Journeying with the Founder Day #99

Love that lets itself ‘be consumed’ by others springs from the love of Christ ‘eaten’, love toward Jesus that is poured out toward our brothers and sisters, supernatural love towards God that becomes supernatural love towards others. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #99

Journeying with the Founder Day #98

The only way to do good to others and to the world, to our little world, is to become holy. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #98

Journeying with the Founder Day #97

Let us not forget, my daughters, that perfection is acquired through effort and sacrifice. The only way the Lord chose for our redemption has been the royal way of the cross- via regia sanctae crucis. Without the cross we neither reach paradise nor become holy. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #97

Journeying with the Founder Day #96

Jesus, from the height of the Cross where the maximum degree of injustice was occurring, responded to the lack of charity by saying to the Father, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing” (Lk 23:34). Behold the lesson of charity towards one’s neighbor. We have to imitate Jesus’ generosity. Until we succeed in trampling underfoot our selfishness, our pride, our instinctiveness, and our lack of supernatural spirit, we will never reach such delicacy of charity. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #96

Journeying with the Founder Day #95

Sentimental instincts lead us to be charitable towards people whom we like and less than charitable toward those we don’t. Such “charity” is not governed by God’s thought, in the spirit of perfection, but according to those mysterious waves that I don’t know how to define, magnetic or electrical, of liking others or not liking them. In this case, if there is empathy between the two, the person is pleasant and everything she does is fine. If instead there is no empathy between the two, even if the other has the power to make gold, everything
she does is always bad. The victory over this instinctive sense of sympathy and antipathy is necessary and comes through the inner principle of interiority, the supernatural spirit that leads us one direction or another. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #95

Journeying with the Founder Day #94

We are not born holy, nor do we become holy without much good will in us… Holiness does not spontaneously form itself in us even if we reach the age of 180 or even 600 years like Methuselah! We will be always imperfect if we do not exercise self-control and self-mastery. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #94

Journeying with the Founder Day #93

Why are we reactive, why do we lack charity, mistreat others, and answer them uncharitably? It is because we do not overcome our pride and our selfishness; we do not control ourselves. So we need to form our wills; the more we form ourselves, the more we will be able to master ourselves and practice charity. We stress the importance of the formation of the will, self-mastery, and the formation of one’s own character because if we let ourselves go, our nerves and natural instincts take over. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #93

Journeying with the Founder Day #92

We have to be humble rather than making mountains out of molehills… We need to be people who have perspective, seeing things as the good Lord has made them, without exaggeration. We have to be able to see ourselves, others, and God rightly. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #92

Journeying with the Founder Day #91

How can we live in charity? I suggest to you two remedies, one we might call theoretical and the other practical. Humility is the theoretical remedy, because a person who is profoundly humble cannot lack charity; she may lack it in her first, immediate reaction, but then she recovers, humbles herself, excuses herself, asks forgiveness, and goes back to peace and simplicity. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #91

Journeying with the Founder Day #90

Behold the deeper roots of a lack of charity! They are: selfishness, pride, and a lack of supernatural spirit. If we want to have environments in which there is true charity, we must establish them through the elimination of selfishness, pride and the lack of supernatural spirit. Until we conquer the roots of a lack of charity, we delude ourselves if we think that we have won the battle for charity. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #90

Journeying with the Founder Day #89

We have to correct our sinful tendencies, halt our nervousness, and master ourselves. First of all, though, we must overcome our selfishness because the true root of lack of charity very often is not found in the reaction, in the immediate reaction which sometimes surprises us, but in the lack of a deeper charity—that is, we are deficient in self-mastery and have succumbed to selfishness.

