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2Letter from the Prelate (June 2013) Letter from the Prelate (June 2013) The Prelate continues his reflections on the Creed during the Year of Faith, focusing on the sending of the Holy Spirit and …More
Letter from the Prelate (June 2013)
Letter from the Prelate (June 2013)
The Prelate continues his reflections on the Creed during the Year of Faith, focusing on the sending of the Holy Spirit and Christ's second coming at the end of time.
June 04, 2013
PDF: June 2013 Letter
My dear children: may Jesus watch over my daughters and sons for me!
The beginning of June always brings to our mind, with special force, the memory of St. Josemaría, whose liturgical memorial (a solemnity in the Prelature) is the 26th. By meditating on the example of his life, and rereading his writings, we come to realize ever more fully the great marvels that God carries out in souls completely faithful to his plans. There comes to my lips that exclamation from Sacred Scripture: mirabilis Deus in sanctis suis,[1] how marvelous is God in his saints!
Complete identification with Christ (for that is what sanctity means) is attributed in a special way to the Holy Spirit. Let us give thanks for his unceasing action in sanctifying souls. In recent days, as we celebrated the solemnities of Pentecost and then the Most Holy Trinity, we have frequently raised our heart to God, whose will (St. Paul tells us) is that all men and women may be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.[2]
www.opusdei.us/art.php
And now with the return to ordinary time, the liturgy reminds us that we find ourselves in the stage of history that extends from the coming of the Paraclete at Pentecost to the glorious coming of Christ at the end of time. This is one of the truths contained in the Creed, with which the cycle of the mysteries referring to our Lord closes. Each Sunday, at Holy Mass, we profess that our Lord, seated now at the right hand of the Father, will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.[3]
“Since the Ascension,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, “Christ’s coming in glory has been imminent,”[4] in the sense that it could happen at any moment. Only God knows when this event, which marks the end of history and the definitive renewal of the world, will take place. Therefore, without any alarm or fear, but with a sense of responsibility, we have to be always well prepared for this definitive encounter with Jesus, which, moreover, will take place for each of us at the moment of death. From God we have come and to God we are headed: this reality is a true synthesis of Christian wisdom. Nevertheless, as the Pope recently lamented, “these two poles of history are often forgotten; and, at times, especially faith in Christ’s return and in the Last Judgment, are not so clear and firm in Christian hearts.”[5]
Let us not forget that the definitive encounter of our Lord with each person is preceded by his constant activity in each moment of our ordinary life. I still recall how forcefully St. Josemaría would ask him, in this daily encounter,mane nobiscum!,[6] remain with us. Do we say this to him with the awareness that we have to let him act in all of our life? He also exhorted us to always be ready to give an account to God of our life at any moment. InThe Way he wrote: “‘He shall come to judge the living and the dead.’ So we pray in the Creed. God grant that you never lose sight of that judgment and of that justice and...of that Judge.”[7] I am a witness to the fact that each day he considered this future event personally and was filled with joy; all who realize we are children of God should rejoice in this reality as well. Therefore he added: “Doesn’t your soul burn with the desire to make your Father God happy when he has to judge you?”[8]
The present time, the stage of history that it falls to each of us to live through, “is a time of waiting and watching,”[9] in which we have to work with the eagerness and enthusiasm of good children who strive to build up on earth, with the help of grace, the kingdom of God that Christ will bring to its perfection on the last day. This is what the parable of the talents teaches us, which our Father commented on so often.[10] As the Roman Pontiff reminded us in one of his catecheses for the Year of Faith, “the expectation of the Lord’s return is the time of action . . . the time in which we should bring God’s gifts to fruition, not for ourselves but for him, for the Church, for others. The time to seek to increase goodness in the world always; and in particular, in this period of crisis, today, it is important not to turn in on ourselves, burying our own talent, our spiritual, intellectual, and material riches, everything that the Lord has given us, but rather to open ourselves, to be supportive, to be attentive to others.”[11]
My daughters and sons, let us not turn a blind eye on these recommendations; let us strive to help others—many people!—not only to hear them, but also to diligently put them into practice. In the end, everything comes down to being attentive, out of love for God, to the needs of others, beginning with those who are closest to us—those who are …
Letter from the Prelate (June 2013)
The Prelate continues his reflections on the Creed during the Year of Faith, focusing on the sending of the Holy Spirit and Christ's second coming at the end of time.
