Jun 28, 2015 | Non categorizzato, Word of
These words conclude Jesus’s ‘Farewell Discourse’ to his disciples at the last supper, on the eve of his being handed over to those who were to put him to death. They had had an intense conversation in which Jesus had revealed the inner truth about his relationship with the Father and the mission the Father had entrusted to him. Jesus is about to leave the earth and return to the Father, while his disciples will remain in the world to carry on his work. They too, like him, will be hated, persecuted, even put to death (see Jn 15:18, 20; 16:2). Theirs will be a difficult mission just as his had been. Jesus is well aware of the difficulties and the trials his friends will have to face. He had just told them: ‘In the world you will face persecution’ (Jn 16:33). Jesus is speaking to the apostles gathered around him for the last supper, but he is thinking of all the generations of disciples who would follow him throughout the centuries, including us. It’s so true! Even while joy is spread all along the path we follow, there is no lack of ‘persecution’ and sufferings. We experience uncertainty about the future, job insecurity, poverty and sickness, suffering as a result of natural disasters and wars, violence at home and among nations. There are in addition the persecutions that come as a result of being Christians: the daily struggle to be faithful to the Gospel, the feeling of impotence before a society that seems indifferent to the message of God, mockery, scorn and sometimes open persecution by those who do not understand or oppose the Church. Jesus knows about ‘persecutions’ having experienced them at first hand. ‘Take courage; I have conquered the world!’ This statement, which is so decisive and confident, looks like a contradiction. How can Jesus say that he has conquered the world when a few minutes later he is going to be imprisoned, whipped, condemned, killed in the cruellest and most shameful manner? More than having conquered, it looks as if he was betrayed, denied, reduced to nothing, and so defeated – utterly. What is the nature of his victory? It came about, certainly, in the resurrection. Death cannot hold him. His victory is so powerful that he makes us share in it too. He makes himself present among us and he takes us with him to full life, the new creation. But even before that, his victory was the very act of his greatest love in giving his life for us. He, in defeat, triumphed fully. Penetrating every corner of death, he freed us from all that oppresses us, and he transformed all that is negative in us, our every darkness and pain, into a meeting with him, with God, Love, fullness. Paul, whenever he thought of Jesus’s victory, seemed to go mad with joy. If Jesus, he would affirm, had faced every setback, including even the supreme challenge of his death, and he had won, then we too, with him and in him, can overcome every difficulty, and indeed, thanks to his love, we are ‘more than conquerors’: ‘For I am convinced that neither death, nor life … nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom 8:38-39; see 1 Cor 15:57). We are invited by Jesus, therefore, to fear nothing anymore: ‘Take courage; I have conquered the world!’ These words of Jesus, which we will keep in mind for the whole of this month, can fill us with trust and hope. However tough and hard may be our circumstances, we have the certainty that Jesus has already made them his own and overcome them. Even if we do not have his inner strength, we have him himself who lives and struggles in us. We can say to him when we feel crushed by difficulties, trials or temptations, ‘If you have overcome the world, you will know how to overcome this “persecution” I am going through. To me, to my family, to my colleagues at work what is happening seems like an impossible hurdle. It feels to us as if we can’t make it. But with you among us, we will find the courage and the strength to face it, until we come to be “more than conquerors”.’ It is not a matter of having a triumphalist vision of Christian life, as if it were easy and everything had been sorted out. Jesus is victorious precisely in the moment that he lives his drama of suffering, injustice, forsakenness and death. Perhaps we too, at times, like Jesus and the martyrs, will have to wait for Heaven’s response before we see a full victory over evil. Often we are scared of speaking about Paradise, almost as if the thought of it were a drug stopping us facing the difficulties with courage, an anaesthetic to lessen the pain, an excuse not to have to fight against injustice. The hope of Heaven and faith in the resurrection are instead a powerful spur to look squarely at every problem, to support others in their trials, to believe that the final word belongs to love that conquers hate, of life that defeats death. So every time we come across a difficulty of any sort – be it personal, or of the people around us, or of those we hear about in different parts of the world – let’s renew our trust in Jesus, present in us and among us, who has overcome the world, who makes us share in his own victory, who opens up Paradise where he has gone to prepare a place for us. In this way we will find the courage to face every trial. We can overcome everything in he who gives us the strength. Fabio Ciard