Journeying with the Founder Day #89

Journeying with the Founder Day #88

What is the deep root of lack of charity that is often in us? What is the profound reason for our lack of charity? I think that the common foundation is selfishness, pride, and a lack of supernatural spirit. Selfishness has the principal place because it comes so naturally to us to constantly focus on ourselves. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #88

Journeying with the Founder Day #87

Grace and love, by their nature as gifts from God, are not limited but tend to expand further. Expansion or amplitude of love and grace are infinite in God; on our part, as much as possible, the Lord wants us to be holy, burning with love, striving limitlessly toward the infinite that is Himself. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #87

Journeying with the Founder Day #86

We have to root ourselves in Christ Jesus; we have to become Jesus as St. Paul said: I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. I can do all. Let us repeat this when we are tired, when we are exhausted, when we are hopeless, when we see everything dark— I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. We have to root ourselves in Christ; we have to become Christ. (The Rock)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #85

A clean and bright window is one thing; a very dusty window is something else, even if it is always glass. It is the same for venial sin. God’s love—always limpid, crystal clear, and pure—is spotted by venial sin. Who of us does not commit venial sins? Certainly we acknowledge that we commit venial sins not because God wants us to fall, but because we know that we are weak and frail and so commit venial sins every day. It would be beautiful if, at the end of the day, a person could say that she had not committed any venial sins. She could say to the Lord, “Look, Lord, today I did not commit any venial sins.” On such a day, God’s love would have fully triumphed in the soul of this child of love! (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #85

Journeying with the Founder Day #84

Exactly because God loves us, we benefit from His grace which places us on a supernatural level close to Him. Through grace we become God’s children, His heirs, co-heirs with Christ, and this means that we have a right to glory, to the beatific eternity. Glory is nothing other than the growth of grace: today grace, tomorrow glory! (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #84

Journeying with the Founder Day #83

Fundamentally love implies self-offering. It is pure in itself and so does not have limits. Love tends to the maximum of offering, to the consummation of oneself; this is the intrinsic law of love. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #83

Journeying with the Founder Day #82

We must strive to avoid being divided. We have to be united and holy, united in the law of charity and graciousness. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #82

Journeying with the Founder Day #81

Tenderness has two essential qualities: that of motherhood and that of being naturally nurturing. The quality of
motherhood is characteristic of mothers, and we use this adjective especially to express the maternal sense that is the most exquisite, delicate and profound sense that we can find in the order of charity. At the same time we have a quality that is not forced or imposed, but that comes from our very nature; it is innate, simple, and logical and is called tenderness. Tenderness is in God because in Him there is the maximum of motherhood—creative motherhood—and there is the maximum of that innate sense of tenderness because He acts according to His nature. Out of our awareness, Divine Providence disposes everything for our good. We can see the effects of God’s action without being able to perceive His design. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #80

We have to look tenderly at others. When we are peaceful and calm, we gaze tenderly at others. When we are disturbed, we gaze at others with negativity and project our negativity. The eyes and their gaze are the most faithful reflection of our soul. We have to judge with benevolence. This is an inner issue. If we are habitually good, whenever we judge, we judge with gentleness and understanding. When we are harsh, we judge with harshness and severity. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #79

We have to be attentive to our immediate and spontaneous reactions. When something happens, immediately we have an interior reaction that, without strong self-control, can become an exterior reaction. When we don’t like a person, we feel it interiorly and express it exteriorly. We must overcome ourselves so that, even for a moment, we do not manifest exteriorly our interior reaction. As we speak of charity in acting, in speaking, in judging, we must also speak sensitively of all these things. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #79

Journeying with the Founder Day #78

We have to understand our weaknesses and our sensitivities. When we feel reactive, we have to be prepared to overcome ourselves. On one hand we have to know ourselves, and on the other hand we have to master ourselves. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #77

We love our neighbor to the degree that we have charity. The reason is that our neighbor participates in the reality of God and thus we love God in our neighbor. This is the most profound reason for our love of neighbor. It is not only the feeling of liking or disliking someone, but it is the profound reality of God that we find in our neighbor. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #77

Journeying with the Founder Day #76

Charity is benevolent; it does ‘good’ out of love for our Lord and not for self-interest. It does not enjoy injustice, but rejoices when it sees truth that triumphs and goodness that is elevated. It rejoices in the good of others. Charity accommodates all, knows how to accept all with tranquility; it hopes all and bears all. Charity does not become discouraged; it knows how to wait, it knows how to hope; it does not stop to look at obstacles nor spend time creating obstacles. Charity hopes, trusts, overcomes difficulties, and bears all. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #76

