Journeying with the Founder Day #30

Christianity is this: a Church that is born from the transfixed Heart of Christ, lives by His sacrifice, and through sacrifice, continues to insert herself in Him and goes back to Him. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #30

Journeying with the Founder Day #29

We have to personally experience our poverty in the awareness of our sin, though without neglecting our duty to be light for our brothers and sisters. We have a mission to accomplish for them, not because of our own merits or because we are wealthy, but because we have been chosen to be a light that is not placed under bushel basket, a city that shines from the heights of the mountaintop. We have been chosen to be a light that enlightens and a force that attracts and polarizes. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #29

Journeying with the Founder Day #28

“We will be within you” ( Jn 14:17). The ark of the covenant descends within us. Grace: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit come to live within us; we are the tent of the Divine. The ark of the covenant is within us; the Spirit is within us and forms a new heart in us. Truly each one of us is a bearer of the new covenant because he is the bearer of the Spirit and of Christ. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #28

Journeying with the Founder Day #27

The Christian is a candidate for martyrdom. He is someone who speaks through his martyrdom and his life, and therefore, he is a prophet and at the same time he is a priest through his immolation. The more the blood of martyrs flows, the more the Church grows. In fact Tertullian could say: the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians.  (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #27

Joureneying with the Founder Day #26

Christ redeems us with the sacrifice in which He is priest and victim at the same time. Thus His mediation takes place through prophecy and sacrifice. Christ as priest and victim points to a new life, a life that first of all His priests have to follow, and then all the prophets, priests and victims must follow. (The Covenant)

Joureneying with the Founder Day #26

Journeying with the Founder Day #25

We have to be Christ’s prophets through our profession of faith, with a life that witnesses what we believe and announces the Christian message. Every Christian has to realize this program: integral profession of faith, a life formed by and conformed to the profession of faith, and announcement of the message to others. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #25

Journeying with the Founder Day #24

Lord, if we have made Your Word ours, if we have accepted the commitment to hand it on to others, we have to be aware that some people will be annoyed. We cannot expect that others will be attracted to us, or that we will receive their approval, or that they will applaud us and compliment us. No, that is not possible. If this were to happen, we would have to conclude that there is some distortion; something must not be working, because divergence between the world and the Word of Christ is inevitable. The “world” (in the negative sense) cannot accept the Word of Christ. Because of our certainty and awareness of being inconvenient, our inner promptness and availability to immolation remain with us. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #24

Journeying with the Founder Day #23

Each one of us lives out his covenant on a personal level, and each of us has a prophetic vocation. I have to be a prophet according to this covenant. I have to understand the meaning of being a prophet and the conditions for being a prophet, though. Today the crop of prophets has mushroomed: we have all become extraordinary prophets! There is only one problem—we are not God’s prophets, but prophets of ourselves
and very often of our pride. One of the conditions for being a prophet is to listen to God’s Word. The prophet is the one to whom God speaks. God calls people and says to them, “You will do this,” and the person has to listen to the word God speaks to him. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #23

Journeying with the Founder Day #22

The God of mercy is always waiting. He is the father of the prodigal son, the one at home who wastes no time even trying to imagine the sins or missteps of his son; he simply hopes that his son matures and returns home. This manifests and helps us understand God’s goodness and His capacity to wait. We instead want to see people grow quickly and do not have the patience to wait for their growth. Moreover, we often disrupt the process of growth with our hasty actions because we want to see quick results. God is not in a hurry in
His covenants with humanity. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #22

Journeying with the Founder Day #21

A prophet has the specific function of speaking on behalf of the Lord; he is the voice of the Lord. Even when a prophet wants to give up, God insists on calling him and asking him to continue his mission. The prophet is he who, within the context of the covenant, calls people back to true values and sacrifice; he recalls us to the value of good works, to what needs to be done, and thus not to be formal or legalistic, but to go in depth. According to Malachi, the prophet is he who manifests the new sacrifice, speaks prophetically about a new
reality, a new world, a new covenant, a new heart, and a new Spirit (see Ezekiel and Jeremiah). This is prophecy’s value. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #21

Journeying with the Founder Day #20

Let us not be demanding, because only God understands the profound reality of the conscience. God’s pedagogy must open our hearts to love everyone because only God knows our hearts, and only He can judge. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #20

