Fourth Sunday of Advent

            After the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel left Mary, Saint Luke says that she set out in haste to a town in the hill country of Judah. Mary was in a hurry to fulfill the will of God. Even though God didn’t ask her directly to help her cousin Elizabeth, Mary understood immediately what God wanted her to do, and she didn’t waste time thinking about it. Joseph would have accompanied her, on a trip of three or four days, walking dangerous paths through the mountains, and would have asked her why her sudden change of plans. She couldn’t tell him about her own pregnancy, but she told him that her cousin was expecting. The Fathers of the Church saw in this episode an example of Mary’s entire life: a prompt, joyful obedience, to whatever God asked her. We need to learn from our Mother and be quick to fulfill God’s will. We cannot drag our feet. Once we see what God wants us to do, we should do it.

            Another lesson we learn from the Visitation of Mary to her cousin, is her willingness to help others, even though she had to prepare herself for the birth of baby Jesus. She had plenty of excuses to postpone her trip, but knowing that Elizabeth was pregnant in her old age, and that she was already in her sixth month, triggered in her a quick reaction. When the Holy Spirit through many different ways, places on our heads the realisation of other people’s needs, we should follow the path of Mary, and be ready to give a hand. We cannot forget that we are happy when we give ourselves to others. We all have problems, but the best way to solve them is focusing on others. Most of our worries are created in our minds and they disappear when we use our talents for the service of others.

            Mary brings Jesus to her cousin Elizabeth. She also brings Jesus to us. We are now in a time of waiting anxiously for Christmas, for the birth of Jesus in our soul. Mary fulfills her role of mediatrix, channel of all graces. The closer we are to Mary, the closer we are to Jesus. Having God in our hearts, we can share our faith with others. Mothers experience the blessing of giving birth to a new life for the world. We can also experience spiritual birth when we bring Jesus to others.

            When Mary greeted Elizabeth, her baby leapt in her womb. Two babies met in a very strange way, in their mother’s wombs, and they recognised each other. Saint John couldn’t contain his joy and wanted to get out straight away. Six people were witness to this scene: two babies, two mothers, and two fathers, Zachariah and Saint Joseph. Theologians say that John was sanctified in his mother’s womb, in a way baptised by giving witness to who Jesus is. This is why we celebrate his birth. It is not easy to recognise Jesus passing by our lives, sometimes very hidden behind the cross. We ask today Saint John the Baptist to help us, to witness him and to leap with joy at this encounter.

            Elizabeth began to praise our Mother full of the Holy Spirit: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” We say these words every time we say a Hail Mary, many times without realising what we are saying. Let us too be witnesses of Jesus in our lives and bring him to others.

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Third Sunday of Advent

            Today we can use rose vestments. Why? To express our joy because the Lord is coming. Today’s Sunday it is called Domenica Gaudete, because this is how its entrance antiphon begins in Latin: Gaudete, rejoice. It comes from Saint Paul’s letter to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice. The Lord is near.” After two weeks of penance for preparation for Christmas, we take a break, a rest, and we look at the beautiful panorama that the ascent of mount Advent shows us: Jesus is almost upon us. When we climb higher, the air becomes fresher and we can see things more clearly. Today also we light the third candle, the rose candle on the Advent wreath. The first light of sun rise is rose. We try to see everything with rose colored spectacles, a more cheerful way of looking at things. You could almost say that God has this colour on his eyes.

            What is the reason of our joy? The Lord is very near. He is closer than we think. We don’t need to walk far away to find him. We are waiting for him, he is walking towards us. If we don’t see him, we need to examine our conscience to see what are the obstacles between us and him. These are normally caused by our own pride and selfishness, two relics of original sin that grow into big bushes and trees, that hide Jesus from us. We need to prune them or cut them down; at least clear the undergrowth. Maybe a bushfire will do. But we need to be sincere and point out what separates us from God. It is not easy because we get attached to this vegetation; some of it has been there for a long time, and we think it is immovable, set in stone. But the presence of God can destroy any castle, crumble any fortification or melt down the most powerful iceberg. The love of God is so powerful, so hot, that nothing, but our will can resist.