Journeying with the Founder Day #75

Charity is patient; even when we are interiorly nervous, we are able to overcome this challenge and master ourselves. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #74

Eucharistic transformation: it is not Christ who is transformed in us, but we are transformed in Him. If we truly were able to vitalize our Communions, gradually we would be transformed into Jesus. If, after so many years of daily Communion, we are not yet transformed into Him, it means that our Communions are not vital or transforming. Only one Holy Communion would be enough to make a person a saint! (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #73

God does not command the impossible: fidelis est Deus -God is faithful {1 Cor. 1-9}. Therefore we can do His will with trust and with a supernatural spirit, not to show off, or because others see us, or hold us in high esteem, or judge us well. All these things are foolishness because the Lord alone is the One who is to judge us well. Thus let us do everything for Him with a supernatural spirit, with generosity, total self-offering and with all our strength. Jesus taught us: You shall love the Lord your God with all your strength {Mark 12:30}, not simply with our whole heart, soul, and spirit, but with all our strength—that is, totally and completely. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #72

We have to seek God’s will, and then once we find it, let us adhere to it unconditionally, regardless of the way it comes to us. Always remember that God’s permissive will exists, too! May we not look for the will of God and then not do it, but once we know it, adhere to it unconditionally, even if it is His permissive will—a mistake or, if you wish, people’s malice. Perfection consists in this. Clearly I am now teaching you the way of perfection and of holiness; I am not teaching you how to steal or to kill. Perfection consists of the union of our will with the will of God. Jesus’ food was to do the will of the Father; we instead have as food our whims, our will, and not the will of God. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #71

We have to embody God’s love to the maximum in our own lives. God lives in me, so I am a God-bearer. During the day let us remember that we are God-bearers. Let’s try to animate every action with this thought: “I have God in my soul. God is present in me. This action that I am performing I am not doing by myself, but God does it through me. God sees me. He continuously moves me. God needs my love; He wants my love.” During the day let us ask ourselves: “What does the Lord want from me?” During an action—not only at the beginning of the action or at the end, but also during the action—let us think of God and of His presence. This is how we live the union of our intelligence with God. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #71

Journeying with the Founder Day #70

It is good to ask Our Lord for His love, but not only an abstract love, a love of the will, but a tangible love. Experiencing a sensitive love for the Lord enables us to have a tangible love for our brothers and sisters. Then we have a complete sharing of our souls and, I would say, of our very selves, in the love we experience with our brothers and sisters, with their souls and with their whole being. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #69

The law is essentially a law of love in the Mystical Body. This leads to some basic consequences because our love has to be measured by the greatness of the Mystical Body, and by its universality. My love must be as ample as the Mystical Body’s love, as great and far-reaching as the Mystical Body’s. Since the potential amplitude of the Mystical Body embraces all people, I have to love all people. I have to look at them as my brothers and sisters, even those whom I do not know. Perhaps I never will know them. I have to feel united in love for Christ Jesus with the members of the Mystical Body, and I have to look at the issues of the whole Mystical Body, of the whole Church, as if they were my own issues (because they are.) My love for all my brothers and sisters has to go beyond my own personal needs and my selfishness. (Charity)

Journeying with the Founder Day #69

Journeying with the Founder Day #68

Grace perfects nature; it does not destroy it. Therefore our love for our neighbor, for our brother, and for the other members of the Mystical Body cannot be abstract, hypothetical, or exclusively spiritual, but it must be love that accepts the brother in his human reality. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #67

If Christ’s love—which is the visible and tangible expression of God’s love—has incorporated us into Him, if we are the expression of His love and live it in our lives, how can it be that we do not love one another? What necessarily follows is reciprocal love, loving one another, loving all. Please notice we are not just speaking of love for the whole body in general, but above all, of love for each individual member, and not only for their spiritual features, but for who and what they are objectively. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #66

The Church is the Body of Jesus; she is Jesus living His life down through the centuries; she is life that is lived through the members, and these members are incorporated into Christ through grace, through the Eucharist and, generally speaking, through the sacraments. As St. Thomas has taught us, those of us who were imprinted with the sacramental character at Baptism participate in Christ’s priesthood; therefore we participate in our redemption because the priesthood functions for redemption. Thus we are sharers—co-sharers—in our redemption and in the redemption of humanity. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #65