June 04, 2013
PDF: June 2013 Letter
My dear children: may Jesus watch over my daughters and sons for me!
The beginning of June always brings to our mind, with special force, the memory of St. Josemaría, whose liturgical memorial (a solemnity in the Prelature) is the 26th. By meditating on the example of his life, and rereading his writings, we come to realize ever more fully the great marvels that God carries out in souls completely faithful to his plans. There comes to my lips that exclamation from Sacred Scripture: mirabilis Deus in sanctis suis,[1] how marvelous is God in his saints!
Complete identification with Christ (for that is what sanctity means) is attributed in a special way to the Holy Spirit. Let us give thanks for his unceasing action in sanctifying souls. In recent days, as we celebrated the solemnities of Pentecost and then the Most Holy Trinity, we have frequently raised our heart to God, whose will (St. Paul tells us) is that all men and women may be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.[2]
www.opusdei.us/art.php
And now with the return to ordinary time, the liturgy reminds us that we find ourselves in the stage of history that extends from the coming of the Paraclete at Pentecost to the glorious coming of Christ at the end of time. This is one of the truths contained in the Creed, with which the cycle of the mysteries referring to our Lord closes. Each Sunday, at Holy Mass, we profess that our Lord, seated now at the right hand of the Father, will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.[3]
“Since the Ascension,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, “Christ’s coming in glory has been imminent,”[4] in the sense that it could happen at any moment. Only God knows when this event, which marks the end of history and the definitive renewal of the world, will take place. Therefore, without any alarm or fear, but with a sense of responsibility, we have to be always well prepared for this definitive encounter with Jesus, which, moreover, will take place for each of us at the moment of death. From God we have come and to God we are headed: this reality is a true synthesis of Christian wisdom. Nevertheless, as the Pope recently lamented, “these two poles of history are often forgotten; and, at times, especially faith in Christ’s return and in the Last Judgment, are not so clear and firm in Christian hearts.”[5]
Let us not forget that the definitive encounter of our Lord with each person is preceded by his constant activity in each moment of our ordinary life. I still recall how forcefully St. Josemaría would ask him, in this daily encounter,mane nobiscum!,[6] remain with us. Do we say this to him with the awareness that we have to let him act in all of our life? He also exhorted us to always be ready to give an account to God of our life at any moment. InThe Way he wrote: “‘He shall come to judge the living and the dead.’ So we pray in the Creed. God grant that you never lose sight of that judgment and of that justice and...of that Judge.”[7] I am a witness to the fact that each day he considered this future event personally and was filled with joy; all who realize we are children of God should rejoice in this reality as well. Therefore he added: “Doesn’t your soul burn with the desire to make your Father God happy when he has to judge you?”[8]
The present time, the stage of history that it falls to each of us to live through, “is a time of waiting and watching,”[9] in which we have to work with the eagerness and enthusiasm of good children who strive to build up on earth, with the help of grace, the kingdom of God that Christ will bring to its perfection on the last day. This is what the parable of the talents teaches us, which our Father commented on so often.[10] As the Roman Pontiff reminded us in one of his catecheses for the Year of Faith, “the expectation of the Lord’s return is the time of action . . . the time in which we should bring God’s gifts to fruition, not for ourselves but for him, for the Church, for others. The time to seek to increase goodness in the world always; and in particular, in this period of crisis, today, it is important not to turn in on ourselves, burying our own talent, our spiritual, intellectual, and material riches, everything that the Lord has given us, but rather to open ourselves, to be supportive, to be attentive to others.”[11]
My daughters and sons, let us not turn a blind eye on these recommendations; let us strive to help others—many people!—not only to hear them, but also to diligently put them into practice. In the end, everything comes down to being attentive, out of love for God, to the needs of others, beginning with those who are closest to us—those who are …