In
the heart of the Christian life the gift of holiness shines as a free
act of God’s love who calls us to enter into intimacy with the mystery
of the Trinity, to become, in a process of continuous transformation,
the image of Jesus, his Son. The purpose of existence is realizing this
grand project, and while that purpose is being realized, it releases,
supports, supplements and enriches our life to turn it into a
masterpiece of beauty, a song of joy.
Christians of all times were aware of that call and you can see the vast
array of saints, canonized or not, as the score of a thousand notes,
creating a magnificent symphony that emanates from the heart of the
Church. However, a significant contribution, in realization of the
ineluctable appeal came from the Vatican II when reminded
forcefully to God’s people called to the fullness of Christian life and
the perfection of charity (LG 40). This solicitation, as a breath of
spring air, has guided the process of post-conciliar renewal, enlivening
of this prospect the pathways for formation and education of all
Christian and religious communities.
At
the beginning of the third millennium of the Christian era this
commandment is being replicated by Blessed John Paul II in Novo
Millennio Ineunte, inviting the ecclesial communities and Christian
families to feel personally the invite to engage in the way of holiness
as the "high standard of ordinary Christian life" (n. 31). So even
recent Orientamenti
pastorali per il
decennio 2010-2020 (Pastoral
guidelines for the 2010-2020 period) of the Italian Bishops emphasize
the need to promote in all Christians an authentic spiritual life, that
is a life in the Spirit, not as a result of voluntary effort, but as a
"way where the interior Master opens the mind and heart to
understanding of the mystery of God and man"(n. 22).
In
times of sad passions and resized ideals, if not erased, talking about
holiness and educating to holiness is not only the discussion for
reserved people, but it is a challenge that first of all challenges
individually each person to verify the quality of his Christian life,
and then causes those who are mature in their faith to feel like their
the task of leading the new generations in the way of holiness being
teachers for them, or experts companions, in this vital
route.
The holiness: falling in love with Christ
“If you want to build a ship, do not summon some men gathering wood
and distributing tasks, but rather teach them a longing for the wide and
endless sea" (Antoine de Saint-Exupery).
The
poet’s award is not out of place if we think the risk of neglecting
always lurking what makes holiness that must be, that is to lose sight
of the fascinating horizon that only can activate the energies of mind
and heart towards the ideal. This horizon is love. The saints, we know,
were not perfect, but they loved God to complete irrationality, and
attending Him in the intimacy of a prayer transformed into a mystical
experience of love, they have allowed to the grace to transform their
lives, sanctifying.
According to the teaching of Benedict XVI to fall in love with God and
His Son Jesus Christ, means to have made of Him and His Gospel the
performing reality of our life, feeling Him like the Person who gives
to our life a new horizon and a decisive direction. In the process of
falling in love there is a component of spontaneous and mutual
attraction that, cultivated through the attendance and mutual
understanding, becomes progressively in love, that is the gift of self
to another in a totality more and more growing up till to want to 'be
there for" the other. Of this love is woven holiness which, therefore,
can only be dynamic, as it is a relationship between two lovers who meet
by mutual meeting more new food for their love.
Falling in love, then, is not only the event which began the Christian
life, but the sap that sustains the journey in a way which goes from
least to most, from a partial gift to the total surrender of oneself to
Christ in trusting and confident donation in His love.
Two
actions can steer this sublime task: get dressed and be filled
with Christ. The first, dressing, the exquisite taste of
Baptism, evokes the abandonment of the old man to acquire the traits of
the new man, holy and just, admirably embodied in Jesus Christ.
According to the Thomistic sense the term habitus refers to those
behavior patterns that are fused in harmony in the personality of those
who carries out certain actions. The dress ceases to be an external
accessory to become a "style" of life that proceeds from the inside. As
it was in Paul, putting on Christ means to have penetrated His own
gestures and behaviors, making this transaction as natural and
spontaneous.
Filling up of Christ evokes the
Eucharistic bread with which He constantly feeds us and that gradually
transforms us in Jesus, the one that hides Himself in the bread and
makes Him a total gift; the disciple in love always nourishes with the
Word because it is light of the eyes and fire in the heart. At a time
when the "tanks are cracked" and "jars are empty," the saints remind us
that one thing is necessary:
let
us that the water in the jar -a metaphor for our lives- be transformed
in Christ, wine of the new covenant through the powerful action of the
Holy Spirit, true and unique teacher of holiness.
The
first consequence of our consideration, therefore, is that holiness is
not won, nor is reached, but is welcome expressing an attitude that only
appears to be passive, in that the dynamics of love, the "step aside" to
make room for the Other, is the only prerequisite of fertility and new
life.
A simple and nice
holiness
"A
sad saint is a saint sad," said St. Francis de Sales. In fact, the charm
of holiness is not only related to love, but also to the joy, as a gift
that comes from the life of the man or woman that has found its meaning
in God. At the core of all life as its primary and last sense, God
welling joy, is in itself pure joy of existence. Similarly, the saints,
covered and filled with God, are sharing of his joy and becoming
an inexhaustible source.
At
this point the question arises: How happens that the proclamation of
the Church is filled at times of death and sadness instead of joy and
life? The risk is to resemble to the disciples of Emmaus who "tell their
frustration and their loss of hope. They can say, for the Church of all
times, the possibility of an announcement that does not give life, but
keep closed in death the announced Christ, the receivers and the
announcers."
Perhaps the joy that definitely lives the sons and daughters of God,
needs to be awakened, informed, announced. Our society, saddened by
worry and uncertainty, demand it . Facing with such a cry it is not
lawful to shut himself in the rear by calculation or fear. It is urgent
therefore to recover courage and authority, well aware that we possess a
treasure that we are not allowed either to hide or to squander. St. John
Bosco, an expert educator and connoisseur of young nature, had found the
convincing words to announce a sympathetic and simple holiness, to which
young people could not resist: "My dear young people -he said- I want to
teach a method of Christian life, that is at the same time cheerful and
happy, indicating such as are real fun and real pleasure, so that you
can say with the holy prophet David: serve the Lord in holy joy."
The
message of joy and life that comes from holiness is what men and women
of the third millennium need more. They are hungry and thirsty in
particular young people, boys and girls, natural "hunters" of joy to
which often our affluent societies have responded with disappointing
surrogates.
In contrast, the joy of the Gospel, humble and
powerful, has a healing power, liberating and sanctifying: it melts
the chains that hold slaves of things and the appearances; it
frees the ideals of the short-term proposals mediated by publicity
and consumerism; it dilates the reason imprisoned by relativism
and anthropological pessimism with the light of truth; it returns
to the heart reduced to its emotions new size revealing the true meaning
of love.
A true pedagogy of holiness is a genuine process
of humanization, route that, if carried, becomes a pedagogy of the
person and for the person, in which shines with increasing transparency
and truth, the image of someone who has created and has always dreamed
holy and perfect in the love, in the image of his Son.
Piera Ruffinatto fma
Docente all’Auxilium
Via dei Folaggella, 27 - 00165 Roma