Be Holy, Be Happy!
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #269
Our witness of Christ must be founded on a
personal experience of Him. Thus we must ask ourselves if every contact we have
with the Lord, especially through the sacraments, is an experience of Him; if
every prayer we offer is an experience of Him. Without being aware of Him,
there is the danger that our testimony will only be about things we have read,
listened to, or heard rather than a testimony coming from a profound,
life-giving relationship with Christ, Who then becomes the reality we give
witness to. (The Witness)
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #268
I do not know if the witness of words and works
is always most necessary or if sometimes—perhaps many times—what is most
necessary is a discreet, almost unnoticed but real presence of persons who give
witness to Christ with their prayer, gentleness, and example, helping others
grow in Christ’s likeness. (The Witness)
Monday, July 28, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #267
The Father has loved Christ, His Incarnate
Eternal Word; He has witnessed that Christ is His beloved Son, and that we must
listen to and follow Him. Let us pause a moment and ask ourselves: to what
extent have we accepted the Father’s witness in our life? What place does
Christ truly have in our life, not just verbally but truly? What have we done
to be an echo of the Father’s witness? (The Witness)
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #266
Christ is the Icon written by the Incarnated
Word in Mary’s womb. However, we—and this is an Oriental thought—prefer to use
another expression that is also true: Christ is the Icon written by the Holy Spirit in the Immaculate’s womb. (The Witness)
Journeying with the Founder Day #265
Many times we have to have the courage to face
the risk of failure… The courage to risk! A courage based on prayer,
perseverance, and effort. (The Witness)
Journeying with the Founder Day #264
Many times we have to have the courage to face
the risk of failure… The courage to risk! A courage based on prayer,
perseverance, and effort. (The Witness)
Journeying with the Founder Day #263
As we often read in a beautiful antiphon of
Vespers, Christ has to become the heart of the world. Before becoming the heart
of the world, though, He must become the heart of our life. (The Witness)
Journeying with the Founder Day #262
We are each personally the temple of God, and as
a consequence, we will be the great Kingdom of God all together. This is the
principle of the New Covenant, which is not only general but personal, the
center of our life, the center of my life. (The Witness)
Journeying with the Founder Day #261
Where does the certainty of our word come from?
It does not come from our studies or abilities, but from our connection with
God. The more we are united with God, the more we will have the ability to
witness the Word. (The Witness)
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #260
The specific call to the ‘word’ does not nullify
our awareness of our inability because the word is not the result of personal
ability but is only the result of the touch of the divine on the mouth of a
human creature. Therefore the weight of our humanness, the fact of being a poor
creature, remains. (The Witness)
Monday, July 21, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #259
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #258
Abraham does not doubt because he is sure that
God will keep His promise. Abraham becomes a witness of this promise; he is a
witness of God’s project that is a project of love. He knows by experience that
it is a project of love so tender that it anticipates the incarnate love of the
New Testament. (The Witness)
Journeying with the Founder Day #257
There are so many difficulties that it is not
easy to be witnesses. However, if we reflect with the simple look of
contemplation on the Father’s creative love, Christ’s presence, and the Holy
Spirit’s work, we have to take courage because I trust that in Heaven we will
find ourselves to be much more than we think based on human calculations. (The Witness)
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #256
There are so many difficulties that it is not
easy to be witnesses. However, if we reflect with the simple look of
contemplation on the Father’s creative love, Christ’s presence, and the Holy
Spirit’s work, we have to take courage because I trust that in Heaven we will
find ourselves to be much more than we think based on human calculations. (The Witness)
Friday, July 18, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #255
Let us strive to acquire a healthy sense of
optimism because there is more good around us than we think. At other events I
have often told you, “Get rid of the black glasses!” In this field, regardless
of the great evils we are experiencing and the immense evil that seems to
prevail, contemplation of the presence of the Spirit should give us great
serenity, great peace, and the certainty of tomorrow; and this certainty of
tomorrow will then give us a sense of hope. (The Witness)
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #254
Christ has been the passion of myriads of
saints, of an enormous quantity of martyrs, of little ones as well as of great
ones—Christ living in the Eucharist, but above all Christ in the reality of the
crucifixion. Think, for example, of our great mystics, of Saints Francis of
Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Jesus, John of the Cross, Paul of the
Cross, Gemma Galgani. Through their lives these saints have been the
historical, spiritual and mystical reproduction of Christ. If you take a relic of
these persons and chemically analyze it, you will find the name of Christ. (The Witness)
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #253
Mary is for us an exemplar stone. Thus we