We are loved because we are incorporated into the Body of Christ, and Jesus incorporates us so we can be loved. This is the mystery of God’s love, the mystery of Jesus’s love. According to St. Paul we are the wild tree that has been grafted onto the fruitful olive tree that is Jesus. This grafting did not only take place when Jesus lived His earthly life in Palestine. He continues to graft us on to Him down through the centuries. Every Christian is inserted into Jesus Christ, and we reach the Father through this insertion into grace, on to Jesus the Vine, the true olive tree. Jesus has taught us that nobody can go to the Father except through Him Whom
the Father has sent. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #64

If we ask ourselves why Jesus immolated Himself on the cross and why He is hidden in the Eucharist, the answer that we generally give is this: He had to redeem us. The more profound answer is different, though; the more profound answer is that He died on the cross and is hidden in the Eucharist because He loves us. If He had done this only to redeem us, a drop of His blood would have been sufficient because it has infinite value. What would be sufficient for justice, however, would not suffice for love. Thus we find ourselves facing a second unfathomable mystery: not simply the mystery of God’s creative love, but also the mystery of
Redemptive Love. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #63

Because this is a mystery, an ineffable mystery, we cannot understand how real God’s need for man’s love is. Not only does man dare to love God, not only does God allow man to love Him and asks him for his love, but God manifests Himself demanding, needing, and begging for this love. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #62

Today the Church celebrates the feast of Mary, Mother of God. It is beautiful that the New Year starts with Mary as mother because life comes from a mother. In this New Year the life of the Spirit has to be born in us from Mary our mother, the mother who gives us life. Mary is the person who has always given of herself; she was born in order to give. From the beginning we see Mary giving birth to Jesus, her Son, and then we see Mary giving Him to others. First the shepherds come. The Gospel does not give us details, but surely the shepherds come close to Baby Jesus to kiss Him, to caress Him, and to offer Him their gifts, and Mary lets them hold Him. Later the Magi come from afar. Most assuredly Mary shows them her Son, the Baby Jesus, and presents Him to them so that the Magi could kiss Him with love, with devotion and trepidation.

At the beginning of this New Year, this is the way that we want to see Mary: as a Mother who gives all to us. What does Mary give to us in particular? She gives us the gift of living with attention the gift of time. We don’t know how much time we are given, but that is not an issue; little or much time, we know that Mary intercedes for us, and therefore—regardless of the various events that will take place—we will deal with them with joy and love because Mary, our mother, is with us. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #61

Man is at the center of the universe. The whole world has a reason to be; it exists and has meaning inasmuch as there is man giving meaning to it. Therefore, creatures are many steps that bring man to God; they are an external reality that give glory to God through man who is the cantor of the universe. I ask myself: why did God create man who is a spiritual and theological center of the cosmic reality? Because He loves him and because He wants man to love Him in return. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #60

Why did God create the world? Is it, perhaps, because He wanted to amuse Himself with the laws of gravity, or to see how the suns emit nuclear energy, or because He wanted to enjoy the moonlit nights? Why did God create? It is a mystery! The only answer to this question is love. God created as a gift of love. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #59

Consecrated through the sacrament of matrimony, every couple and their children are a little nucleus of a supernatural family, set in a poetic way amid the cry of a baby, the singing of the mother, the aroma of fresh bread. The parish is a family gathered around the good father at an altar adorned by white linens and flowers full of their perfume. The local Church or diocese is a family, fitted to its bishop—who knows how to be for his children a brother and a father; how to have a smile and firmness—as the strings of a harp through which the Spirit repeats the truth in melodies of love (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Eph. 4). The whole Church is a family which, in a world needing peace and love, shows itself a living reality of the Father who looks for the
far-off, lost prodigal son, as Jesus recounts in the Gospel (Lk 15:11 ff ). (Love is Revolution)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #58

What is the difference between us and other creatures? We, people, have the ability of loving, of responding to the love of God Who, out of love, created us precisely because He hoped that we would love Him in return. We come from God’s love. What is the aim of our journey? Where are we going? Where are we returning? We are going back to God. Think of the river: it runs toward the sea; the sea embraces it, and the river disappears in it. We go toward God Who is infinite love. The two essential points are here: the point
of departure and the point of arrival. We come from God–Love, and we return to God-Love. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #57