May 28, 2015 | Non categorizzato, Word of
Audio of the June Word of Life
We can become slaves to what we do, getting all ‘hot and bothered’. Jesus invites us to focus on the only thing that matters: living his word as we live for him. This makes our work a creative act of love. There is much affection in repeating this name: “Martha, Martha”! The house in Bethany, near Jerusalem, was a place Jesus would stop and rest with his disciples. In the city, he was drawn into debates; he found antagonism and rejection. In Bethany, instead, he felt welcome and found peace. Martha was enterprising and active. She showed it later when her brother died and she engaged Jesus in a lengthy conversation, questioning him energetically. She was a strong woman who showed great faith. When “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life… Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe’” (Jn 11:25–27). She answered without any hesitation. At this point she was extremely busy, organizing a special welcome for the master and his disciples. She was the mistress of the house (as her name suggests: Martha means “mistress”), and so she felt responsible. She was probably preparing the evening meal for her important guest. Her sister Mary had left her all alone to do the work. Contrary to the traditions of the East, Mary did not go to the kitchen but remained with the men to listen to Jesus, sitting at his feet, just like the perfect disciple. This gave rise to the rather resentful comment by Martha: “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me” (Lk 10:40). And Jesus’ affectionate, yet firm reply was:
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.”
Was Jesus not happy with the enterprising and generous service of Martha? Didn’t he appreciate her concrete and practical way of welcoming him, and wouldn’t he be happy to eat the food that was being prepared? Shortly after this episode, in his parables he will praise the administrators, businesspeople and employees who know how to use their talents creatively and do business with their goods (see Lk 12:42; 19:12–26). He even praises shrewdness (see Lk 16:1–8). He could not but rejoice at seeing a woman so full of initiative and capable of giving a warm and abundant welcome. What Jesus calls attention to is the state she was in, how bothered and worried she was about her work. Martha is agitated, “distracted by her many tasks” (Lk 10:40); she has lost her calm. It is no longer she who controls her work, but it is her work that has taken control and tyrannizes her. She is no longer free; she has become a slave to what she does. Doesn’t it happen also to us at times that we get lost in the thousands of things to do? We are drawn to and distracted by the internet, by messaging, by useless posts. Even when we have serious commitments to occupy us, they can make us forget to be attentive to others, to listen to people right next to us. Above all, the danger is that we lose sight of why and who we are working for. Our work and other concerns become ends in themselves. Or else we are overcome by anxiety and agitation when we face difficult situations and problems with our family, money matters, career, school and the future of our children —to such an extent that we forget the words of Jesus: “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things” (Mt 6:31–32). We too deserve Jesus’ criticism:
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.”
What is the only thing needed? To hear and live the words of Jesus. Before these words and before he who speaks them, we cannot put anything at all. The true way of welcoming the Lord, of making him feel at home, is to welcome what he says. This is what Mary did: forgetting everything else, she put herself at his feet and did not miss a single word. If we do that we will be guided not by our desire to be noticed or to have the first place, but only by pleasing him, by being at the service of his kingdom. Like Martha, we too are called to do “many things” for the good of others. Jesus has taught us that the Father is happy when we bear “much fruit” (see John 15:8) and that we will even do greater things than he did (see Jn 14:12). He looks therefore at our dedication, our passion in doing the work he has given us to do, our imagination, courage and resourcefulness. He wants us to do many things without getting bothered and agitated, but keeping the peace that comes from knowing we are doing God’s will. The only thing that matters therefore is to become Jesus’ disciples, letting him live in us, being attentive to what he suggests with his gentle voice that prompts us moment by moment. In this way he will be the one who guides us in every act. In doing “many things” we will not be distracted and side-tracked, because by following Jesus’ words we will be moved by love alone. In all we do, we will always do only one thing: love.