            Patrick Murphy, an Irish guy, died and went to his judgment. Because of a tsunami, there was a long queue of people to be judged.  He could hear what Jesus was telling others. “I was hungry and you fed me; come inside. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink; come inside. I was sick and you visited me; come inside. I was naked and you clothed me; come inside.” He realised that he never did these things: “I was always in the pub drinking Guinness and cracking jokes.” He was afraid when he faced Jesus. Jesus looked at the computer and said: Patrick, I was sad and you told me jokes, I was down and you made me laugh; come inside.

            They say that the quotation in the Bible people search most is “Be not afraid!” You can find it in more than three hundred verses. This is what Jesus told the apostles, what angels say when they appear to men. These are the first words John Paul II said when he was elected Pope. We are afraid of ourselves, afraid of the future, of the unknown, afraid of failing, of something bad that could happen to us. Fear takes our joy out of us, paralyses us, it doesn’t allow us to trust God, to abandon things in his hands.

            The closer we are to God, the more interior joy we have. It is a natural reaction of our make up: we are created for him. Therefore it is a logical conclusion of our search for happiness. We are constantly looking for him in the wrong places, and we find difficult to recognise our mistake. Why is that? Because those things are means or results of happiness, not the real thing. And because we are very earthly, and spiritual things normally don’t attract us. Today is a day to place our heart in the right place, close to Mary our Mother, cause of our joy, who is carrying the creator of the universe, the maker of all the things we like, the one who knows what we like and loves us with divine love.

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Second Sunday of Advent

             Today we follow Saint John the Baptist in our way to Bethlehem. He is going to lead us to baby Jesus. But his path is not going to be easy for us because it goes through the most difficult terrain, the desert. He was inspired by the Holy Spirit to retire into the wilderness. There he devoted himself to prayer and to live a penitencial life, where he could meet God without distractions from other people. Origen says that “he went into the desert, where the air was more pure, the heavens more open, and God more familiar, that till the time of his preaching was come, he might employ himself in prayer in the company of angels.”

            During this time of Advent we need to follow John the Baptist to find our hermitage in the wildernes; a place where we can encounter the three s’s of the spiritual life: silence, solitude and simplicity. We are called to disengage our hearts from the ties of this world and to fix our eyes into what’s important. We are too caught up in the things of this earth and we need some distance to have the right perspective. By holy retirement, the fascination of its enchantments disappears. We have the experience that to seek happiness in the world is like looking for flowers among thistles; their beautiful colours only prick and wound our hands.

            The most difficult sound is silence. We are surprised when we can hear nothing. It troubles us, surprises us, we stop to hear the absence of sound. It happens when we are surrounded by nature, far away from society, and we can only hear the sound of the wind. The most expensive head phones to buy are the ones which can cancel every noise. We need to shut down one by one the noises that separate us from God. Some of them are very difficult to identify. They are like ringing in our ears, not knowing where they come from, or what produces them.

            Solitude is related to silence but it is not the same. It is difficult to handle when we are not use to it. Farmers and people working in the bush love it. We are not used to being alone, not having anyone to talk to, without being able to rub shoulders with others. We are afraid of loneliness, having fear of being left out, looking to be among people in a shopping center for example. To have quality time with God we need solitude, recollection and time to be alone with him.

            The last s we learn from Saint John is simplicity. Saint Jerome says that “he lived in the desert, and disdained to behold other things with eyes which coveted to see Christ. His raiment was coarse, his food locusts and wild honey; all of which are conducive to virtue and continence.” We don’t need much to live with. We create for ourselves thousands of necessities and we complicate our lives. Detachment from things gives is the true freedom to follow Jesus more closely.

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First Sunday of Advent

            Today we begin a new liturgical year. It is a new beginning, where we walk again through the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why do we need to tread on his footsteps every year? Because once is not enough. We human beings need to be reminded of important things over and over again, because we forget or because it takes us a long time to grasp its full meaning. That’s why companies need to keep advertising their brand names, with a logo to remember their products. The liturgical year is like a spiral where we run around our Saviour, every lap a bit closer to him. Or like a meteorite circling around the sun, being attracted by its gravitational force, until one day it will be sucked into its fiery core. Hopefully one day we will be ready to jump into the immensity of God.

            It is a reminder of our travelling nature. We are pilgrims on this earth. We come from God and we go back to him. We would like to find our home here, but we are not made for this world. We keep trying to build our permanent nest here. We would like to stop time, thinking that here below things won’t change or they are going to last for ever. We are constantly changing, in the making, getting better or getting worse. We are born as babies and eventually we will become old and frail. Our bodies reminds us of our fleeting nature, our growing and diminishing.

