18.08.2005 @ 18:00

Finding God in the other

The Minister General, Br. José Rodríguez Carballo ofm, to the XX WYD - Cologne, 17th August 2005.
“We saw His star as it rose and have come to do Him homage” (Mt 2,2). Examining the sky, the Magi only saw a “sign”. It was sufficient, however, to convince them to take the risk of a long journey in the hope of finding an answer to a question they had within them: “Where is the infant king of the Jews?” (Mt 2,2). Having been enlightened by the word of the Prophets during their stay in Jerusalem, the “seekers” arrived to where their hearts drove them and they found themselves before a frail child with its mother! They saw in Him, as their gifts indicate, the Eternal King, the Lord they were expecting.

The faith adventure of the three wise men from the east is an eloquent parable of what happened and is happening during this XX World Youth Day. An intense, profound desire has come to a multitude of young people. It is based on a “sign”, the invitation of a Prophet and the testimony of a man enamoured of Christ and mankind, the Servant of God John Paul II, to this multitude to set out on a journey to Cologne from all parts of the world, saying a journey, is to say effort, obstacles and trials. But you young people have come here because you wish to go forward, to “find”. The motto of the XX WYD, in the dynamics of its symbolism, says all this. It especially says that it is desired to “find”, “see”, “encounter” Jesus Christ, Crucified and Risen, in order to adore Him, to express praise, joy and love to Him. As words are not enough, you have come to give the most precious thing you have, as the Pope had invited you to do during his message: “Offer to the Lord the gold of your existence…; have the incense of your prayer rise up to Him….; offer Him the myrrh, the affection full of gratitude to Him who loved us, even to death on Golgotha…”

They “returned to their own country by a different way” (Mt 2,12) to avoid the intrigue of Herod, especially because something decisive had happened: they had met the Lord. The sentiments of the heart and the paths of live cannot but be new, different.
You also have met the Lord. It is necessary to return to your respective countries by another way, confronted by the promise of the Risen One: “I am with you always” (Mt 28,20). But how do we find Him? The Lord never leaves the person who seeks with a sincere heart without signs. Yes, we know, for example, the place par excellence of the “manifestation” of the Lord, the Eucharist, in the sign of the “bread broken” and of the “blood spilt” (cf. Mk 14,22-24). But prior to and after the Eucharist, that is, on the everyday paths of our existence, what are the signs of His presence so that we can recognise Him and, then, adore Him?
Since the question profoundly involves life and the choices of each day, we must have an answer which does not allow for doubts or uncertainties. We can find this answer in two episodes of Sacred Scripture.

The first has the desert and a tent as its scenario and Abraham, our Father in faith, as the protagonist. On a certain day, in a “monotonous” environment and at the time of scorching heat, and, therefore, the least opportune, three travellers presented themselves before Abraham’s tent. He immediately went to greet his guests, to care for them and to offer them the best the house could offer. This attitude allowed Abraham to find the Lord in the three travellers.
The second episode clearly shows us what the “place of faith” is: Jesus Christ is believed in and is truly confessed wherever His disciples really show interest in others. It is a question of the great fresco of the Last Judgement (cf. Mt 25,31ff), when we will be assessed on the six elementary acts of mercy: feeding the hungry, giving the thirsty to drink, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick, going to the imprisoned, from the moment the Son of Man not only called the needy “the least of my brothers”, but identified Himself with their destiny. It was a real surprise for the “elect” and for the “others” who had never imagined that they were loving or hating the Lord Himself at the time they were showing mercy or indifference towards the little ones of this world.
“But Lord, when did we see You?” Through pure mercy we have had to listen repeatedly, every time we read this page of the Gospel or hear it proclaimed, to the fundamental question and answer of life and history, that of the final judgement. The significance is unequivocal: we will be judged, we are judged, on the basis of our capacity to recognise the “sacramental” presence of the Risen One in the little people of the Gospel.

If, in a society chained by fear, suspicion, hostility, rancour and the rejection of the “different”, we could begin to see the glory of God in the other and the manifestation of His grace and gratuitous love (cf. St. Ireneus, Against Heresies) in the life of the other, then history would be directed in another direction, that of encounter, dialogue, respect and walking together. Is not this our constitutive vocation, our DNA? We were created, in fact, in the image of God, chosen “to be holy and spotless and to love through love in His presence, determining that we should become His adopted children through Jesus Christ…”, called “to become true images of His Son” (cf. Eph 1,4ff; Rm 8,29). And God, precisely, is God Love, relationship, communion. He is the unfathomable mystery of God, but also the reality which makes us live: as the Father is donation and the Son acceptance in the unity of the Holy Spirit, so we live and grow in the measure we learn to give ourselves and to accept others in an unceasing exchange in order to activate communion in respect for people, their freedom and originality. This is valid for people, it is valid for all social, cultural and religious realities, from the smallest group to the community of peoples.
This is what returning by another way means! Sure, the founding experience of every choice and every goal remains valid even in the “new ways”: to adore Christ by recognising in Him the first place of existence, as the Pope has written: “he is the rock on which to build the future and a more just world in solidarity. Jesus is the prince of peace, the source of pardon and reconciliation, who can make all the members of the human family into brothers and sisters”.

If we wish to be among the wise who desire to meet the Lord in order to adore Him here in Cologne, as in every corner of the earth, then we should really bank on love, by accepting others with the very sentiments of Christ (cf. Rm 15,7; Phil 2,2), all the “others”, even the “different” and the “bad”! Accepting, St. Francis of Assisi would say, “friend or foe, thief or robber” (RnB VII, 14) with kindness. These also are to be numbered among “the lesser brothers” with whom Christ identifies Himself. But, in order to do so, it is necessary to allow oneself be guided by the imagination of charity: miracles are possible, as happened in the meeting of Francis with the Sultan or with the wolf of Gubbio. It is necessary to have the daring to be and to feel as brothers and sisters of all in order to nourish human cooperation with the bread of fraternity. It is indispensable and urgent to activate or reactivate the tradition begun on the cross, that of forgiveness asked for and given. It is in accordance with our intelligence, by “nature we are beings in solidarity and made brothers and sisters in the need for bread, in the burden of guilt and in the joy of forgiveness, and with our future, because, if we do no leave the night of hatred, vengeance and violence behind us, the dawn of the “civilisation of love” will never break.
Allow me to finish with the prayer attributed to St. Francis so that what we have “seen” may become our everyday life:

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine master, grant that
I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born
to eternal life”.