Fabio Ciardi *
*Fr Fabio Ciardi, OMI is a theologian and close collaborator of Chiara Lubich Read more on this topic: Lubich, Chiara. Here and Now: Reflections on Living the Present Moment. New City Press, Hyde Park, New York, 2005. Lubich, Chiara. “A divine balance,” Essential Writings. New City Press, Hyde Park, New York, 2007. Pg. 123. Next month: Word of Life for July 2015 “Take courage; I have conquered the world!” (Jn 16:33).
Apr 29, 2015 | Non categorizzato, Word of
With the tenderness of mercy our love can give witness to the reality of God’s love. We experience what we share with others. When the Lord God appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai he declared his identity as: ‘The Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’ (Ex 34:6). To indicate the nature of this merciful love, the Hebrew Bible uses a word (raḥămîm) that recalls a mother’s womb, the place where life begins. By making himself known as ‘merciful’, God shows that for each thing he has made he is concerned as a mother is for her child. He cares, is near, protects, looks after his creature. The Bible uses a further term (ḥesed) to express other aspects of this love which is mercy: faithfulness, benevolence, goodness, solidarity. Mary in her Magnificat too sings of the Almighty’s mercy that is from generation to generation (see Lk 1:50). Jesus himself spoke to us of God’s love, revealing him as a ‘Father’ close and attentive to our every necessity, keen to pardon, to give all we need: ‘he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous’ (Mt 5:45). His love is truly ‘rich’ and ‘great’, as is said in the letter to the Ephesians that give us our Word of Life: ‘But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.’ What Paul says here is almost a cry of joy born of the contemplation of the extraordinary thing God has done for us. We were dead and he revived us, giving us a new life. The words begin with ‘but’, indicating a contrast with what Paul pointed out earlier. This was the tragic condition of humanity crushed beneath its wrongdoing and sins, prisoner of selfish and wicked desires, under the influence of the powers of evil, in open rebellion against God. In this situation it would have deserved God’s wrath (see Eph 2:1-3). In contrast God, instead of punishing – hence Paul’s utter amazement – gives humanity life again. God does not let himself be governed by wrath, but by mercy and by love. Jesus had already suggested that God acts like this when he told the parable of the Prodigal Son, the younger brother who was welcomed back by his father with open arms after he had sunk into an inhuman life. It was the same with the parable of the Good Shepherd who goes in search for the lost sheep and puts it on his shoulders to bring it back home. And the same can be seen in the Good Samaritan who cares for the wounds of the man who had fallen into the hands of robbers (see Lk 15:11-32; 3-7; 10:30-37). God, a merciful father, symbolized in the parables, has not only forgiven us, but he has given us life itself in his son Jesus, that is, given us the fullness of divine life. And this leads to a hymn of gratitude: ‘But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.’ This Word of Life ought to make us feel the same joy and gratitude as Paul and the first Christian community. To each one of us, too, God shows himself ‘rich in mercy’ and of ‘great love’, ready to forgive and grant trust again. There is no situation of sin, of suffering, of solitude, where he does not make himself present, does not come alongside us to go with us on our way, does not grant us trust, the possibility of rising up and the strength to start again. At his first ‘Angelus’, on 17 March two years ago, Pope Francis started speaking about the mercy of God, a theme that has become characteristic for him. At that time he said, ‘God’s face is the face of a merciful father who is always patient… he understands us, he waits for us, he does not tire of forgiving us.’ He ended that first brief greeting with the words, ‘He is the loving Father who always pardons, who has that heart of mercy for us all. And let us too learn to be merciful to everyone.’ This points to a practical way to live the Word of Life. If God for us is rich in mercy and of great love, we too are called to be merciful towards others. If he loves those who are bad, who are his enemies, we too ought to learn how to love those who are not ‘lovable’, even our enemies. Did not Jesus tell us, ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy’ (Mt 5:7)? Did he not ask us to be ‘merciful, just as your Father is merciful’ (Lk 6:36)? Paul too invites his communities, chosen and loved by God, to clothe themselves ‘with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience’ (Col 3:12). If we have believed in God’s love, we too can love in our turn with that love which makes us draw close to every situation of pain and need, that forgives all things, that protects, that knows how to look after the other person. Living in this way we will be able to give witness to God’s love and help those we meet discover that also for them God is rich in mercy and of great love. Fabio Ciardi
Mar 29, 2015 | Non categorizzato, Word of
Audio of the Word of Life
Paul offers us a superb way of being truly love for one another, by ‘making ourselves one’ with them.