            Advent means coming. It is a reminder that we are going and Jesus is coming to pick us up. We need to be ready to go to the place God has prepared for us. We are travellers, pilgrims, wanderers. We are people from a different world, displaced, refugees, migrants from a foreign land. Our time here is a preparation for eternity, our final destination. That’s why we need to travel light, with a quick pace, with our eyes fixed on our goal, not to miss it.

            In the Middle Ages people used to go on a pilgrimage, either east, towards the Holy Land, or west, to Saint James’ tomb, a very long trip that lasted months or even years. It was a way to fulfill a promise, for penitential reasons or to find the meaning of one’s life. Nowadays around two hundred thousand people every year follow the Camino of Santiago, for many different reasons. All of them come back changed, by the mere fact of spending few days just walking. We have lost the sense of walking; we now drive or fly. We talk more about being fulfilled, developing our carees, achieving our personal goals. These pilgrimages remind us of our human condition, the important journey all of us are embarked on. What is important is not what we do, or what we possess, but that we keep walking towards our final destination. The way shows us who we are.

            Mary, Miriam in Hebrew, means star of the sea. In the same way sailors used to orient themselves during the night on high seas by looking at the stars, we can look at our Mother, the bright star that leads us during the journey of our lives, through the treacherous passages of our trip, back to a safe and secure haven, in Jesus Christ.

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Pontius Pilate 

            Today the Gospel brings to us the conversation between Pilate and Jesus about his kingship. Pilate was the governor of Judaea for ten years, the time of Jesus’ passion and death. His name appears in the Creed to place Jesus in a particular time of history. Tradition says that he became a Christian and died a martyr. We don’t like kings in our present time. We either see them as oppressive or irrelevant. In our individualistic world, we are critical of authority. We don’t want to be told who we are, we prefer to choose who we want to be, and decide what is right and wrong for ourselves. We Christians belong to Jesus‘ kingdom because he wanted us to be baptised, but we need to choose him.

            Jesus said to Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world. What sort of kingdom are we talking about? The Preface for today’s Mass gives us some of its qualities: a kingdom of Truth and Life, a kingdom of Holiness and Grace, a kingdom of Justice, Love and Peace. He rules from the cross. He was crowned with thorns, dressed in a purple rag, and given a reed for a scepter. His throne is a piece of timber, his jewels are three nails, his chalice full of vinegar. His soldiers, the apostles, have deserted him, running away, leaving him alone. Normally kings send their armies to war to die for them; Jesus on the contrary, died for each one of us.

            Because it is a kingdom not of this world, it will last for ever. All human kingdoms and empires, all cultures and nations, all big companies and corporations, have or will pass away. Jesus’ reign will reach eternity, his rule is everlasting. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, God from God, light from light, true God from true God. He is Lord of lords, King of kings, Emperor of emperors. His kingdom is supreme, over all peoples, universal, embracing everything, eternal, it will last for ever. It is spiritual, over angels and men. And Jesus is asking us if we want to be part of it.

            There are only two kingdoms: either his kingdom or our kingdom. His kingdom frees us from the things that enslave us. Our kingdom is ruled by tyrants. It is the tyranny of fear, guilt, hurt, resentment, envy, shame and insecurity. Fear paralyses us. Guilt makes us walk backwards. Hurt and resentment lead us to avoid people. Envy produces sadness in front of the good of others. Shame pushes us to hide in the cave of our pride. Insecurity leads us to hate ourselves. What are the real tyrants that are ruling now our lives? What are our addictions? Jesus is the only one who can free us from these tyrannies, and gives us the freedom and the glory of the children of God.

            In the Cathedral of Seville, there is a royal chapel where Saint Fernando is buried. An image of Our Lady presides over the chapel, sitting on her throne, with the child Jesus on her lap. Her title is Queen of Kings. On top of the image there is an inscription, engraved in silver that says: Per me reges regnant. Kings rule through me. She is the Queen Mother, Regina Pacis, Queen of Peace. We pray for peace in our country. We pray for peace in our hearts.

