Making myself one with other or Supernatural Empathy

Wednesday of the 1st week of Lent - Daily Readings

I like reading the book of Jonah. It speaks to me on so many levels. Nineveh is the opposite of Jerusalem. It's the place where "those other people" live, those who do not belong to our "club." If I change Nineveh with "the world" (or my town) and Jerusalem with "the Church" I can see why the book speaks to me - it challenges me to look at the world out there and forces me to think of new ways in which I, like Jonah, can bring the message of God's reconciliation.

The most comforting thing about the story of Jonah is that God's Love for the Ninevites was stronger than Jonah's reluctance and inability to see past his points of view. He's the most successful prophet and yet he's the most callous and capricious one. As someone who wants to live the Gospel I have to come to term with this reality: God's message must be offered to all, regardless of what I may feel about a particular group of people. If someone becomes the "object" of God's love, I have to love them with God's love, I must love them as "loved by God."

Not an easy task, I am the first to admit. But there is no way out. What matters is that I "repent and believe the Good News." I have to change my mind about those people. This is where, I think, Jonah failed - he was not able to see the Ninevites for who they really were, God's children. Jonah let his feelings and ideas get in the way.

The Gospel offers us another way. We are learning from Jesus that we are to Love Everybody. Then, we must be The First To Love. Now, Jesus is teaching something new: when we go out there and open ourselves to others in love, and be the first one to initiate love, we must go and "share people's joys and hurts." In other words, when I encounter another person, I want to live what they are living, understand their points of view, feel what they are feeling - both joys and sorrows.

If Jesus prayed that "All May be one as we are one so that the world may believe" (jn 17:21) then today I want to love the other by "making myself one" with him or her. Jesus did the same with me: He left heaven and became human. He made himself one with me in all things but sin. He felt what I feel. He did this because He loved me. When someone talks to me, I do not want to think of anything else but I want to focus on what they are saying. If they are sharing with me a painful situation, then I want to open myself to the point of feeling that sorrow myself, so that the other may know that he is not carrying it alone.

Loving in this way will generate love in the other. Love is the most powerful way in which God leads us closer to Him. Then, I want to love as Jesus did - making myself one with all those people I encounter today. It's "supernatural" empathy.

Like Jonah, I want to go into the new "Nineveh" and proclaim that God loves them, and that He is inviting us to make different choices, choices that will not destroy us. Unlike Jonah, however, I want to go there and not be indifferent to people's pains, hardship, etc. I want to share with them their joys and sorrows. I want to make myself "one" with them because that's what Jesus did. Loving this way will make the message of the Gospel more credible. 

This is going to be, perhaps, the hardest of my lenten sacrifices. It's easier to give up chocolate or pizza; it's harder to love as Jesus did. Yet, I know that only this kind of love will really allow me to encounter the Risen One already living in our midst.

This is going to be a great day!!!!!!!

Be the First

Tuesday of the 1st week of lent - Daily readings

Lent is a journey that leads us to the heart of Christianity: God's love for us expressed concretely and fully in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Lent clearly tells us that Christianity is a life lived concretely, shaped by God's love. Love has only one desire: unity between Lover and Beloved.

Yesterday, we meditated on the fact that God wants to see and love in us what He sees and loves in Christ. The more we live as Jesus did, the clearer our identity as Baptized and the Love of God gets stronger in us. We take a further step, today; we now look up and look at God. And the Spirit in us cries out "Abba, Father."


We dare to call God "Our Father." How many times have we said this prayer? 1,000? 10,000? 100,000? Yet, how many times have we actually paid attention to what we said? Immediately we understand something that is very important: God is not only something we talk about but must especially someone we talk to. This someone is a person who relates to us in Love. God is someone that allows us to relate to Him in the most human of all relationships: parent-child. "Father." Regardless of our experience with our earthly fathers, we know that behind this word there is all that our hearts desire: needs for guidance, protection, comfort, support, etc. This is who God wants to be for us. The word Father also leads us to think of relationships. To be a Father means that there is a family. To call God our Father means that we believe we are never alone: not only God is always with us but that we have brothers and sisters all around us. There are many people who dare to call God in the same way. While they relate to Him, they also claim a relationship with us.

Lent is a journey that leads us to the heart of Christianity: here we find that what God's love does in us is to transform our single "I" into a "We."Becoming aware of this reality, that we are a family, allows us also to grow in hope and joy. We are not in this alone. We can rely on each others.

Praying the Our Father also allows us to understand that God wants us to be involved in His work. Since the beginning of creation, God created Adam and wanted him to be involved in creation. This work of sub-creation has not ended. We know we continue the work of the Father everywhere we go.


Every word we say, every gesture we draw carry the imprint of the one who Loves us. Whenever we meet someone, our words are like a seed that can be planted into the heart of this person. The seed. we hope, will grow into a Tree, the Kingdom of God that lives in each one of us.