In his first letter to the community in Corinth, from which the Word of Life for this month comes, Paul has to defend himself against the scant regard some Christians show for him. They called into question or denied that he was an apostle. After demonstrating fully his qualifications as an apostle because he had ‘seen Jesus Christ’ (see 9:1), Paul explained why he acted with humility and deference to the point of even giving up any payment for his work. While he could have asserted his authority and his rights as an apostle, he preferred to make himself ‘the servant of all’. This is his evangelical strategy.
He enters into solidarity with every kind of person, to the point of becoming one of them, with the aim of bringing the freshness of the Gospel. Five times he repeats ‘I made myself’ one with the other: with Jews, out of love for them, he puts himself under the Mosaic Law even though he said he was not bound by it; with non-Jews, who did not follow the Law of Moses, he lived as someone not under the Mosaic Law, because he had instead a more demanding law, Jesus himself; with those who came to be called the ‘weak’ (probably scrupulous Christians), who worried about whether they should eat the flesh of animals sacrificed to idols, he too became weak even though he was ‘strong’ and experienced a tremendous liberty. In a word, he made himself ‘all things to all people.’
Every time he repeats that he acts like this to ‘win’ each for Christ, to ‘save’ by any means at least someone. He has no illusions, is without triumphalist expectations, knows well that only a number will respond to his love. All the same he loves everyone and puts himself at the service of all according to the example of the Lord, who ‘came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mt 20:28). Who has made himself one with us more than Jesus? He who was God ‘emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness’ (Phil 2:7).
‘I have become all things to all people.’
Chiara Lubich made this word one of the key points of her ‘art of loving’, summed up in the expression ‘to make yourself one.’ She saw in it an expression of the ‘diplomacy’ of charity. She wrote, ‘When someone weeps, we must weep too. And if someone laughs, we too rejoice . Thus the cross is divided and borne by many shoulders, and joy is multiplied and shared by many hearts…. Making ourselves one with our neighbour for love of Jesus, with the love of Jesus, so that our neighbour, sweetly wounded by the love of God in us, will want to make himself or herself one with us, in a mutual exchange of help, of ideals, of projects, of affections…. This is the diplomacy of charity, which has many of the expressions and features of ordinary diplomacy; hence it does not say all that it could say, for this would displease others and would be disagreeable to God. It knows how to wait, how to speak, how to reach its goal. It is the divine diplomacy of the Word who becomes flesh to make us divine.’
With the skill of a teacher, Chiara also discerns the daily difficulties we have in ‘making ourselves one’: ‘At times we are distracted, at times we have the unfortunate desire to be hasty in saying what we think, in giving our advice at the wrong moment. On other occasions, we are not really open to making ourselves one with our neighbour because we reckon that they do not understand our love, or we are held back by other kinds of judgements. In some cases we are hampered by a hidden wish to conquer the other person to our cause.’ For this reason ‘it is really necessary to cut with or set aside all that fills our minds and our hearts so that we can make ourselves one with others.’ It is thus a love that is constant and tireless, which carries on through thick and thin and is not on the look-out for anything for itself, and that in turn entrusts itself to the greater and stronger love of God.