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Second coming

            We are now to the end of the liturgical year where we get these apocalyptic Gospels, which talk about the end of times. Apocalypse means unveiling, to lift the veil and to reveal what is going to happen, what is behind the curtain that separates us from eternity. We know that Jesus is going to come back one day, every day a bit closer, to end our time and to begin his everlasting Kingdom. Next Sunday we close the liturgical year with the feast of Christ the King. In the creed we say every Sunday: “He will come again in his glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.” We use the word Epiphany, appearing, or Parusia, coming, the second Advent. It is a Christian and Muslim belief.

            The early Christians thought it was going to happen during their life time. So much so that Saint Paul had to tell them to keep working and not become lazy, just waiting for everything to disappear. For us it is not as important as for them, because after two thousand years, we are still waiting. Personally I think that first we need to colonise the whole universe. A lot of people have predicted this event and have failed. In every generation we have prophets of doom. We have a desire to know the future, what is going to happen, but we Christians know that our future is in God’s hands, and he tells us what we need to know. Prior to his coming there will be amazing signs, the Antichrist and natural disasters. Everything will be destroyed; there will be a new heaven and a new earth. We shouldn’t be too concerned about our planet because one day it will disappear.

            We talk about the three comings of Our Lord: the Incarnation, when the Word became flesh; our personal meeting with God, when we die; and the second coming of Jesus. The first one was hidden to the public eyes, our personal one is unexpected, and the third one will be amazing. November is a month when we bring to our consideration our departure, events that we don’t normally think about, the last things, eternal truths, the other life.

            Jesus said that he had to go and prepare a place for us. He is coming back to pick us up, to take us to his place, to be with him and with the people we love for ever. We don’t normally think about the hour of our departure. It is the only thing that is going to happen to us for sure, every day a bit closer, and it is what gives meaning to our lives. We think that it is very far away from us. The thought of death brings to the fore what is really important in life, and makes all the artificial things disappear.

            Jesus in the Gospel is constantly reminding us to be ready, to watch out, to be on guard. He says that he will come like a thief in the middle of the night, unexpectedly, for us to render an account of the talents he gave us. We are not ready because we are still here. This November we have another opportunity to prepare ourselves to face our personal encounter with Jesus Christ. For others it is the end; for us it is the beginning. Jesus dying for us has taken away the sting of death, and opened the gates of heaven. We can say with joy like the early Christians: Maranatha, come Lord Jesus.

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The widow’s mite

            Today the readings of the Mass present to us two widows. In the first reading a widow from Elijah’s time and in the Gospel a widow going to the temple. Widows had a hard life, with no husband to look after them, and it was especially tough if they didn’t have grown up children. Both were generous, giving out of their poverty the last resources they had. And both got much more than what they expected. Elijah’s widow was going to die with her son and received food for the whole year. The widow in the temple was praised by Jesus for just two copper coins. Maybe she found a fortune when she went back home.

            Jesus sat with his disciples in the temple opposite the treasury, looking at the people bringing their donations, some of them putting in a lot of money. It was a big show, watching the rich Jews carrying big bags of gold and silver coins, dropping them into the treasure, hearing the metal sound of the coins going down the hole. The temple treasury was situated in a highly visible location, to encourage people to be generous. We love showing off, drawing attention to our good deeds. But nobody noticed a poor widow dressed in black, who dropped in only two little copper coins, without making any sound. Only Jesus knew of her generosity, because he can look into the depths of our hearts. When she was leaving without drawing attention to herself, Jesus called his disciples and gave them a graphic lesson, pointing out to them her heroic deed.

            The rich gave to God their left overs; the poor widow gave everything she had. Jesus was moved by her generosity, and told his disciples that she had put in more than all of them together. The rich had their reward on earth; the poor widow had her’s waiting in heaven. Saint Josemaria says: “Didn’t you see the light in Jesus’ eyes as the poor widow left her little alms in the temple? Give him what you can: the merit is not in whether it is big or small, but in the intention with which you give it.”

            We win Jesus’ heart through our generosity. There is an old saying that God is won over by the last coin. The Kingdom of God is priceless but at the same time it costs whatever you have down to the last penny. If the bottle of wine is not full, the air turns the wine into vinegar. We came to this world naked, without anything, and we are going to leave in the same way. You cannot take anything with you unless you give it to God. What you give to God you’ll find it in the other life; if you keep it you lose it.

