From: http://www.luisapiccarretaofficial.org/gospels/xxiii-sunday-in-ordinary-time/96
Brothers and sisters, Fiat!
Jesus says, “If two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven” .
Why does Jesus assure that the “unanimous” prayer is heard? Because it is done in charity, in forgiveness, in understanding, in sharing, in the love that is capable of giving one’s life for the loved one.
Jesus shows us a prayer experienced in love, not in individualism, in the illusion of one’s own recollection. We should always join each other. This explain why the Holy Mass is the unity of Christ’s Body which is the Church. And the personal prayer, silent adoration, contemplation? These are necessary to become able to love, join others, recognize that every act of love to the Lord is true if, at the same time, it is an expression of concrete love for our brothers.
But above all, the reason why the “unanimous” prayer is heard is that Jesus Himself is in our midst, His the Spirit of Love prays with inexpressible groanings.
“Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Where is Jesus, where can we meet Him? where do we experience Him? where do we find His grace of salvation? When we are gathered together in His name, in His love, He is in the midst of us, with us, for us.
Christ, who is in heaven, Christ who is in the Eucharist and in the Word, Christ who is in our neighbor in need… is present and working in our midst. “Gathering together in His name ” in the fraternal communion , in the Christian community.
What a miracle of grace, strength, power is the presence of Christ among us!
The more the soul is identified with God, the more He can give her and she can take from Him.
To better describe this great truth of God’s love for man, Jesus explains that to Luisa through the example of the sea and the little stream. It happens as between the sea and a little stream which is separated from the sea only by a wall; so much so, that if the wall were removed, the sea and the little stream would become one single sea. Now, if the sea overflows, being near it, the little stream receives the water of the sea. If its roaring waves rise, in lowering again they unload themselves into the nearby little stream. The water of the sea pours into it through the cracks of the wall. So, the tiny little stream constantly receives the waters of the sea, and because it is little, it keeps swelling up and it gives back to the sea the water it has received, to then receive it again. However, this happens because the little stream is near the sea; but if it were far away, neither could the sea give, nor could it receive – its distance would put it in the condition of not even knowing the sea.”
The sea is God, the tiny little stream is the soul, the wall that separates them is the human nature, which makes one distinguish God and the creature; the overflowings, the waves which rise continuously to unload themselves into the little stream, are the Divine Will that wants to give so much to the creature, that the little stream, being filled and swelling up, may overflow, may form its waves, swollen by the wind of the Supreme Will, and may pour back into the divine sea, to be filled again, in such a way as to be able to say: ‘I live the life of the sea, and even though I am little, I too do what it does; I overflow, I form my waves, I rise and I try to give to the sea what it gives to me.’
So, the soul who is identified with God and lets herself be dominated by the Divine Will is the repeater of the divine acts. Her love, her adorations, her prayers and everything she does, is the outpouring of God which she receives, so as to be able to say: ‘It is your love that loves You, your adorations that adore You, your prayers that pray You; it is your Will that, investing me, makes me do what You do, to give it back to You as your own things’.”
How great the power of the Divine Will is! It alone unites the greatest and highest Being with the littlest and lowest being, making them one. It alone has the virtue of emptying the creature of all that does not belong to It, to be able to form in her, with Its reflections, that Eternal Sun which, filling Heaven and earth with Its rays, goes to blend with the Sun of the Supreme Majesty. It alone has this virtue of communicating the supreme strength, in such a way that, with Its strength, the creature can rise herself.
Instead, when the creature does not live in the unity of the Divine Will, she loses the one strength and remains as though disunited from that strength that fills Heaven and earth and sustains the whole universe as if it were the littlest feather. Now, when the soul does not let herself be dominated by the Divine Will, she loses the one strength in all of her actions, therefore all her acts, not coming out of the same single strength, remain divided among themselves – love is divided, the action separated, the prayer disjointed. Being divided, all the acts of the creature are poor, meager, without light; and so patience is poor, charity is weak, obedience is crippled, humility is blind, prayer is mute, sacrifice is without life, without vigor, because since the Divine Will is missing, the one strength is missing which, uniting everything, gives the same strength to each act of the creature. Therefore, they are left not only divided among themselves, but adulterated by the human will, and so each one is left with its own defect.
This happened to Adam. By withdrawing from the Supreme Will, he lost the one single strength of His Creator, and since he was left with his limited human strength, he felt hardship in his operating; more so, since the strength that he employed in performing one action would debilitate him, and in having to do another, he would not feel the same strength. So, he touched the poverty of his actions with his own hand: not having the same strength, they were not only divided, but each one had its own defect. The same happens for one who is not completely abandoned in the arms of God’s Will, because with It the strength of good converts into one’s nature, and poverty does not exist.
“Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”. “Today, when the networks and means of human communication have made unprecedented advances, we sense the challenge of finding and sharing a “mystique” of living together, of mingling and encounter, of embracing and supporting one another, of stepping into this flood tide which, while chaotic, can become a genuine experience of fraternity, a caravan of solidarity, a sacred pilgrimage. Greater possibilities for communication thus turn into greater possibilities for encounter and solidarity for everyone. If we were able to take this route, it would be so good, so soothing, so liberating and hope-filled! To go out of ourselves and to join others is healthy for us. To be self-enclosed is to taste the bitter poison of immanence, and humanity will be worse for every selfish choice we make”. (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, n. 87).
don Marco