These are useful ideas that can help us to live the Word of Life this month, by listening sincerely to the other person, understanding the other from within, identifying with what he or she is living and feeling, sharing his or her worries and joys:
‘I have become all things to all people.’
We cannot interpret this invitation of the Gospel as a request to renounce our convictions, as if we approved uncritically of any kind of behaviour in other people and did not have our own life-choices and our own way of thinking. If we have loved to the point of becoming the other, and if what we have shared has been a gift of love and has created a sincere relationship, we can and we must express our own ideas, even though perhaps they may cause pain, all the while remaining in an attitude of profound love. Making ourselves one is not a sign of weakness, nor of looking for a calm and easy way of living together. Instead, it is the expression of a person who is free who chooses to be at the service of others; it demands courage and determination.
It is important to bear in mind the purpose of making ourselves one.
Paul’s words that we are living this month, as we have already hinted, go on to say ‘by any means save some.’ Paul justifies his making himself one with the desire to bring people salvation. It is a way of entering into the other, to draw out the good and the truth within them, to put an end to any errors there may be and set down a seed of the Gospel. It is a task that for the apostle admits of no limits or excuses, that cannot be ducked because it has been entrusted to him by God himself, and he must do it ‘by all means’, with that creativity which only love can bring.
This is the intention that, in the end, motivates our ‘making ourselves one’. Politics and commerce also wish to come close to people, to enter into their way of thinking, to understand their longings and needs, but they always want some kind of return. Instead, Chiara would say, ‘Divine diplomacy has this greatness and this property, perhaps a property of it alone: it is moved by the good of the other and is therefore devoid of any shadow of selfishness.’
‘Making ourselves one’ therefore, to help everyone grow in love and so contribute to making people universally brothers and sisters, God’s dream for humanity, the reason that Jesus gave his life.
Fabio Ciardi
Feb 27, 2015 | Non categorizzato, Word of
While visiting the north of Galilee, in the villages around Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked his disciples what they thought of him. Peter, speaking for them all, declared his belief that he was the Christ, the Messiah awaited for centuries. To avoid misunderstandings, Jesus explained how his mission should be understood. He would indeed free his people, but in an unexpected manner, paying in person. He would suffer greatly, be condemned, killed and, after three days, rise again. Peter did not accept this vision of the Messiah. As many others of his time, he imagined the Messiah to be someone who would act with power and strength, defeating the Romans and putting the nation of Israel in its proper place in the world. He reprimanded Jesus, who in turn said to Peter: ‘You are not thinking in God’s way, but as humans do’ (see Mk 8:31-33).
Jesus set off again, this time in the direction of Jerusalem, where he was to fulfil his destiny of death and resurrection. Now that his disciples knew he was going to his death, would they want to carry on following him? Jesus’ conditions are clear and demanding. He called the crowd and his disciples together and he said to them:
‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’
They had been fascinated by him, the Master, when he walked by the lakeside, as they cast their nets to fish, or at the tax booth. Without hesitation they had left their boats, nets, booth, father, house, family to go running after him. They had seen him work miracles and had heard his words of wisdom. Until that moment they had followed him in a spirit of joy and enthusiasm.
Following Jesus, however, was something that required far more. Now what it meant to share fully in his life and destiny became clear: failure and hostility, even death, and what a death! It was the most painful, the most shameful of deaths; the one reserved for murders and the most vicious criminals. A death the Scriptures called ‘cursed’ (see Dt 21:23). Just mentioning the ‘cross’ caused terror. It was almost unspeakable. This is the first time the word appears in the Gospel. Who knows what impression it made on his listeners?
