Week 1

Of the three logical responses to the law of gratuitousness at work in the kingdom, the first relates to God and is expressed in an absolute, unconditional trust.

Based on the fact of the kingdom’s presence and continuing the logic of the Beatitudes, Jesus continues to explicate the consequences of the kingdom in the second portion of the Sermon on the Mount:

      “Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or drink, nor about your body ...
        your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first His kingdom,
        and all these things shall be yours as well ...” (Mt 6:25-34).

Our doubts, our lack of trust testify against us that we have neither understood the gospel nor the God we preach, that we “know neither the scriptures nor the power of God” (Mt 22:29). But once we do understand, then we are bound to proclaim our trust in the kingdom through our ministry, and not just in word but in our lifestyle:

      “Preach as you go saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand’ ...
         Take no gold, nor silver, nor copper in your belts, no bag for your journey,
         nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor a staff ...” (Mt 10:7-10).

The trust by which we “cast our cares on the Lord who cares for us” (1 Pt 5:7) frees us not only from worry and the need to provide only humanly for our ministry, but frees us to expand and channel the compassion of the kingdom by giving: “Fear not little flock, for it is your Father’s desire to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give alms ...” (Lk 12:32). Above all, trust is our personal witness to ourselves that we are in harmony with he kingdom, and is that form of love which perhaps honors God most.

At this hour on Good Friday, Jesus is embracing the Cross, hearing the official condemnation, will of the Father.

“I will pour out a spirit of consolation and of prayer over the house of David.”

This is what He is doing to us. The Holy Spirit leads us to console Him in prayer.

               “And they will look on the one they have pierced.”

                “And if anyone asks Him, ‘Then what are these wounds on your body?’
                  He will reply, ‘These I have received in the house of my friends’” (Zc 13:6).

“This is My surrender to My Father. This is My Thirst for Him and for you. And this is His Thirst for Me. My child, if you ask, what are these wounds you bear? They are your surrender to My Father and your Father. They are your thirst for Me and your union with Me. Do not reject them, and do not say: they are not just. Neither were Mine. Your wounds are to be like Mine, so that they can become Mine. My great pain (as I spoke through the mouth of the prophet) is that ‘I have received them at the house of my friends.’ So shall your wounds be. But be at peace and fear not, for it is I. In your wounds, you shall find Me. By your wounds, you shall satiate Me.”

What is Jesus teaching us by His wounds? He surrenders to the wickedness of man to teach us, to win for us grace and strength, and the desire to surrender to the goodness of the Father. These wounds are your thirst for Him, your union with Him.

Satan knows this, and he fears your surrender to God above everything else, above every other virtue or good work, and he will fight it with unceasing energy and with all the most logical and holy arguments. We, like Jesus, have to say: “Get behind me, Satan, I wish to think as the Father and not as man.” Jesus kept Himself focused on the Person of the Father in all that befell Him; He did not allow Himself to be lost in events, in the injustice, in this or that person, in the means or the instruments of His suffering. As this was the key for Jesus, so it is for us. This is where Satan fools us, and where we fall most often. If we look at the instrument and fail to see the Father, it is impossible to surrender.

God is not asking us to surrender to the event or to another person. The object of our surrender is Jesus. Jesus in the event.

To embrace the wood of the Cross is to embrace the Crucified One fastened there. Very often our failure in surrendering is due to the fact that we mistake the object of our surrender. One must surrender to the Father through that suffering, through that injustice, through that person, through that event. True surrender always ends up with an encounter with the Father in Jesus, not with the instrument. That is why Jesus at every moment of His Passion is standing face to face with His Father. This is the heart of everything. We lose our peace when we focus on this or that. View your surrender as Jesus did. You are not called to surrender to a thing or to a person; they are not worthy of you. It will free you if you focus your surrender on the person of Jesus. You are invited and called to embrace Jesus, your Lord and God, your Father. Allow your provident Father, Who thirsts for you, to bring forth your thirst, to bring forth surrender from you through the cup He has chosen, and the vision of His Face through that cup.

What are these wounds on the Lamb of God? They are His Thirst for you, and His surrender for your surrender. Jesus surrenders Himself to the wickedness of men, to teach you to surrender yourself to the goodness of the Father.