We have been created out of love, for love. There is no other possible answer: God has created us out of love; we are born from the love of God’s Heart. (Charity)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #56

Let us try to become apostles of spiritual brotherhood in all environments, at all levels, with all means, and we will see for ourselves that the real need of today is to regain among ourselves a true, generous, complete brotherhood; and to give a profound and substantial content to our relationship with God. (Love is Revolution)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #55

What is the mystery of Christmas if not the coming of God into time and history, Christ’s going forth from God to enter into man? This is the word that we find in the Gospel: “I came from the Father and have come into the world” (Jn 16:28). Christ, the Eternal Word, has come forth from the Father and has come into the world so that we may have the courage to come out from ourselves…At the very moment in which the Word comes forth, there is a passage from infinity to littleness. We, instead, have to come out from our littleness into the broader dimension of the world and towards our brethren who await us. I am aware that I am saying things that are very simple and ordinary, but they are strikingly true and involve our very life. Very often we are locked within ourselves, within our own selfishness, our sensibilities, our tastes, our vision, our memories, our experiences, and we do not go beyond ourselves or open ourselves to others. Evangelical radicalism can be found in this “going beyond.” Other people do not need our sadness, our poverty, or our limitations. They need to see God through us. This is maximalism! (Homily December 25, 1976)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #54

Fr. Mike Murphy and Bishop Giaquinta

We are a family born from love, a family in which one must live with love toward the Father—live, that is, a life of holiness—a life with inner relationships that are as among brothers and sisters, and that must be regulated by love. (Love is Revolution)

Journeying with the Founder Day #54

Journeying with the Founder Day #53

Unconditional love for the Father, tenderness toward Christ crucified out of love, docility and abandonment to the Spirit’s action flooding our being, brotherhood capable of knowing humiliation and even death for one’s brothers, universal love that becomes the characteristic element of life, courage before the difficulties and persecutions found in the world, a world that must not be abandoned but sought out as the brother who must be helped to return to the Father…--this is the world of concrete and possible hope that the Risen
Christ has already revealed to us, a world that is waiting for our acceptance and our responsible cooperation to make a reality. (Love is Revolution)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #52

We live in exceptional times, with the future holding events and problems still more extraordinary than what we face now; imperiously they ask of us a generous response, even a heroic one. Accepting these situations and trying to resolve these problems at the level of sanctity means to make oneself actually part of the world in which the mystique of love reigns. (Love is Revolution)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #51

Utopia is thus the ideal that we must try to live with all our strength, even if we are sure that we will not realize it in a complete form because, being of God, it is infinite in scope and measure. While we can be sure, then, of never bringing about a world that is totally and universally holy, we must nevertheless strive to do so because this is the will of God. (Love is Revolution)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #50

Speaking of “piety” and “spiritual brotherhood” does not mean being content with beautiful phrases or cultivating a pious but sterile sentiment of affection toward God and our brothers. Love, and so also holiness, is tremendously concrete and practical; it must be rooted in reality. The lives of the saints show this to us. It would be absurd to think the duty of sanctity can be left to personal and individual good will, without trying to check to see if, in fact, it can really be lived in the social context in which we are immersed. (Love is Revolution)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #49

The first relationship of holiness is the personal one with God; we can call it the first dimension of holiness. Each of us, though, is surrounded by other persons for whom Christ died, and so they are our brothers and sisters in grace or must become so. For how could we ignore our brethren in their various situations of life? Our love for the Father must make us feel the need and duty of speaking with them of our marvelous experience of encountering the mystery of God-Love. This relationship that sanctity creates with others we call the second dimension of holiness. Can we, however, see people as isolated from the social, cultural, economic, or political situations in which they live, and speak to them of God’s love without taking into consideration their living conditions? Yet we must face the fact that most of this societal context in which we live is not only indifferent to God’s love, but most often is an obstacle to living a full response to the vocation to love Him. What this means is that we need to structure the world in such a way that these different sociological factors help us live our vocation to holiness. This last relationship we call the third dimension of holiness. (Love is Revolution)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #48