Now that Jesus had clearly affirmed his own identity, he could demonstrate with equal clarity the identity of someone who was his disciple. If the Master is one who loves his people to the point of dying for them, taking their cross upon himself, so too his disciple, to be such, must set aside his or her own way of thinking and share in the entire way of the Master, starting with the cross:
‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’
Being Christian means being another Christ, to have ‘the same mind that was in Christ Jesus’ who ‘humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross’ (Phil. 2:5,8), to be crucified with Christ, to the point of being able to say with Paul: ‘it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me’ (Gal. 2:20), knowing nothing ‘except Jesus Christ, and him crucified’ (1 Cor. 2:2). It is Jesus who continues to live, die, rise again in us. This is the greatest desire and the ambition of the Christian, the thing that has created the great saints: being like the Master. But how can we follow Jesus and become like this?
The first step is to ‘deny yourself’, distance yourself from your own way of thinking. It was what Jesus asked of Peter when he reprimanded him for thinking in the manner of human beings and not God. We too, like Peter, wish at times to assert ourselves in an egotistical manner, or at least according to our own criteria. We look for easy and immediate success, with every difficulty smoothed away; we look with envy at those rising up the career ladder; we dream of having a united family and of building around us a caring society and a Christian community without our having to pay a high price.
Denying ourselves means entering into God’s way of thinking, which is how Jesus thought and is displayed in his way of doing things: the logic of the grain of wheat that must die to bear fruit, of finding more joy in giving than in receiving, of offering one’s life out of love, in a word, of taking up the cross:
‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’
The cross, the ‘daily’ cross as Luke’s gospel calls it (Lk 9:23), can have a thousand faces: an illness, a job loss, the inability to sort out family or work problems, the sense of failure in being unable to create genuine relationships, the feeling of impotence before the world’s massive conflicts, indignation at the recurrent scandals of society… The cross does not need to be sought, it comes on its own, perhaps when we least expect it and in ways we would never have imagined.
Jesus invites us to ‘take it up’, not resigning ourselves to endure it as an evil we cannot avoid, not letting it come down on us and crush us, not even putting up with it by acting with stoicism and detachment. Instead welcome it as a sharing in his cross, as a possibility of being his disciples even in those situations and live in communion with him even in that suffering, because he first took our cross on his shoulders. In every suffering, whatever it may be, we can thus find Jesus who has already made it his own.
Igino Giordani saw in this an instance of role reversal with Simon of Cyrene who bore Jesus’ cross: the cross ‘weighs less if Jesus becomes our Cyrenian.’ And it weighs still less, he goes on to say, if we bear it together. ‘A cross borne by one person ends up as crushing; a cross borne together by several persons with Jesus in their midst, which is to say with Jesus taking it up as a Cyrenian, grows lighter: an easy yoke. A climb, with many climbers roped together, in agreement with one another, becomes a joy, even while the ascent is being made.’
So we are to take up the cross and bear it with him, knowing that we are not alone in carrying it because he bears it with us. This is relating, it is belonging to Jesus, even to the point of full communion with him, to the point of becoming another him. And this is the way that we follow Jesus and become true disciples. The cross will then become for us, as for Christ, ‘the power of God’ (1 Cor. 1:18), the way of resurrection. In every weakness we will find strength, in every darkness light, in every death life, because we will find Jesus.
Fabio Ciardi
Jan 30, 2015 | Non categorizzato, Word of
The apostle Paul wanted to go to Rome on his way to Spain, and he sent a letter to the Romans before he arrived. Through their countless martyrs they were about to give witness to the sincerity and depth of their devotion to the Gospel, but among them, just as elsewhere, there was no lack of tensions, misunderstandings and even rivalries. In fact, the Christians in Rome came from a variety of social, cultural and religious backgrounds. There were some who came from Judaism and others from the Hellenic world and the ancient religion of Rome, perhaps from Stoicism or from other philosophies. They brought with them their traditions of thought and ethical convictions. Some were called ‘weak’, because they followed particular rules about eating, being, for instance, vegetarians or complying with calendars that indicated special days of fasting. Others were called ‘strong’ because, free from these kinds of conditioning, they were not bound by food taboos or specific rituals. To all of them Paul made the urgent invitation:
Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
Before this point in his letter he had already spoken about the issue, addressing first of all the ‘strong’ and inviting them to ‘welcome’ the ‘weak’, ‘without quarrelling over opinions’. Then he says that the ‘weak’ in turn should welcome the ‘strong’ without judging them, since they are ‘acceptable to God’.
