Do you want to be healed?
After 38 years of waiting, the turning point has come.
Come into the Wellspring of the Spirit
Gospel: John, Chap 5, verses 1-18
June 23rd, 2024
Homily of the Pontiff Samuel
(Draft)
Dear brothers, let us meditate today on a rich page from the Gospel of John that leads us to experience the heart of Mercy, the True Mercy, the Divine Mercy (1Pt 2:10) that touches the heart of those who seek healing and is in contrast with the hardened heart of those who have lost Love (Rev 2:4). So here is this page helping us to understand what happened then and what we are living now.
This passage begins with the question Jesus poses to this invalid: “Do you want to be well?” (Jn 5:6). And this question accompanies us and accompanies all those who want to be healed, healed from many afflictions, of many illnesses, of many infirmities that are not just bodily, physical, but above all spiritual (Rev 22:2). This is what has to be healed now, in our time, because the world has lost the Spirit and consequently that inner peace that many seek and no longer find (Titus 1:16). Always in a hurry, in a hurry, in a hurry but there is no longer peace, there is no longer love (Heb 3:8). This is the healing that this world needs today more than ever, the Love of Jesus, the Peace that only Jesus can give when we are in communion with His Heart (Lk 12:34).
So, here are the contexts we now see together, accompanying us in this page: there is this first reference of the thirty-eight years of waiting (Jn 5:5); there is the image of the water in this pool that heals all those who immerse themselves in it (Jn 5:4); then there is the image of the ‘sheep gate’, with these five porticoes. All profound meanings.
The ‘sheep gate’ leads us straight to Jesus, the Good Shepherd (Jn 10:11), He who calls Himself ‘the Gate of the sheep’. The Gospel of John makes this clear: “In all truth I tell you, I am the gate of the sheepfold […] I am the gate. Anyone who enters through me will be safe: such a one will go in and out and will find pasture” (Jn 10:7.9). Therefore, only in Jesus can the sheep find rest: we, sheep of God, can rest only in Jesus (Jn 10:14), in no other religion or religious philosophy can the true rest be found. This is the essence of Christianity that is being lost nowadays because it opens-up to everything and everyone, saying that the Wisdom of God is in every religion: this is not the teaching of Jesus (Ez 13:7).
Then there is the symbol of the water, the water that brings us back to purification, back to divinity. We all remember the miracle of Jesus at the wedding at Cana: He turned water into wine (Jn 2:9); and we all remember that Water and Blood flowed out from the Heart of Jesus torn open on Golgotha (Jn 19:34): water, symbol of purification and divinity, united to blood, symbol of humanity that, renewed, leads us to remain in communion with Jesus, eating His Bread, namely His Body (Jn 6:51), drinking His Wine, namely His Blood (Jn 6:54).
Then there are these five porticoes; this number five that brings us back to the action of the Holy Spirit, just as in the Book of Revelation, five are the four living creatures plus Christ, united to complete the saving action (Rev 4:8). And then these thirty-eight years of waiting: if we go deeper into the Scriptures, we understand that in the Old Testament there is a precise reference to these thirty-eight years in the book of Deuteronomy: “From Kadesh-Barnea to the crossing of the Wadi Zered our wanderings had taken thirty-eight years; as a result of which, the entire generation of those of age to bear arms had been eliminated, as Yahweh had sworn to them” (Deut 2:14).
What happened at Kades-Barnea? It was the place of the Jewish people’s rebellion against God, and this crossing of the Zered river was a crucial step on the way to the Promised Land, in these thirty-eight years; therefore, this number thirty-eight represents a fundamental passage of purification on the way to final fulfilment.
And what happens now? From 1975, the year the Chapel was opened, to 2013, thirty-eight years have elapsed, a time of preparation and purification that Christians have been called to experience, until something happened in 2013 that changed the history of Christianity (2Th 2:4).
Thirty-eight years, from 1975 to 2013, and from that date onwards a different story begins because from that moment on the sacraments administered in a house that was previously assisted by the Holy Spirit, are no longer valid (Rev 8:11) and God increasingly manifests His Presence in this Church, willed by Heaven (Rev 3:12), in order to bring His Presence to all, making a new definitive and eternal Covenant, to reveal where the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth is (Jn 4:23), as opposed to other places where He is no longer present (Rev 17:11).
Here is this Little Chapel, this new Pool where all can immerse themselves to be purified by the action of the Holy Spirit (Rev 22:17). Just as Jesus said to His Maiden: “This little Chapel is like a great Fountain“. In the Revelation ‘The Holy Spirit’ of 19 September 1984, Jesus said to His Maiden: “It can be said that this little Chapel is like a great Font, and those who plunge into it with humility and faith come out refreshed and saturated with Love. In truth I tell you, if you want to be transmuted from beasts into divinized human beings, it is necessary to approach my second Grotto with faith, for there will never be another one ever again. We are now in the end times, and I want all my sheep to gather there, and soon will come the day when some of them will be steadfastly there, praying and weeping for their brothers and sisters. They will be the holiest, the purest, the strongest, eager only to save others, even at the cost of whatever sacrifice”.
(Revelation of Jesus to Maria Giuseppina Norcia, ‘The Holy Spirit’, 13 September 1984).
These words, spoken at that time, are now well understood in the light of all that we are living. Here is this Cradle that the Father has given to His people so that those who wish to be purified and immerse themselves can do so, receiving the Holy Spirit, immersing themselves in this Wellspring of the Holy Spirit.