can and must look at Mary in our effort to become and to acquire the awareness
of being a poor stone, in the effort of living as a cornerstone, in the
sacrifice of being a stone beaten, rejected, and refined in the hope of being a
precious stone. (The Rock)
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #252
Do we make time to stop for an instant to look
at the wonders and the power of God, of this God Who surrounds us? (The Witness)
Monday, July 14, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #251
I need to be in contact with God, to listen to
His footsteps; I need to perceive Him around me, to experience that He is
present and is at work as my Father, that He surrounds me with His love and
envelops me in His embrace of love through nature. (The Witness)
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #250
We are surrounded by a marvelous reality, a
thick web of the divine; however, hastiness, challenges, and the many difficult
situations in which we find ourselves and that trouble our psyches do not allow
us to perceive and read this marvelous reality in-depth, with a contemplative
look rather than merely an intellectual or philosophical analysis. (The Witness)
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #249
“The more” springs only from a profound
experience of the divine. (The Witness)
Friday, July 11, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #248
The Church—especially at the beginning, and even
in outward manifestations—is led by the presence of the Holy Spirit. We have to
be aware of this and, therefore, we must have the courage to witness to it—to
know that we are bearers of the Spirit, to be fully aware of it, and so to be
filled with joy. (The Witness)
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #247
Do you think that bearing the cross did not cost
Christ much? Do you think that going to Calvary was an easy stroll for the
Lord? What did the chalice of blood, the chalice of suffering, and the chalice
that we experience, actually mean for Christ? The Lord took, accepted, loved,
and drank His chalice to the end! We, too, have to do God’s will in our life;
our food is to do God’s will. (The Witness)
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #246
Regardless of our discomfort and the
difficulties we may encounter, an attitude of full interior availability is
necessary, an availability that we must acquire with effort. Then, yes, we may
say that we are people who with our life and sacrifices show we believe in the
ideal to which we have consecrated ourselves and to which we give witness. (The Witness)
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #245
What do we call in common, everyday language the
awareness of the impoverished choice made by God and the awareness that the
mission entrusted to us is beyond our abilities? The name is very simple: humility—that is, the perception of our own littleness, of our own nothingness
and, therefore, referring all to God: He is all; He chooses, and He chose me. (The Witness)
Monday, July 7, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #244
Any witness, and all the more so an
extraordinary witness, must have an intimate connection with the divine. Why
don’t we start to examine ourselves on our level of connection with God? It is
a strictly personal matter that we verify. Am I united with God? What type of
relationship do I have with the Lord? How is my prayer? (The Witness)
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #243
In this law of sacramentality, we all have the
precise duty to become not simply a remembrance, a memory, or a reality that
contains the mystery of God, but rather a prophetic explosion of this mystery. (The Witness)
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #242
Each one of us is chosen by God to become a
prophet, to become word like John who was a voice, a word. Each one of us, just
because we are inserted in the sacramental mystery, must become word. We cannot
hide this richness within ourselves that God has given us. When we speak of the
apostolate, we speak fundamentally of prophecy, of the word that is within us,
that nestles within us, the mystery that is effective in us and that we must
project outside ourselves. (The Witness)
Friday, July 4, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #241
Let us ask ourselves with simplicity and
humility how many of us—myself included—during the Mass, though remaining very
attentive during the celebration, call to mind the double reality of Calvary
and of the Cenacle that takes place. (The Witness)
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #240
Is there a discrepancy between our speaking and
the vital reality of our being, between what we say—what we “chat about”—and
the way we live? I assure you, it is not difficult to speak; having natural
talent and a little practice is enough to become the best speakers… You could
speak much better than I, but this is not important. Knowing how to speak isn’t
what matters, but what is behind the words; if there is involvement of life
there is witness. (The Witness)
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #239
It is God who works through us, not we who work:
this is the humility that we must have when we carry out the apostolate. (The Witness)
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Journeying with the Founder Day #238
If we know that all comes from God, then we have
to be aware of it, and our witness will have meaning as long as it is God Who
works through our witness…To have the awareness that only the Lord can make our
work fruitful; to have a sense of humility and not an excessive trust in
technical means, almost carrying out the apostolate as if we were running a
business or industry, as if the apostle were a manager, as if with the
technical means of spreading that we now have, we would be able to solve all
the problems. (The Witness)
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