“You killed Him, by hanging Him on a tree, yet, after three days, God raised Him up ... and we are His witnesses ...” (Acts 3:15).

We, you and I, are His witnesses, not because we were in Palestine, but because we have “eaten and drunk with Him.” Since His resurrection He has shared His Risen Life with us. We are His living Alleluia before the world. This is our call. We are those chosen ones who have known the power of His resurrection in our lives. We have been immersed into the living waters, baptized into His death and resurrection. We are to continue to share our life in communion with the Risen Lord, drinking in: His presence, His satiating, His healing, and His resurrection power all the days of our lives. We are called not only to talk about the Thirst of God, but also to experience the power of His Spirit, the Thirst of the Father “poured into our hearts.” This is the grace we are asking for in this Eucharist.

Our life is to be Eucharist. We have to learn to follow Him in His Risen Life, as He stands before the Father, praising, interceding, satiating.

The second phase of the Eucharist is as follows: We don’t have only Calvary on our altars, but also the Risen, Glorified Christ, praising the Father and interceding for us. Though there is nothing to be seen; yet, behind this veil, the Lamb stands victorious and glorious before the Father. The humility, the poverty, the hiddenness of the Eucharist veils our glorious Lord. It is the same when we receive Communion (whether we feel it or not – it doesn’t matter). We are invited to share Jesus’ Risen Life.

“Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on the earth, because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ is revealed – and He is your life – you too will be revealed in all your glory with Him” (Col 3:1-4).

Be who you are called to be, and where you are called to be, at the Father’s right hand by virtue of Jesus’ resurrection and your baptism into Him. You can’t witness what you don’t behold. You can’t share what you have not experienced. The truest part of us is already risen with the Lord; with Him and in Him we are already seated at the right hand of the Father. We are only waiting for the full effect – the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is already present and at work in us. It is just a matter of time, for in Him we are already risen. Be there! Let your thoughts be in Heaven, for this Earth is passing away. Paul gives us an entire plan of life:

“You have died, you are baptized into His death, and now the life which you have, this life of the Spirit, is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3).

You are to be the witnesses of this reality in the world, under the veil of poverty, failure, weakness. The Risen Life can come and transform your life. Your vocation is to shout the Gospel with your life – to proclaim – not to preach, not in the market place, but hidden with Jesus in the Father, now. You don’t have to wait for your own bodily resurrection, nor do you have to feel anything. It all begins now. A life hidden with Jesus in the Father as He stands in prayer, satiation, and intercession is my call – my dignity – my life.

Ministering in the kingdom clearly demands that one minister in conscious harmony with the spirit and principles of the kingdom.

We must openly preach the beatitudes, proclaim the consequences of the kingdom, exhorting our people not to content themselves with false riches, not to feed on false dreams. But our ministry of word is to serve our “ministry of the Spirit.”

As St. Paul insists,
“the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power” (1 Cor 4:10).

Our preaching is not an end in itself but is to put people in touch with God’s renewing, transforming power, a power that works miracles still, that can change their lives from without and within. We must proclaim to them the “God who is at work in you” (Phil. 2:13), the God who is close, who cares about them not only on Sunday but every day of their lives, the God who has “every hair of your head counted” (Lk. 12:7).

Too often we preach an absent, distant God, an inoperative salvation (especially when that God and that salvation are abstract or distant to us). We often hear the challenge:

           “What would you do for a drug addict: counsel or pray with him? Do we have
             only good advice to offer, or do we believe that Jesus has the power to change
             that which we are not able to alter?” (Muhlen).

But once again, the key is that the kingdom must first be a lived reality for us, Jesus must be Lord of my life and I His kingdom in miniature before the Lord of the kingdom can effectively touch, satiate, and renew others through me, before He can extend that kingdom through my ministry. So let us first rehear the good news, rediscover the powerful presence of the kingdom in our life and ministry, drinking “without price” from the Pool of Siloe rejoicing in our own salvation and call, and allowing the Lord to speak to us the glad tidings that “the kingdom of God is within you ...” (Mt. 10:7)

REVISION: Write down for 10 minutes (or more) the insights received.