Journeying with the Founder Day #19

We have immense wealth. Our poverty, our misery, our weakness, our imperfection, at times even our sins, are not necessarily steps away, but are instead, or could be, a runway to reach God, to abandon oneself to Him, to let Him take possession of us. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #19

Journeying with the Founder Day #18

This is also the basic concept of Christian perfection: to let oneself be invaded by God; to let God act. It is God Who acts in us, yet we have to cooperate with our good will. Humility becomes the essential condition for any spiritual project. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #18

Journeying with the Founder Day #17

Mary was chosen not because she was a big person, but because she was little: God looked upon His servant in her lowliness. The principle of the mighty – the great ones – being shunned, and the lowly – the little ones – being raised is evident. This is not because of racial or categorical distinction, but because God wants to be God, that is, He wants to be at work in poverty. The more the creature is aware of her poverty and abandons herself to God, the more she lets God act fully in her. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #17

Journeying with the Founder Day #16

I have to be docile to the action of the Spirit, to abandon myself to Him with awareness, without neglecting Him. I need to perceive His presence and answer Him with an act of love, with an “Amen” to His divine promptings. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #16

Journeying with the Founder Day #15

It is the Spirit that makes my soul groan and makes me love with His very power. However, I have to ask myself about the way I live with the Spirit; the type of relationship there is between my will and the Spirit present in me; how I listen to His cry to the Father (see Gal 4:6). Is the presence of the Spirit in me a vague thought, the fruit of a generic attitude of faith, or is it a reality that moves me, even though sometimes I am not aware of it because I am distracted? Am I often unable to see the work that the Spirit wants to do in me but that He cannot do without my collaboration? (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #15

Journeying with the Founder Day #14

It is through the Spirit that we experience a vital relationship with Christ. Thus docility to the action of the Spirit means letting the Spirit, Who is within us as a mysterious reality—just as He was in Mary—work in us through the sacraments. On the ordinary level the Sacraments are means through which we receive grace and, therefore, receive the Spirit. Then we may live gently together with the Spirit because we are bearers of the Spirit not in a given moment but uninterruptedly. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #14

Journeying with the Founder Day #13

It is the Holy Spirit within us Who acts, and we have only to be docile to His action. In fact it is not in the many penances, or in much study, or in much work, or in much doing, or in much effort, but by abandoning ourselves completely to the action of the Spirit, such as Christ did, that we are imbued with God. St. Paul will say, “All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Rm. 8:14). (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #13

Journeying with the Founder Day #12

Guglielmo Giaquinta as a young seminarian.

The covenant, therefore, has to be lived as an experience of a vital relationship with God, not as a momentary experience; it has to be constant, final, and irrevocable. Thus it is our duty to examine ourselves and ask if our relationship with God is on this vital level of irrevocability or if instead it wavers, increases, and wanes. We can be sure that we are fully given to living in love if we find ourselves constant in keeping our commitments and in our longing to be faithful and sincere. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #12

Journeying with the Founder Day #11

The covenant has to be loved in a more complete sense, with the fullness of one’s being, not simply with the heart, but with the intellect and with the will. “With the will” means with effort, sacrifice, oblation, and overcoming all that is contrary to the covenant. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #11

Journeying with the Founder Day #10

To speak of holiness means to speak of love’s response to God’s infinite love. Holiness is the main and recurring theme in both the Old and the New Testaments—personal holiness like we find in Abraham; collective holiness like we find in the covenant with Moses; holiness becoming interior holiness, especially with the Prophets. Holiness is the new heart, the new spirit, the Holy Spirit Who lives within us. Holiness in the New Testament is both personal and collective, up to becoming universal holiness because all are called to holiness, and not only Christians, because all are called to Christ and to the fullness of His grace. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #10

Journeying with the Founder Day #9

Walk in my presence (Gen 17:1). What really matters is to walk under God’s gaze knowing that He looks at us; to adhere to His will; to live by faith; and to abandon ourselves to Him. Everything else will follow as a consequence. The Promised Land will be a gratuitous but logical gift for the person who completely abandons himself to God and places himself at His disposal. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #9

November 8, 2013
If the Lord knocks at the door and we do not open it, Love goes away. St. Augustine used to say,
“I am afraid that Jesus passes by and does not return.” It is our duty to remain in an attitude of
listening. God respects our will; His gift of love is a gratuitous one, not obliging us. It is
gratuitous on behalf of God but not obliging for the person. Love in God is a love that offers
Himself, but He does not impose Himself. However, the meaning of commitment must not be
under-valued: God wants to bind us to Himself with bonds of love; we must feel the personal
responsibility to be bound and to respect the bonds.