Yesterday we learned that we are to love everyone. Today, we want to take a further step and be the first to love. We want to be those who can't wait to plant the seed of God's love into people's heart. We do not wait for the other to be loving towards us; we love first. If the other doesn't respond to our love, we continue to love. We believe that the seed planted will not return to God without bringing fruit. We hope and pray that all the people we love today will be part of our Bouquet of Love that we want to offer our Father when we see Him face to face.

To Love Everyone

Monday of the 1st week of Lent - Daily Readings

The Lenten Journey continues. The Word of God allows us to focus on the "practices" of Lent. This Journey cannot be made by ourselves alone: although we have to take a step as individuals, we can become saints together. The other, the neighbor is necessary for our journey.

How do we relate to others? What roles do others have in our life, in our Christian life? Lent helps us to focus on our relationship with God; the Sacrament of Reconciliation is typically and largely celebrated during Lent. When we take a look at our lives, we immediately realize that we fall short - we have not responded properly to God's love. For this we ask to be reconciled with Him.

But there is no reconciliation with God without a reconciliation with our neighbor. At times we fall so easily into this terrible trap: we believe that it's only about "Jesus and me." But there is no such a thing as "solitary sin." A true and honest Christian life cannot be lived without taking into consideration that we can love God as we love the other.

Today we are reminded of this: the ultimate judgment will be based on how much we loved. I wish it were based on how much we prayed, or how much we learned, or how much we have given to the Church or to charities. Instead, it will all about our concrete love for the one who is next to me.

Why? The goal of Christianity is not to score points with God by saying a prayer here and there or to drop a coin in the box. The goal is to become a "saint," that is, to let God transform me (with my free help and agreement) in becoming another Christ. In other words, God wants us to become more and more like Him. This is accomplished by entering into a relationship with God which allows us to become what we celebrate. Therefore, our prayers, our works of charities and our practices are meant to support this transforming relationship.

IF God is love, then only Love can make us more like Him. The more we love as He has loved us, the more God can see in us what He sees and loves in Christ (as one of the Sunday Prefaces says). God's love for us is concrete, real, and free. It's proper to respond in kind: we want to love Him as He loved us - with a concrete, real and free way. Now, Jesus told us that He wants us to love Him in a particular way: by loving each other. Then, our love for each other must be concrete, real and free. The more we do this, the more we get closer to God. Simply, no? Maybe... but certainly not easy.

This is the week we focus on this love. Today we simply focus on this: to love everyone. Everyone! We are going to have so many opportunities today. People who passes by, people who at at the stores we go in, people who interacts with us. Every single time, we can say to ourselves "here's my chance to love Jesus" and we forget about ourselves and we are feeling at that time and we open ourselves to Him who lives in the other. The more we will do this, the more we realize that we are becoming more and more like Him.

The Journey Begins with a Choice

Thursday after Ash Wednesday - Daily Readings

The Journey really begins today. After the big celebration of yesterday, with Crowds and Ashes, we take our first steps. God immediately helps us to remained focused on what this is all about: LIFE.

Life. As I look around, as I read in the newspapers, watch on television and as I hear people speak, I am growing more and more aware that we are losing the meaning of this word. We live our life, yes, but we don't consider it for what it is anymore. We are so used to it that we have cheapened it.

I am pro-life. Not only in matters of abortion but in matters of daily life Living life fully; abundantly, as Jesus told us. I am pro-life because clearly God is. It's not matter of being just pro-birth; life must be lived everyday, and we can only do that if we remain attached to the source of true life.

We have become indifferent to life and this is the worst situation ever. I believe we passed the "culture of death" stage. Now, people don't seem to care about life itself.

How can we, therefore, make sense of what God is telling us today? "I offer you a choice: life or death? It's up to you but I really, really want you to choose life." I can hear many people saying, as they shrug their shoulders, "Whatever!"

We cannot journey without this choice. We can choose Life, and even though we may not really feel excited about it or understand what this really means, we can trust in God and, by faith, jump in.

Jesus tells us how to do this. With God things always seem to work "upside down." He tells that the best way to start expereicing Life is to lose one's life. Jesus is proposing us a very strange logic. It is the logic of the Cross, of the seed that dies in order to bring life.

We are to die to ourselves in order to live our life. This is, after all, what's behind Lent, behind our Lenten Practices and "sacrifices," behind our commitment to Journey with Jesus.

It means that I have to choose to "die" to my own selfish desires, to that voice that is in me that wants me to do everything my own way (this is a form of fasting from one's own desires). I have to choose to bring life: to make sure that during this Lent I can focus on others first (this is also a form of almsgiving).

I am ready to die to myself and be the first to give life, the first to love. What a plan for Lent!!

