Journeying with the Founder Day #207

Behold some aspects that affect our goal:

Interior joy—in order to learn inner joy, think of the Madonna at the nativity.

Loving oblation—think of Mary going to visit Elizabeth, giving herself in the humblest service.

Apostolic oblation—consider Jesus, Who lets Himself be consumed during His public life.

Sacrificial conformity—reflect on the whole tragedy of Golgotha. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #207

Journeying with the Founder Day #206

Mary is a woman who has suffered the whole reality of Christ’s salvation for us. Thus we can and must say that Mary is a stone rejected. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #206

Journeying with the Founder Day #205

Like Christ, Mary is the poor stone (“pietra povera”). She herself says: He looked on the nothingness of His handmaid. Precisely because she is a poor stone, she is a cornerstone. Christ is the cornerstone in the building of the Church, in the building of the plan of salvation; so Mary, with Christ, is a cornerstone. In the desert, water flowed from the stone struck by Moses; [on Calvary] Christ’s side is struck by a sword, and blood and water gush forth ushering in the Church. From the heart of Mary, sweetly touched by the
Holy Spirit, comes Christ Jesus. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #205

Journeying with the Founder Day #204

As long as we are rational creatures, the connection, interplay, and tension between nature and grace will never end. Therefore in the spiritual life, the definitive, final battle is never won, even if we sometimes would like to forget that. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #204

Journeying with the Founder Day #203

It is a matter of fact that in the natural order, for a complex of reasons—be they physiological or psychological—we are physically and sensibly attached as though by our umbilical cord to the environment where we were from, or to that complex of habits that we acquired in the world where we came from. What takes place in the natural order also takes place in the spiritual realm; that is, like our first parents, we are attracted to sin. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #203

Journeying with the Founder Day #202

We need witnesses who reassure people and help calm their anxieties. See how many people around us are filled with anxiety. Experience teaches us that they are helped more by our kindness than by tranquilizers. If we strive to be like St. Francis—if we are givers of peace and serenity—much anguish will be eliminated. (The Witness)

Journeying with the Founder Day #202

Journeying with the Founder Day #201

There is a mysterious relationship between external prayer and inner union. The one is the soul of the other; the first is a living and unquenchable expression of the second. Inner union is a conscious and existent look at the Trinity present in us and is the essential basis of our external prayer. External prayer is more vivacious and rich when it is consciously nurtured and continuously vivified by inner union. (Prayer)

Journeying with the Founder Day #201

Journeying with the Founder Day #200

Jesus is not a stranger to Mary. He is the Son of God—the Son of God Who became her own Son. Mary loves Jesus with a natural love that is supernatural, a love that is both human and divine. Therefore we find an absolute completeness of love in Mary toward Jesus. And those ways that are normal in a mother become even more marvelous and supernatural in Mary because the object of this love is not only a child, but is a Child Who is God. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #200

Journeying with the Founder Day #199

There are no plastic action-figures in the Gospel, but real persons, persons who have a heart, who had one then and have one still today. Christ, too, has a heart, and He has it today as well. Mary had a heart, and she has it today, too. Mary Magdalene had a heart, and she has it today, too. In this way the Gospel today becomes a present reality. It is my experience today because I, too, try to have a heart and strive to have a heart not made of plastic or a heart of stone, as Ezekiel said, but a heart of flesh. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #199

Journeying with the Founder Day #198

Lord, may the beating of Your Heart warm me! What did You feel Lord? Let us not forget that the Lord has a heart, even today He has a heart, He has feelings. What have Your feelings been, Lord? What are Your feelings today? (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #198

Journeying with the Founder Day #197

Jesus, may Your example be my light, may Your life be my light! Let us ask this of the Lord! May Your example be my light, may Your life be my light. Lord, what have You done? May I do it, too!

Journeying with the Founder Day #197

Journeying with the Founder Day #196

Why shouldn’t we in some way, in our littleness, establish a relationship of love, a heart relationship with Jesus? So many times we are cold, many times we consider Him to be far away, to be a stranger, and so sometimes the expressions of the saints seem to us sugary, exaggerated…Holiness is not a thought; it is not a reasoning; it is not a syllogism; it is not a search. Holiness is love. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #196

Journeying with the Founder Day #195

There are people who are in love with the Eucharist and who put the Eucharist at the center of their lives; Holy Communion is the fundamental moment of the day and a basic aspect of their spirituality. A modest question might be posed to some of them. Why, after eating so much Eucharistic Bread, they are still not holy? If the Eucharistic Jesus transforms us into Himself – Who is purity, love, goodness, and self-giving to the brothers— why after so many Communions and even immediately after receiving Communion, why do other tendencies still arise in us? (Holiness)

Journeying with the Founder Day #195

Journeying with the Founder Day #194

We should ask ourselves this question: is Christ our life? Are we centered on Him to the point that between Him and us there is a real identification, not only a configuration, but an identification, a personalization? (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #194

Journeying with the Founder Day #193

We are not instituted outside of Christ as a reality distinct from Him, but we are built on Christ to become one with Him. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #193

Journeying with the Founder Day #192

We grow much during our lifetime; on what foundation have we based our growth? I do not accuse you of not having a foundation—no, my daughters, but please, let us pause and examine ourselves. What have we to examine about ourselves? We have to evaluate ourselves on fundamental virtues. We have reviewed many of them already, and we will go over others later. For now, I will list a few without commenting on them: humility, spirit of sacrifice, self-abnegation and mastering oneself. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #192