            God always asks first. It puzzles us, thinking that he has everything and he should be the one offering his graces to us, instead of being the one always asking things from us. He wants to give himself to us, but first we need to make room for him. The more we give, the more we get. Mother Teresa used to say: “You have to give till it hurts. Then you’ll be happy.” We cannot outdo God in generosity. Once a beggar asked Alexander the Great for alms. He commanded to make him Lord of five cities. The beggar was dumbstruck: “I didn’t ask for so much.” Alexander answered: “You ask as you are; I give as I am.” He was great, great was his generosity. We are like little children who carry in their pockets their treasures: a piece of glass, a stone, a broken figurine. Even though we don’t have much in comparison with what God has to offer, we are attached to our little coins. Give them to Jesus as the poor widow did.

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Love of neighbour

            We are travellers, pilgrims on this earth. We come from God and we are going back to him. Today Jesus in the Gospel tells us what are the two most important commandments for us to follow, to reach the kingdom of heaven: to love God above everything and others as we love ourselves. They are the summary of our Christian faith. Today we can check if we are following them. They are not easy to fulfill. We normally love ourselves first, then others, for what they can do for us, and then God, just in case he exists. We should try to turn things around. Once we have our priorities right, we know we are on the right path, going back to our Father’s house.

            Can we love our neighbor as we love ourselves? Is this possible? Of course it is possible. God doesn’t ask us to do anything that is impossible. It is a selfless love, the love everybody would like to experience. It is the love of a mother who loves her children more than herself. Because they were very close to her, part of her life. She carried them for nine months. There are other similar kinds of selfless love. A soldier who gives his life for his country, or a martyr who dies for Christ. We have the example of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, who changed places with another man in a concentration camp to die instead of him. A little girl told her uncle, a priest just ordained, her hidden secret: I love you more than I love myself. People sometimes risk their lives to save their property, their pets, the things they love.

            Both commandments are related. The more you love God, the more you love others. God pushes us towards our neighbour. We can even say that we love others with the love God gives us. Our love of God helps us to see others as parts of ourselves, as our brothers and sisters. It works both ways. The more you love your neighbour, the more you love God, and the other way round. They are two sides of the same coin. We have the example of the saints, who give us lessons in how to love others.

            Nosce te ipsum, know thyself; it was a maxim inscribed on the temple of Apollo at Delphi. There should have been another one: Ame te ipsum, love thyself. We see in our society nowadays many people who hate themselves. They don’t like what people see in them and would like to be different. Social media often fosters jealousy, when people show only an ideal image of themselves. If you hate yourself, you normally hate others. How can you love your neighbour as yourself, if you don’t like yourself? But what do we have to do to learn how to love ourselves? Look at God who is Love and loves us more than anybody else. God has created us the way we are and loves us from the beginning: he wants us to exist. Our self love comes from the love he has for us. A baby becomes conscious of himself when he is aware of the love his mother has for him and becomes his own person.

            We need to discover the love God has for us. Once we are aware of God’s love, we can easily give ourselves to others. Bishop Barron often repeats the idea that love is to seek the best of the other. We forget that we have been created to love more than being loved. We are happy when we love others in the way they want to be loved. But how do we experience God’s love, if he is not doing what we ask of him, and makes us suffer? This week we read during Mass a famous saying from the letter of Saint Paul to the Romans: everything works for the best for those who love God. We use a Latin expression: Omnia in bonum. When we love God above everything, we know that what happens to us is the best for us, that he is in control.

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All Saints

            Once a year in November the Church on earth as a good mother helps us to remember our brothers and sisters who have made it into eternity. On the first of this month, the saints in heaven; on the second, the souls in purgatory. They say there are around 10.000 saints recognised by the Church. It is impossible to count all the saints in heaven. We don’t have time to canonise every person who enters into glory. There are millions of them. We call them anonymous saints, which means saints with no names; not for God, because for Him all of us have a hidden name. At least once a year we remember them and hopefully one day it will be our feast day. Today it is the biggest celebration in heaven regarding the number of celebrants who are celebrating their dies natalis, their birth into heaven.

            The remembrance of the saints helps us to lift up our eyes to heaven. It doesn’t make any difference to them, because they are already immersed in God; they don’t need our prayers. But we need their example, their model of life, their inspiration, their intercession. Not to copy them, because every person is unique, but to reassure ourselves that we all have the necessary graces to make it to heaven, that the ball is in our court, that God is willing, and it is up to us to make it there.

