The Christian service
(Draft)
To be “Christian” means “to serve“, “to be a servant of …“. Here is Mary, the beloved daughter of the Father who, out of love for her Son, has made herself the “Handmaid” of her Lord (Lk 1:38).
In Mary, every Christian finds the full meaning of “Christian service“: what it signifies and how to put into practice the true service to God and to our neighbour. Not a service carried out breathlessly, with agitation or worry (Lk 10:41); not a service done for showing off, thus falling victim to the human prestige that can derive from such service (Revelation “The Catechesis” of Jesus to MGN) but a service done with love, always placing at the centre the one primary Good: God; the Love for God and for our neighbour.
By this, Christians are and will increasingly be known and recognised (Is 19:21), appreciated and loved, in a world that does not like to serve but to be served and revered, where haughtiness and arrogance have once again become the epicentre in the hearts of many, especially of many who, laboriously and deceitfully, do everything they can to continue to be accredited by the world as “Christians”, as “spokesmen” of God and of Christianity. But soon every mask will fall (Prv 26:25;) and many will see the true Countenance of Christ (Ps 16:15) and of His sons (Ps 30:17); and the true face of those who betrayed and disowned Him (2 Cor 11:14).
Whoever wants to be a true Christian lives by imitating Christ and his virtues, embodying them as Mary did (Lk 1:48), placing at the centre the virtues of purity, humility and obedience to the Master, to the Friend and Brother Jesus, who commanded his disciples “the” new Commandment (Jn 13:34), that of Love, so that all Christians could and can be recognised for their spirit of service, which is Love: towards God and our brother, towards our brother and our neighbour (Mt 22:37-40).
The new Christians of the New Jerusalem must place the Commandment of Jesus at the centre, so to bring again to everyone the spirit of service, which is Love, to God and to their brothers, recognizing in the face of their brothers, the Brother Jesus; and recognizing in the face of their sisters, the face of Mary, the Daughter, Bride and Mother of the Most High, the humble Handmaid elevated by God through grace (Lk 1:28), crowning Her as Queen, raising Her to His Glory, clothing Her with His essence and substance (Lk 1:49).
However, being a servant of our brother and neighbour does not mean “being submissive” or “to allow to be subdued” (1Cor 15:20-27a): serving our brother, our neighbour, but not being subdued by our brother or neighbour.
This is the dignity that, now more than ever before, Jesus and Mary effuse in the hearts of the new Christians; that dignity that no one should ever think to remove or wipe away. Christians are sons of the King and of the Queen. And following the example of the King and of the Queen, the sons lower themselves so that all God’s “creatures” may become “sons” (Jn 1:12), so that all may be aware that the Father, in the Son, has grafted into the heart of those who want to be “sons”, that royal spark that characterises the sons of the King of Life.
This is the difference between the sons of Christ and the sons of the world. The sons of Christ are those who want to bring to everyone the knowledge of the absolute Truth that sets them free (Jn 8:32): “bringing the knowledge“, not forcing to believe. It is the freedom that the Father has granted to humanity that will allow people to believe or not the Good News. And in this time, the Good News handed down in the past is renewed in the Spirit, because it has been enriched by the true and substantial Love, Christ the Love, who came down from Heaven (Acts 1:11) in the New Jerusalem to bring the sons back to the original Thought of the Father and of the Son, which many have forfeited, allowing themselves to be phagocytised by a humanist and humanising thought that has de‑Christianised this world (Lk 20:17), that has become evil and iniquitous again, that has lost and caused many to lose the joy and the enthusiasm of living Christ and His Gospel.
Humanity always tries to dampen enthusiasm (Acts 17:11-13); the new Christians instead must keep it alive, pure and holy, so that they can convey, with their eyes, with their words and with their example, the divinity of Christ (Col 2:9), that will help Christians to grow more and more, to merge and to be: One for all and all for One.
This is the metamorphosis that Christians are called to live (Jn 3:7), in order to be transfigured and to see with the eyes of faith, He who is (Mt 17:2), the Son of God descended from Heaven (Jn 3:13) to bring everyone to be born again to a new Life, as Peter, James and John did on Mount Tabor. Only in this way Christians can change in heart to grow in spirit (Jn 6:63) and to be able to incarnate and manifest the divine essence that the Father has infused into the hearts of His sons through Baptism (Mt 28:19-20).