The saint is a man of God, for Whom he feels an ever-growing need; he is a man living among men, believing with his whole heart that they are his own brothers. The saint is the masterpiece of God and of men; he is the one whom God needs and, at the same time, he manifests what God asks from all of us. The saint is the place where the divine and the human meet; he is the continuation, down through time, of redemptive love, that is, of the Word that became flesh to insert us in His process of love. For this reason, only Jesus, the God-man, is the true saint. However, after Jesus and through Jesus, all must journey towards the Father’s love; all are called to holiness. (Love is Revolution)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #47

The saint is a person who lacks wholeness but aspires to wholeness; he is famished for a love that he already possesses but only partially. The saint is a creature in need of brothers to whom he tries to give not what is superfluous from his abundance but all that he has; he is immersed in “the today” but looks toward eternity, trying to anticipate it in the time in which he lives, according to his capabilities. (Love is Revolution)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #46

Who is the saint? Every person who with all the sincerity and passion of which he is capable tries decisively to reach the fullness of love is a saint. (Love is Revolution)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #45

Love is looking at the Father Who has loved us to the point of not sparing His own Son for our sake (Rm 8:32). Love is listening to the divine Word, Jesus the Incarnate Word, Who has come to reveal to us the ineffable mystery of a Father Who loves us infinitely and wants the totality of our love. Love is docility to the action of the Spirit, Who, from within us, implores the Father on high and forms—as He did in Mary—the features of the divine, and Who, from outside us, speaks to us through past Revelation and the present
Magisterium of the Church. When such love passes from theory to being incarnated in life, we call it sanctity, and the one who lives it is a saint. (Love is Revolution)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #44

He knew our congenital and innate poverty, so He did not limit Himself to “becoming one of us” but wanted instead us to “become Him.” Baptism, the Eucharist, and the Church as His Mystical Body are three inseparable aspects of the total victory of love over sin that Christ accomplishes in us, inserting us into His reality. (Love is Revolution)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #43

We are saints when, through the merits of Christ, we participate in His love and live a life spiritually and morally coherent with the total love that God has for us. As a consequence, sanctity consists in accepting the proposal of love that Jesus makes to us, in receiving from Him the life of grace, and thus in striving toward the maximum of perfection. (Love is Revolution)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #42

Adam knows that he is loved; he knows that he has been created for love, and so he loves in return Him Who is the source of love. In this response of love by man toward God, it seems we can discern a marvelous and mysterious echo of Trinitarian love. Rather, one may affirm that in this repetition, this finite multiplication of the infinite Trinitarian love, the primary reason for the creation of all the cosmos and of man in particular is found. (Love is Revolution)

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Journeying with the Founder Day #41

Creation is none other than a pale repetition of that mysterious love that indissolubly unites the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God creates out of love, that is, He communicates Himself in some way, and He wants to give to His creatures—inasmuch as they are able to receive it—His beatifying presence. (Love is Revolution)

Journeying with the Founder Day #41

Journeying with the Founder Day #40

God did not limit Himself to saving us; He made us sharers in His own divine nature. Christ did not want to pay the price of redemption (1 Cor 6:20) in a detached way, but He became one of us, our brother. Our Christian life is not merely the application of Christ’s merits as a remission for our sins, rather it is a participation in the mystery of the Trinity. (Love is Revolution)

Journeying with the Founder Day #40

Journeying with the Founder Day #38

Lord, for too long we were accustomed to thinking of Mary as a limitless reality, transcending our faculties. We might even say we thought of her as almost infinite, even if that is not so… Lord, You have taught us that it is not so. Mary is great; Mary is the Immaculate; Mary is Your mother in order to be our mother and our model of holiness. Mary’s Immaculate Conception is not meant to alienate us from her; instead it calls us closer to her so that we may reach You with her, despite our poor, meager state of holiness, of purity, and
of transparency. For this reason You remind us that today is a day of celebration, a day of joy; it is a day of trust. Lord, increase in us always this love for Mary, mother and model of our holiness (Homily December 8th, 1987).

