6th Easter Sunday
Gospel: Mark 3,31-35
May 6, 2018
Homily of the Pontiff Samuel
(Draft)
On this Sunday of the Easter season, we continue to live the joy of the Risen Christ, so that by loving, meditating and putting into practice His teachings, we may daily experience and continue to experience the joy of Easter, the joy to rise in Christ and to live Christ in our everyday life, so that the Father may make us worthy to partake in His Love so be able to win and rise again, in His Name.
The day of Easter represents the synthesis of the history of Christ’s victory over humanity. The history of all Christendom is enclosed in that very day. Beginning and End. Alpha and Omega. At dawn, which represents the beginning of times, Christ resurrects and initiates the Mystery of Salvation. At sunset, which represents the end of times, Jesus sends His Spirit upon those who have remained faithful to Him, conferring on them the power to forgive sins (Jn 20:22-23), making them be forever His Church; making the Faithfulness and the Truth of His teachings live in the whole world (Rev 19:11).
This is what Jesus has preannounced to us (Jn 14:16) and this is what has happened. «God is Spirit, and those who worship must worship Him in Spirit and Truth» (Jn 4:24). In this Land of Love, the Father has given us His Spirit (Jn 16:13) to bring the whole world back to know the Christian Truth, the one and only Truth that saves; and so to make this arid and lost humanity live and love His teachings again (Jn 15:16).
«As the Father sent me, so am I sending you» (Jn 20:21). Here is that these words spoken on Easter Sunday, come back, to make everyone understand all what every Christian is called again to live and make others live: to make the Truth known, the Truth of Christ, the one and only absolute Truth that saves, so that His teachings may be loved and lived; the teachings that the Father, in the course of time, has wanted to pass on through His tools, through His messengers, heard and not heard, loved and not loved, welcomed and not welcomed.
Anyone who does the will of Jesus, is His brother, sister and mother (Mk 3:35). Anyone who does His will and teaches others to do the same, is part of the Family of Jesus, as we have now heard in the Gospel proclaimed today (Mk 3:31-35). Brotherhood in Christ is not a condition dictated by blood but it is a condition that comes from the Spirit, from His Spirit, which proceeds in history and which pours forth and penetrates the hearts of those who love Christ and strive to do His will, with all their strength. Anyone who loves Christ, will put His commandments into practice (Jn 14:15). Being part of the Church, of the Family of Christ, is not a right, a privilege, unmodifiable. It’s a daily conquest. It’s a condition that must be renewed every day, by offering to Christ our life, our everyday life, by overcoming our “self”, and by remaining in communion with His Spirit, with the Spirit of the Risen Christ.
All those who don’t close their heart to the living action of the Holy Spirit, will recognise who are those who, in these times, are part of the true Family of Jesus; and those who are not. All those who remain vigilant, will understand which Family, which Church is in communion with the Spirit and with the Heart of Jesus; and the one that is not.
Jesus said: «It is not anyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord” who will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven» (Mt 7,21). To honour the Lord in words is worthless if then they in their souls and in their hearts betray Him (Is 29:13, Mk 7:6-7). Being part of the Family of Christ means to believe in Him and in the One Who wanted Him, in the One Who sent Him, in order to love Him and do His will, remaining in communion with His Heart, with His Spirit, from heart to Heart. Just as we have lived and said to these children who, in the latter period, have enlivened the life of this Church, manifesting with their purity of heart, how we are to live, by remaining in communion, receiving communion, being in communion with Jesus. From Heart at heart, from Spirit to spirit. Here it is that each of us must take example from these children, especially those who are greater in age, so to be able to find that freshness, knowing that childhood is not a condition given by age, but is given by the freshness of heart. Here it is that we are all called to live that eternal childhood, on the example of She who is the Eternal Maiden (Is 7:14): Mary; so to be able to experience and continue to live that childhood, that freshness that comes from the Holy Spirit and makes us reborn from above (Jn 3:3), so to rise to new life. Here is how to continue to live and to be in communion with Jesus, to experience and be part of the family of God; these are the true relatives of Jesus, His brothers and His sisters (Mk 3:35).