Journeying with the Founder Day #7

November 7, 2013
Jealous love is exclusive; it is a love that wants the beloved for oneself. This exclusive love for
God is called holiness. Holiness, in fact, is nothing else than God’s setting a person apart for
Himself. Spontaneously we ask ourselves, “What interest can God have in loving us and in
asking us for love?” The whole great theme of God-Who-searches-for-our-love, Who “begs” for
our love, is a mystery, one of those great mysteries which arrests our intelligence. Why does God
love us? Why does He seem to almost need our love? Why does He beg for our love? The
parables of the Good Shepherd and of the Prodigal Son are among the greatest psychological
mysteries of Revelation. We do not know why, but it is certain that God’s gratuitous love is at
the basis of the Covenant, and along with love, respect. God respects man; He proposes but does
not impose; He calls but does not force His will on us. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #7

Journeying with the Founder Day #6

November 6, 2013
Christ has freed us from every burden and made us children of the Father. We are not slaves
anymore or foster children; we are children of the Father. We possess now the freedom of God’s
children who have been freed from the burden of the Law through faith in Christ. Our
relationship with God becomes a relationship of love, an interior relationship, a spiritual
relationship—no longer a mere legal relationship. Christ has raised us to the level of sonship, of
love, and of freedom. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #6

Journeying with the Founder Day #5

November 5, 2013
Jesus came in our midst as our Brother, to have the experience of humanity and of what it means
to be a human being. Thus He could sanctify us and, being one of us, sympathize with us. The
One Who sanctifies and those who are sanctified come from the same origin: we are brothers.
The unity of fraternity becomes also the unity of perfection in Christ. Christ becomes the cause
of our perfection, the source of our hope. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #5

Journeying with the Founder Day #4

November 4, 2013
God comes in our midst through Christ. Christ comes in touch with us, becomes our Brother,
enters within us sacramentally, leads us to the Father, and awaits us at the eternal banquet. Even
though in the Old Testament, God was a God of love, He was always a terrible God. In the New
Testament God is essentially our Father Who is waiting for us, the Shepherd Who looks after His
sheep. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #4

Journeying with the Founder Day #3

November 3, 2013
We have been redeemed by the blood of the Immaculate Lamb; we have been redeemed not with
gold or silver, but with Christ’s own blood. The new covenant of the blood of Christ redeems us
and takes away our sins. The blood of the victims of the Old Testament never had such power. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #3

Journeying with the Founder Day #2

November 2, 2013
Coming down from the mountain, Moses brings a Law with him that the people accept. The
Law, however, remains outside the people; it is a reality that must be searched for, known,
realized and lived. It implies great difficulties of knowledge, convictions, acceptance and
practicality. As a matter of fact, people are unable to keep the Law. God will make internal this
Law that was only external: He will write it in their hearts. The heart, according to Biblical
understanding, is the place of knowledge and, at the same time, the place of the will, of reflection
and sentiments. Consequently the moment when God no longer writes the law on the stone or on
the scroll but in the heart, it becomes almost a super-nature, an inner reality that is known, waited
for, loved and lived. Thus the motivations mentioned above for its violation—that the people do
not know the Law, do not understand it, and therefore do not accept and live it—will not be valid
anymore. The moment the Law becomes interior, profound, personal, and lived from within,
keeping it becomes easier. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #2

Journeying with the Founder Day #1

November 1st, 2013
Lord Jesus, in Your Gospel we have heard Your warm invitation to strive toward the perfection
of the Father. The call to holiness has already become for us the light that illumines our way and the ideal toward which we want to journey. Give us the strength to overcome the difficulties that
we meet on our way and the temptations—above all the temptation to discouragement—that we face so frequently in our life. Help us to lift our eyes to You, Oh Divine Crucified, and to implore Mary’s maternal help. May our life be an answer of love to Your call to love; may our life be an invitation to love extended to our brothers and sisters. Amen. (Prayers)

Journeying with the Founder Day #1