of each one of us? We are called to transform the world that is inside of each one of us and this will be transformed through the force of prayer, through intimacy that we may have with the Lord. He wants to give us the Holy Spirit, or better yet, the love, the life the better reason to exist of God Himself in each one of us. But this is the fruit of a great fighting force.
Padre Pacheco
Comunidade Canção Nova
Translated from Portuguese