Paul, indeed, is convinced that each one, even amid the diversity of opinions and ways of behaving, acts for the love of the Lord. There is no reason therefore to judge those who think differently, and even less to scandalize them by behaving arrogantly and with a sense of superiority. Instead, what is necessary is to aim at the good of all, at ‘mutual edification’, that is, the building up of the community, its unity (see Rom 14:1-23).
It is a matter of applying, in this case too, the great standard of Christian life that Paul had recalled shortly before in his letter: ‘love is the fulfilling of the law’ (Rom 13:10). No longer ‘walking in love’ (Rom 14:15), the Christians in Rome were lacking in the spirit of fraternity that ought to animate the members of every community.
As a model of mutual welcome, the apostle proposes Jesus dying on the cross when, instead of pleasing himself, he took upon himself our failings (see Rom 15:1-3). From the height of the cross he drew all to himself, and he welcomed the Jewish John together with the Roman centurion, Mary Magdalene together with the criminal crucified by his side.
Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
In our Christian communities too, even though we are all ‘God’s beloved’ and ‘called to be saints’ (Rom 1:7), there is no lack, just as in Rome, of disagreement and contrast between different cultures and ways of seeing things that are often poles apart. Often the clash is between traditionalists and innovators (to use language that is slightly simplistic but readily understandable), persons who are more open and others more closed, interested in a more social or a more spiritual form of Christianity. The divergences are fed by political conviction and by differences in social background. The current fact of immigration is present in our gatherings for worship and further in our various church groups, bringing diversity of culture and geographical origin.
The same dynamic can be seen in effect in the relations among Christians of different Churches, but also in families, in the workplace or in the political arena.
With it creeps in the temptation to judge those who don’t think like us and to feel ourselves superior, in a sterile conflict and mutual exclusion.
Paul’s model is not uniformity that flattens everything out, but a communion among contrasts that enriches. It is not by chance that two chapters earlier in this very letter he speaks of the unity of the body and diversity of its members, and of the variety of gifts that enrich and give life to the community (see Rom 12:3-13). His model is not, to use an image taken from Pope Francis, a sphere where every point is the same distance from the centre and where there are no differences between one point and another. The model is of something many-facetted with surfaces that are different from one another and not symmetrical, with particular characteristics that maintain their originality. ‘Even people who can be considered dubious on account of their errors have something to offer which must not be overlooked. It is the convergence of peoples who, within the universal order, maintain their own individuality; it is the sum total of persons within a society which pursues the common good, which truly has a place for everyone.’
Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
This Word of Life is a pressing invitation to recognize the positive that exists in the other, at the very least because Christ gave his life also for that person you feel inclined to judge. It is an invitation to listen, letting go of your defence mechanisms, to stay open to change, to welcome diversity with respect and love, to manage to form a community that is both plural and united.
This word has been chosen by the Evangelical Church in Germany to be lived by its members and to be light for them throughout 2015. If, at least in this month, the members of various Churches were to share it, this would already be a sign of mutual welcome.
Like this we could give glory to God together with one voice (Rom 15:6), because as Chiara Lubich said in the Reformed cathedral of St Pierre in Geneva: ‘Our world today asks each one of us for love; it asks for unity, communion, solidarity. And it also calls upon the Churches to recompose the unity that has been torn for centuries. This is the reform of all reforms which heaven is asking of us. It is the first and necessary step towards universal fraternity with all men and women of the world. The world will believe, if we are united.’
Fabio Ciardi