Here is the fulfilment of the promises of Jesus to His Maiden and today there is an important recurrence in this regard because it’s the anniversary of another Revelation given by Jesus to His Maiden, the Revelation called ‘The Holy City’, that Jesus gave Her on 23 June 1996 and on this circumstance Jesus also says: “I wish all my sons to be pure and faithful, as pure and faithful as my Mother is. For all this to come true, the Father has wanted to give to many of His sons the joy of knowing this Island of love where I come every day to find rest and to reap the fruits of the love that here is generated in a unique, melodious harmony with the love of the Father. […] I will welcome them […] in the place where now stands my Cradle, my City, the Sovereign City of my Kingdom, the City where each of my sons, before entering, will leave behind outside its walls all their weaknesses, all anguish and all their residual earthly humanity, because none of this can enter my dwelling place (Revelation of Jesus to Maria Giuseppina Norcia, “The Holy City”, 23 June 1996).
Those who come to this Cradle are to leave behind every weight, every burden (Is 66:13) in order to be able to receive this new immersion and therefore start again united with Jesus in plenitude (Jn 17:23), without the infirmities that would not allow them to spiritually live a sound and holy life. Just as Jesus said to the paralytic: “Pick up your sleeping-mat and walk around” (Jn 5:11). He invited him to begin a new journey in the light of all that he lived in his heart and what he was called to do from that moment on, from the encounter with the Man God, in the renewal of his journey (Lk 5:27).
‘Now you are well again’ He says to him immediately after, ‘Now you are well again, do not sin any more, or something worse may happen to you’ (Jn 5:14). And this is also important because Jesus heals that infirmity, but warns: ‘Sin no more, lest something worse may happen to you’. So it is not true that ‘Jesus always forgives’, that ‘forgiveness is free’ and, therefore, once forgiven whatever you do has no consequences. It is not true that Mercy is gratuitous (Mt 10:38). Jesus says to you, ‘sin no more’ just as He said to the adulteress, ‘I forgive you, but do not sin anymore’ (Jn 8:11). Mercy presupposes a change of life, at least in the willingness to change life (Jn 3:3).
This is Jesus’ invitation that now more than ever becomes the focus, as he said in the Gospel of Matthew: ’When an unclean spirit goes out of someone it wanders through waterless country looking for a place to rest, and cannot find one. Then it says, “I will return to the home I came from.” But on arrival, finding it unoccupied, swept and tidied, it then goes off and collects seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and set up house there, and so that person ends up worse off than before. That is what will happen to this wicked generation’ (Mt 12:43-45).
Unless you break all ties with sin, unless you start on a new journey and begin a new life, sin will catch up with you and bring you back to a worse state than before. Here is the invitation to change life. Here is this Church breaking away from another house that teaches that Mercy is free, it is a gift. Here are the Pharisees of today and the Pharisees of yesterday who have lost the heart of the law (Mt 23:27), as well as those Pharisees who, instead of rejoicing for the healing of that man after thirty-eight years, point their finger because it was the Sabbath (Jn 5:10), just as if we put everything back on our Sunday, the most beautiful day, the day of the Lord. The heart of the law, which is Love, love of God and love of neighbour (Lk 10:27), has been lost. People look at the formalisms, at the appearance, and forget the substance.
This is what many are experiencing: religion cannot consist only of formalisms; the Christian religion is Love, Jesus is Love (Jd 1:21), this is what Jesus teaches us and this is what this Church wants to continue to teach. For this reason this Church was born by the will of Heaven (Rev 22:3), just as Maria Giuseppina warned us, to preserve the universal catholicity: not a schism, but remaining walking on the right path.
Much is being said about this in these days. Here is the answer that Heaven has betimes and in time given when everything would have happened (Dan 8:10) from 2013 onwards. There are those who choose to go back to the sixties of the last century and there are those who instead want to go forward saying: ‘Let us move forward, as the Father has desired’. Here it is that the Father sent the Child Jesus to this Earth to renew His Covenant with His people allowing them to persevere on the only Way that leads to Salvation: Christ (Phil 2:10).
Follow Mary, let us follow Mary: Mary is the Way that leads us to Salvation, Mary is the Gate of Heaven: if we remain united to Mary we will find everything, likewise those who, animated by good will and the desire to remain united to Mary, continuing to seek, will find the Way (Lk 1:42). Behold, Mary sanctifies and purifies (Lk 1:49).
And those who remain united to Mary will win, just like John the Baptist did, whose Solemn feast of his birth falls tomorrow. John was united to Mary from the time he was in his mother’s womb (Lk 1:41). Mary visited him when She visited his mother. Mary carried the Divinity, Jesus, in her womb, and met the one who would have heralded the Divinity, bringing about a perfect humanity. Therefore, of all those born to women, there is no saint greater than John (Lk 7:28).
This is the Example, dear brothers. This is the example for those who want to be Holy: to put into practice what Jesus teaches us and to remain united to Mary. Then we shall lack nothing (Ps 23:1). This is our religion, a religion founded on Love, on love for Jesus and love for Mary (Rev 19:11), consequently on love for our neighbour, because if love for our neighbour lacks, everything lacks. “Do you want to be well?”: Jesus awaits our answer and the moment He hears in our hearts ‘Yes, I do!’ (Lk 1:38) then everything comes to completion.
In front of the Cradle you will hear the voice of Jesus in your heart saying: ‘Do you want to be healed?’ The moment Jesus hears: ‘Yes, I do!’ everything will be; the time when faith overcomes everything, in Jesus and in Mary (Rev 14:12). So be it.