Journeying with the Founder Day #191

May the Holy Spirit grow in us until He becomes in us a river that overflows into eternal life. Thanks be to God, love for the Holy Spirit is gradually growing. I wish that each one of us would be fully possessed by the Holy Spirit because He is the One Who forms the face of Christ in us. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #191

Journeying with the Founder Day #190

In the Eucharist Christ transforms us into Himself. This transformation—that takes place when we receive the Eucharist—must accompany us the whole day because it is the most important moment of transformation. The Eucharistic Jesus is the Sacrament par excellence; it is the main mystery of our encounter with Jesus. We can pray thousands of holy hours, but they are not equal to one Holy Communion because when we receive the Eucharist, Christ grabs us and transforms us, if we let Him grab us and transform us. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #190

Journeying with the Founder Day #189

A profound transformation can take place only by passing
through knowledge to experience, from knowledge of
Christ to experience of Christ. I don’t have to know that I
am a branch of the vine that is Christ; but I must strive to
immerse myself in Him. And when at times suffering brushes
close to me, I have to realize that it is my Father-Gardener
who comes to prune me so that I can bear fruit in Christ(The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #189

Journeying with the Founder Day #188

We would not even consider having a spirituality that is only disembodied, only rational and abstract or made of syllogisms. At the same time, though, we wouldn’t think of having our spirituality based only on the heart because our hearts are changeable; neither can we base it on emotions. If we want to have a complete spiritual life, let us ground our spirituality on theology, and let us enrich it with our heart and, if we so wish, with our sensitivity, too. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #188

Journeying with the Founder Day #187

A mother who spends sleepless nights by her sick child does it with great tenderness, sacrificing and immolating herself as if it were the simplest, most natural and normal thing in the world. Tenderness springs from motherhood. Our charity has to be like this; tenderness must be the maximum expression. True charity springs from God’s love and thus becomes delicate, gentle sweetness. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #187

Journeying with the Founder Day #186

If the Lord in His infinite goodness has chosen us from eternity, has cradled us, and in time has called us and has followed us with His love, then He wants to give us another grace. The grace is this: He wants to give us the experiential awareness of our nothingness—not a cerebral awareness or merely an abstract thought, but an interior experience of our nothingness. This nothingness can be abandoned to the All, to God, because God is All. He is love and, therefore, He is capable of loving us regardless of our own nothingness and just because of our nothingness. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #186

Journeying with the Founder Day #185

How many times we have gone astray, and the Lord has been waiting for us. How many times we have been lost, and the Lord has come to look for us! And what about the many personal graces that have enriched our relationship with God, of which each of us alone knows and of which—perhaps from forgetfulness—we do not recall in detail? How many personal graces, how many particular graces the Lord has given us! Why did He choose us, such poor choices? Why has the Lord loved us so much? (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #185

Journeying with the Founder Day #184

What are the foundational values of our personal, community, and apostolic “building”? Are they those of the rejected stone or those of the world? Do we realize that we neglect Christ when we look for ego-gratification—affirmation of ourselves, of our personality, our thoughts, our way of acting, our own will? Even though this may sometimes be hidden, it can still be real. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #184

Journeying with the Founder Day #183

Even though it seems that the Church is always on the losing side, her Kingdom has always extended and deepened. Behold the mystery of the Cross; behold the mystery of the powerless; behold the mystery of the rejected stone that—just because it has been rejected—has become the cornerstone. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #183

Journeying with the Founder Day #182

How hard it is to be a carrying stone! It is easy to be carried, but it is difficult to be a stone that carries others. Eventually we become tired, and we ask ourselves, “Why must I do it? Why am I always the person who gives in? Why must I be the one to sacrifice myself? Why don’t the others do the same?” Let us look at Christ, who did not please Himself. He did not seek His own comfort but continued to the end—and the end was the top of a mountain, Calvary. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #182

Journeying with the Founder Day #181

Christ is the cornerstone, so we have to confirm ourselves with Him. We either pit ourselves against Him or build ourselves upon Him. Let us be passionate about Him, make Him the object of love, the object of our love and even of our passion. If we are capable, we are to be passionately in love with Christ, as passionate as the saints. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #181

Journeying with the Founder Day #180

We have to continuously bring our lives to Christ for examination, authentication, and review, “overhauling” ourselves according to Christ, His Word, His Example, His living presence in the Church and the Magisterium. Christ is not a past reality or a piece of history; He is a present reality that becomes part of our life, for us and for the whole world. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #180

Journeying with the Founder Day #179

We can distinguish three phases in the prayer of the Virgin Mary. The first is the one addressed to the Father, in which the angel of the annunciation finds her. The second is the Christological phase in which dialogue with the Son unfolds in contemplation during the time of waiting, in the simple life of Nazareth, in her daily, humble recollected service. In the third phase she is associated with the public life of Jesus. This is her moment of service to the brethren, to the mystery of salvation. (Prayer)

Journeying with the Founder Day #179

Journeying with the Founder Day #178

Instead of being an old people of the old Law, we are a new people, people who have been inserted into and built upon a new foundation, which is Christ. Where are the people of God born? The old people of God were born on the mountain where the covenant took place, on Sinai. The new people are born on the mystical mountain that is Christ; Christ the stone, Christ the mountain, Christ Who identifies Himself
with the mountain in the Sermon on the Mount and, moreover, on Mount Golgotha. (The Rock)

Journeying with the Founder Day #178