            What’s holiness? It doesn’t mean to be perfect. It means that when we die, we go straight to heaven. It is impossible to be perfect, but we could make it to heaven thanks to God’s grace. We all feel that if we die now we can hardly make it to purgatory. How can we reach heaven? Through the mercy of God. It is so powerful that it can make us holy. And it is there, up for grabs. The Church wants today to remind us that we are made for heaven, that we come from God and we are going back to him. It is possible for us to become holy. It is good for us to remember the famous question saint Ignatius asked himself, when he was reading lives of saints, and experienced a peaceful feeling in his soul, in front of those beautiful examples: “If they could do it, why not I?” The devil is trying to discourage us; he wants us to be convinced that it is very difficult to reach heaven.

            Once saint Thomas Aquinas’ sister asked him a very difficult question, maybe the most important question of our lives, the same question the rich young man put to Jesus: What do we have to do to go to heaven? Thomas, who was a man of few words, and he was very precise with his explanations, answered with two words: “velle illud”. It is a Latin expression that means: to want it. It is not a matter of conviction but of desire. God will open the gates of heaven if we want it, if we push them open with our struggle, with our desires to be with Him.

            We need to remind ourselves of the power of God. Saint Josephine Bakhita, at the end of her life, expressed in these simple words, hidden behind a smile, the journey of her life: “I travel slowly, one step at a time, because I am carrying two big suitcases. One of them contains my sins, and in the other, which is much heavier, are the infinite merits of Jesus Christ. When I reach heaven I will open both suitcases and say to God: Eternal Father, now you can judge. And to Saint Peter: Close the door, because I’m staying here.”

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Bartimeus

            Today we come across Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, a blind man, outside the city of Jericho. They say that Jericho is the oldest city in the world still functioning. Timaeus must have been a well known person. His son was begging for money at the road side. We are like Bartimaeus, blinded to the spiritual things, sitting on the road side of life, waiting for Jesus to pass by, begging for help. He heard a multitude coming out of the city and asked what was happening. Blind people rely completely on their hearing. We too also need to hear Jesus passing by, distinguishing his footsteps among the cacophony of sound that is surrounding us. When they told him that it was Jesus the prophet, he began to cry out at the top of his voice: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”

            It is similar to the famous Jesus’ prayer, used mainly in Eastern Christianity, which through a constant repetition, becomes like breathing, a ceaseless prayer. It contains in a nutshell all that we need to ask: Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. During Mass we use a similar expression: Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy. Bartimeaus was shouting aloud, so much so that many rebuked him, telling him to be quiet. They couldn’t hear what Jesus was saying. But he cried out all the more, knowing that this was the opportunity of his life. We too need to repeat this prayer with persistance, against the secular environment which is surrounding us, and the people trying to shut us down. Our perseverance is a sign that Jesus is hearing us.

            Eventually the Lord called Bartimaeus. He jumped up full of hope, leaving his cloak behind, the piece of cloth that kept him warm him up during the winter nights. We should be ready to jump too, when we hear our name: “Take courage, Jesus is calling you.” But also we should let go of our cloak, our attachments, getting out of our comfort zone, leaving our sinful life behind us. It sounds a bit like a gamble, but we need to trust Jesus, burning our boats, leaving our old self behind.

            Jesus asked Bartimaeus a strange question: What do you want me to do for you? Jesus knew that he was blind and he wanted to recover his sight. God knows what we need, but he wants us to ask for it. It happens the same with parents; they know what their children need but they want them to say it. Do we really know what we need? Most of the time we ask for things we don’t need. We long for promising careers, more wealth, better health, to become famous, to be honoured. Deep down we all want to be happy. God always knows what we need. We should let him decide: Lord, give me what I need!

            Bartimaeus, opening wide his eyes, looking at the horizon, asked what all of us should ask: Lord, let me see. Domine ut videam. This is a cry Saint Josemaria said for many years, when he sensed that God was asking him for something he didn’t know. It made him very docile to God’s will. We also want to see with the eyes of the faith. We want to discover the world of spiritual riches hidden to our earthly eyes. The first thing Bartimaeus saw, when he recovered his sight, was Jesus’ face: the amazing countenance of the Son of Man, the most perfect image of God. The Gospel says that he followed him on the way. Once you discover the face of Jesus, you don’t want to leave him. Lord, let us see your face!

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