Over time and betimes, the Good and Just Father sends His words, sends His messengers. And over time, humanity has not known how to welcome and see beyond the words and the gestures, and to understand “the” sign sent by the Father; to understand “the” interventions that the Father continually manifests to make man understand how finite his action is compared to the action of the Father, which is infinite and eternal.
In a message revealed to His Maiden, Maria Giuseppina, Jesus said that the things of God, His Work, which in this Mystery is manifested, cannot be measured with a human yardstick. The Father’s Work is to be welcomed with our heart. Each one of us must let himself be guided by his own heart so to understand the breeze of the Holy Spirit that envelops our heart with God’s infinite Mercy, to make us understand the Truth which the Father’s Spirit has enshrined in this Holy Mystery, a Mystery of deep Love, a Mystery that continually evolves, advances and embraces all those who want and will want to be embraced by the Father’s Spirit, who sanctifies, regenerates, purifies, allowing everyone to be part of His Family, the true Family (Mk 3:34).
Here is that the brotherhood, in this House, will return to be the centre of the journey of all Christians. Just as we always say: prayer and fraternal union. In order that everyone, in the true brotherhood, may rediscover, live and donate that love, mutual and at the same time universal, that makes us sons of God and brothers of Jesus.
The lack of brotherhood is the cause of the collapse of another house, which is now in ruins, where the spirit of brotherhood has given way to the spirit of rivalry, of predominance; where no one lives under the sign of “One for all and all for One” – which is the motto, the symbol of this Church -, but where everyone lives the “all against all”: brother against brother, sister against sister.
This is why all of us are called to be a living example of holiness, of brotherhood, in order to manifest this family to the whole world, and to be able to manifest the fruits that this family has generated and will generate: live fruits of the action of the Holy Spirit.
Many, looking at these fruits, will be able to know and recognize the Goodness of the Tree, this Holy Tree that gives Life (Rev 22:14), that the Father has planted in this Land of Love, to give true Life again to all those who approach this Tree with a sincere heart.
That is why to you all, belonging to this Family, I say: «Make known to everyone this Land of Love, Its fragrance and Its delights, so that every son and every creature that arrives here may feel loved, protected and never violated, so they may be able to understand the difference between those who live in the world compared to those who live and enter the boundaries of the New Jerusalem: Land filled with the Holy Spirit (Is 66:22), inexhaustible Source of the Father’s Love, which in Mary is manifested».
In good time the Father, in this Land of Love, has entrusted this humanity to the motherly cares; entrusting all of us to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And all of us will honour this Heart. We live for the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Heart of She who is the “good and tender Mother”. And we will all find ourselves in the Immaculate Heart of Mary, so to live the fulfilment of the promises of Jesus and to be able to manifest to the world this family that has Christ as Father and Mary as Mother; so that all together we will experience the true brotherhood: to be brothers and sisters in this one and only Spirit that binds us to one another (1Co 12:11-12).
«Proclaim the freedom that you all have found in the Land of Love; announce to the whole world the life that in this Land of Love the Father gives to all those who make of His teachings their right Pathway, which leads to acknowledge the Master, to live His teachings, to make our “self” die and to undertake the path that leads and will lead us to become “sons” (1Jn 3:1) and to become as He is, and, in the fulfilment of His Thought, to be able in turn to become many little Jesus» (1Jn 3:2b).
«Come. The Land of Love awaits you. Haste. Come, you all. Come, all you disbelieving. Come and experience the Father’s Love that in this Land is alive. Touch with your hands, experience with your heart the things the Father has given in this Land of Love, so that by living and experiencing the Love of this Land, many doubts may be dissolved (Lk 24:38), and many questions vanish, so be able to savour the essence of the Father’s Love which in this Land is alive and will make us more and more understand and rejoice, in order to live together this our being Family: One, Holy and Universal». And so be it.