Journeying with the Founder Day #38

Journeying with the Founder Day #39

God does not haggle; He gives with infinite abundance. Christ does not give us a little something; He consumes Himself utterly. The love God wants from us is not according to the law of the least indispensable but according to the principle of “the all.” The brotherhood we must have among ourselves is not measured by justice but by the immolation that Christ chose in order to manifest His love for us. (Love is Revolution)

Journeying with the Founder Day #39

Journeying with the Founder December 8th 2013

The Immaculate Conception
Lord, for too long we were accustomed to thinking of Mary
as a limitless reality, transcending our faculties. We might
even say we thought of her as almost infinite, even if that is
not so… Lord, You have taught us that it is not so. Mary is
great; Mary is the Immaculate; Mary is Your mother in order
to be our mother and our model of holiness. Mary’s Immaculate
Conception is not meant to alienate us from her;
instead it calls us closer to her so that we may reach You with
her, despite our poor, meager state of holiness, of purity, and
of transparency. For this reason You remind us that today
is a day of celebration, a day of joy; it is a day of trust. Lord,
increase in us always this love for Mary, mother and model
of our holiness (Homily December 8th, 1987).

Journeying with the Founder December 8th 2013

Journeying with the Founder Day #37

Christ’s Heart is manifested as a spousal Heart, as a Heart that loves immensely, as a Heart of great desire. It is in this context that we can understand how at the Last Supper the Lord allows John to rest his head on His Heart, and how He can call the Apostles His friends; in fact He calls them “My little children,” “My little ones." (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #37

Journeying with the Founder Day #36

Every time that a person approaches us we have to ask ourselves: has this person secured his covenant of total love with God? When we enter into an environment we must ask ourselves: has this environment secured its covenant of total love with God? However, it is not enough to ask oneself this question in general; it is fitting to ask oneself in what way is it possible to help the person and the environment embrace their own covenant with God, that is, through what means and ways can this be done? (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #36

Journeying with the Founder Day #35

Each one of us is simultaneously a bearer and thus a supervisor and a builder of at least a dual covenant: one that is both personal and collective. No one can lock himself up in his own covenant, in his own interiority, in his own personal spirituality, neglecting the fact that others near him may or may not live the same covenant. We are one family. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #35

Journeying with the Founder Day #34

The infinite prospect for what is beyond places us in a situation of interior tension through which we look at today’s reality and give of ourselves today but with the certainty that today is only the eve of the eternal tomorrow. This eve already has a reality of intimacy, of concreteness, of friendship and of profound love: it is life in the Spirit, life of the foursome that is within us: the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the “I.” (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #34

Journeying with the Founder Day #33

Each person must be able to say: I am a person who has been transformed; I am somebody who has been called by Christ; I have to secure or renew my covenant with Christ, to live the law that He gives me, that is, all that He wants from me. Certainly this is a personal issue, but a community one, too. Each community of any type (family, religious, or a group), must reflect together on how to live its own covenant with Christ in a concrete way. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #33

Journeying with the Founder Day #32

God takes man’s fidelity seriously and builds history on it. Think of Mary’s Fiat on which history has been built: the history of the new covenant starts with Mary’s Fiat, her “yes,” her “Amen—may it be so.” Think of the “Amen” at Gethsemane: Father, may this chalice pass away from me; yet not my will, but Yours be done (Mt 26:39). Think of the Apostles’ response. They are called, they say their Amen and it is on their Amen that God builds the history of the Church. Think of our sacramental Amen as Christians, and then as consecrated people, on which God wants to build the history of our time. Think of our personal responsibility
in whether this history is built or not. The personal, little Amen of each person has an essential importance, not a relative one, inasmuch as the various “Amens” together form the necessary condition, the supporting pillar, for the building up of today’s history. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #32

Journeying with the Founder Day #31

Christ suffered for us, giving us an example so that we could follow in His footsteps. As Christ led a life of oblation to the Father and His brothers and sisters, and did not look after Himself but emptied Himself and denied Himself, in the same way he who wants to follow Him as a disciple must take up his cross every day and deny himself. This is Christianity. (The Covenant)

Journeying with the Founder Day #31

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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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