The greatest proof of God’s Thirst for Israel was the Covenant. More than just a legal agreement, it was a shared life a mutual belonging: “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” God belonged to Israel and Israel to God. Israel never saw the Commandments as a burden (as we do), but as a gift, as something very beautiful, for they were the terms of that covenant. When husband and wife pronounce their wedding vows, they see that as a beautiful binding, not as a burden. Israel saw in the Commandments, and all the prescriptions of the Law, something that could be reduced to one precept:

                      “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. You shall love the Lord,
           your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
           Let these words I enjoin on you today be written on your heart.
           You shall repeat them to your children and say them over to them
           whether at rest in your house or walking abroad, at your lying down or at your rising,
           you shall fasten them on your hand and forehead,
           and on the door posts of your house and on your gates.”

My consecration is a great sign of the Father’s Thirst for me in Jesus, a great sign of God’s love, not law, but life; god’s life in me, me in Him! I have four vows, and hundreds of points in the Constitutions and Mother’s instructions, but I know that all of this says the same thing: they are the recognition of the Father’s Thirst for me in Jesus[1]. I am His Israel, His chosen one, called to a bond that is beyond me, that only the power of love can bring about. Vows and Constitutions are all one great Commandment: “Give me to drink.” This is the great Commandment for us MCs, written on the wall of our chapels. You have one Spouse, one Lord, one Thirst in your life. The Lord your God is one. One love. All the powers of your soul, all virtues, the vows, Constitutions, prescriptions, obedience, all events, are to focus on this one thing: “You shall thirst for the Lord, your God,” and do so “with all your heart and soul and strength.” In the call, Jesus is always present. Your vows are not just words – the Lord is present. God has made a covenant with you. God is faithful; we are unfaithful. I break the covenant again and again. What does God do? From time to time when I grow cold, He mercifully and unexpectedly touches me with His fire, and like Jeremiah, I want to run away. I am called in a very special, unique way – with a special mission. He comes – comes to call again – to renew us so that we can say in this retreat, as Jeremiah:

“Lord you have drawn me, and I have let myself be drawn. You have overpowered
me, and you have prevailed.”

Like Jeremiah, I must become a fool for the Lord. He met rejection, derision, insult. He met obstacle after obstacle. We, too, perhaps never expected the personal price we would have to pay for our mission. We wanted to go and speak in the name of Yahweh, but he was rebuffed and scorned, so he decides to turn away from his personal call and mission:

“I said, it’s too much, Lord! I am too wounded, so I won’t think about Him anymore,
I won’t speak in His Name.”

Jeremiah was not sinning, he just wanted to be free to do something else. He tried to escape and keep his distance from God. But the Lord has a special love for Jeremiah, whom He “called from his mother’s womb.” God understands him, because He called and loves him, and He will not abandon him. As God pursued Jeremiah, so is He pursuing you. “But then, there seemed to be in my heart a burning fire, to which I could no longer say no.” This is the Lord coming to heal Jeremiah, to strengthen him, to renew his personal covenant, so that Jeremiah can declare:

                       “The Lord is my light and my salvation, of whom should I be afraid? There is one thing
             I ask of the Lord, to dwell in His house all the days of my life, to enjoy His sweetness,
            to behold His temple. He shelters me in time of trouble under His wings –
            shelters me in His tent. Teach me your way; lead me in your path. I long to see
             your face, O Lord; hide not your face from me.” (Psalm 27)

Even though I’ve shielded myself from pain, You still seek me, Lord. Renew your covenant with me. I want to hear again the word of my personal mission. I desire with all my heart to do your will always. This is my call, to behold the temple of the Trinity. God shelters me, He hides me. The Thirst of the Father is my covenant, sealed in the Blood of the Lamb. He gives me the strength to respond, as did Jeremiah, and bids me to renew my personal covenant with Him. Let the fire return in your empty heart. Although I have run from Him by my infidelities, He still calls me back. “Lord you have drawn me and I have let myself be drawn – I shall behold your dwelling place all the days of my life.” The Lord’s Thirst for you is one, therefore, let us renew the covenant – in faithfulness and love.

[1] Whether a priest, religious, married or committed lay person, the message is the same. The details of our state of life are the means to satiate the Father’s Thirst for our love.