I found this note in a notebook I have: today, make two lists - on one I can write all those things that I do, as habit or skills or choices, that have been impacted others positively. On the other, I can write all the thigns that always create conflict with others. WIth God, as I look at Jesus on the Cross, I can start choosing which one we can start uprooting.

It's the "heart" of the Journey - choosing Life at all cost, the Life that God has made it possible for us to enjoy.

Let's put our trust in God and continue to live our life fully. Everyday. The whole day.

Lent, Ashes and Special Time

Ash Wednesday - Readings of the Day

I can't believe it's Lent again. I feel as though only a few weeks ago I finished sending my Christmas "Thank you" cards. It's an interesting experience, though: realizing that Time passes by, too fast, and I can't seem to catch up. Why? I have been obviously focusing on so many things except the "present moment."

Lent is a special time, when together we take a special journey for a very special reason; we are not vagabond but pilgrims - we have a goal, a destination. The goal is a stronger Union with God.

It's a time of retreat, of meditation. It's God-Time, that which doesn't seem to pass and yet it's always new. We have to enter into this kind of time and look at us from the point of view of God.

The journey of Lent has two elements: one that is always the same and one that changes. The part that is always the same: reception of Ashes, "Giving up something," prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The part that is (or should be) always new: the part of me that needs redeeming, needs to be united with God, needs to be reformed.

(for example: What one gives up must be somehow attached to this part. One could give up chocolate if he realizes that I find consolation in food, in sweets, etc; another could give up Television if she depends on entertainment in order to avoid silence, and reflection. Yet, others could give up alcohol if they rely too much on the exuberance or escapism that it creates in them. And so on...)

Lent is more than just "giving something up." It's opening up to God who wants to do something New in us - wants us to create a new life in us. We give up and fast because we want to open ourselves up to HIs love and love Him as He wants to be loved: by caring for others (alms-giving). And love is always based on a relationship (prayer).

This is the day when the goals can be written down. Which part of my true self needs to be redeemed by God's grace? What can I do to open myself up to God so He transform that part of my self? What penance can I offer so that I can let Him transform me?

This Lent must be different from the previous one because I am different from last year.What I am going to do to respond and move closer to God but must different as well.

Am I ready for this new Journey? This is God's special time. It's OUR Time together. My Yes to Him begins with Ashes and will end in the great light of resurrection.

How far will He Go to make us Whole?

VI Sunday in Ordinary Time - Readings -

I continue to reflect on the words of the demon: does Jesus have anything to do with us? Mark shows us that God cares about us more than we can imagine. Jesus is obviously preoccupied with making people well, touching them, taking them by the hand. I have seen it many times in this chapter: the same deamon-possessed man, Simon's mother in law, and the many that were brought to him.

But, how far is God willing to go? He is willing to go quite far, and reach out to those who were the worse, the people who have been cast aside, considered to be living corpses: the lepers. Leprosy is not only a matter of medical attention but also, and most especially, as a spiritual matter: leprosy, more than any other illnesses clearly shows the effects of sin on us - sin disfigures us, and destroy us. Healing from leprosy was almost impossible. A leper had the same chances of being healed as a dead person had to be raised from the dead. Therefore, only God had the power to heal a leper.

Yet, as Jesus walks a man stops Him. It's a leper and he, for some strange reason has the intuition that Jesus is different. He begs him and says "If you are willing, you can make me clean." He does not say: "If you are willing, you can ask God to make me clean." The leper knows that Jesus can do only what God can do. 

Jesus touches him and heals him immediately. But then He sends him away with two clear directives: tell no one about what happened and go to the priest to be declared "clean." It was in the man's best interest to comply, most especially to the second request. I am sure he wanted to be reconciled with the family and return to his social life. This is an interesting twist: Jesus behaves as though he is above "the law," but He does not think we are - the man has to follow the purity laws! Nobody is above the law!

How about the first request. Obviously he disobeyed. Yes, he proclaimed to many the Good News and many went to Jesus. But I can't avoid thinking about his disobedience to a direct command; I can see also the consequence of such disobedience: Jesus could no longer enter into towns. How ironic: the leper couldn't enter his own town and was forced to live outside, now it is Jesus who cannot. They almost switched places. Jesus is indeed the one who took upon Himself our sins. 

But the fact remains: Jesus could not longer enter into a town openly. I think: how many times our disobedience did not allow Jesus to continue to carry own His plan (I remember that He told the disciples that He wanted to leave Capernaum because he wanted to go to the nearby villages). How many times our disobedience keeps Jesus away from our hearts, our homes, our workplaces... 

Thankfully, God's grace always finds its way. The people came to Him....

Jesus' cleaning touch is transforming. I can touch Him everyday, receive him into my own life; now I have to bring His touch to all the people out there and help them understand that God cares about us, about them and that the demons were lying (what else is new!). We can truly experience Jesus' new life only when we gladly obey His Word and enthusiastically share His Love with all people