Dear brothers and sisters, Fiat!
Even today many Christians doubt their faith. They doubt God who has given them the gift of faith. They doubt also the Messiah in whom they should believe. They resemble the disciples of Jesus who found His discourse on the bread of life unacceptable.
The Holy Spirit also calls us to rediscover this intimacy with the God of Jesus. To eat of Him and drink of Him means to pass into the unconditional following of a person: Jesus Christ. Peter probably did not fully understand the discourse on the Bread of Life; perhaps he too was perplexed like the others. However, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, he chose to trust and rely on the Master's words. He understood that it was necessary to stay with the Master and to place the utmost trust in him. In this long discourse, Jesus told his disciples that it is necessary to be nourished by things that are true and profound, and he unmasked the hypocrisies of his listeners: It is not enough to call oneself a believer ... it is not enough to pray ... it is not enough to do a good deed ... it is not enough to have the intention to ... it is not enough to propose .... Hell is covered with pious intentions and good intentions ...
Whoever wants to follow Jesus, to enter into intimacy with Him, must eat His flesh, must trust in Heaven, even if his feet are rooted in the earth. It is not a "duty" that obliges us. It is a "duty" that is a possibility. Jesus does not force anyone to follow Him. Jesus wants to be followed in freedom and out of love.
"Do you also want to go?" Here is the moment when we should remember all the words of eternal life that we have heard from Him. Today Jesus asks me: do you also want to go away? If you want, go, I don't force you, I don't get angry. If you stay, stay by your choice and your conviction. If you want to go, go! Do you really want to leave this fragile Church that, now more than ever, needs faithful disciples, suffering but faithful, willing to restart the proclamation of the Gospel that is languishing with our withered parish communities? Do you really want to put yourself on the side of those who think this Christianity is to be abandoned and put yourself on the side of the learned people who criticize without putting themselves on the line?
Let us make Peter's response our own by way of a profession of faith:
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life". In the midst of the din of men's words, Jesus who is the very word of God speaks. Amidst the many ephemeral and weak words, the words of Jesus flow from life without beginning and lead to life without end.
"And we have believed and known that You are the Holy One of God." In today's world a chasm is often established between knowing and believing, between science and faith. The apostle of Jesus Christ knows and believes that Jesus is the Messiah. Man's fulfillment comes from God's envoy.
Lord, to whom do you want us to go? Where else will we find what you give us? Where else will we find so much serenity, so much truth, so much good, so much light? Where can we find something or someone who is equal to God? Where can we breathe the thrill of God? Let us continue to feed on the body and blood of Christ to be transformed in Him and live this earthly pilgrimage of ours confident that an eternity of love awaits us.
In the passage of August 9,1925, Jesus tells Luisa that all created things were nothing other than an act of God’s Will that issued them; nor can they move, or change the effects, the position or the office which each of them received by its Creator. They are nothing other than mirrors in which man was to admire the reflections of the qualities of his Creator: in some the power, in some the beauty, in other created things the goodness, the immensity, the light, etc. In sum, each created thing preaches to man the qualities of its Creator, and with mute voices they tell him how much God loves him. On the other hand, in creating man, it was not just God’s Will, but an emanation that came out of His womb - a part of Himself that God infused in him; and this is why God created him with a free will – that he might grow always, in beauty, in wisdom, in virtue. In God’s likeness, he could multiply his goods, his graces.
If a sun had a free will and could make two suns from one, four suns from two, what glory, what honor would it not give to its Creator, and how much glory also to itself? Yet, what the created things cannot do, because they are without a free will, and because they were created to serve man, man can do, because he was to serve God. So, all God’s love was centralized in man, and this is why God placed all Creation at his disposal, all ordered around him – that man might make use of His works like as many stairs and ways in order to come to Him, to know Him, and to love Him.
But what is God’s sorrow in seeing man below His created things - even more, his beautiful soul, given by Him, transformed into ugliness by sin, and not only ungrown in good, but horrid to the sight? Yet, as if everything that was created for him were not enough to God’s love, in order to preserve this free will, God gave him the greatest gift, which surpassed all other gifts: He gave him His Will, as preserver, as antidote, as prevenience and help for his free will. So, the Divine Will placed Itself at his disposal, to give him all those aids which man might need. God’s Will was given to him as primary life, and as the first act of all his works. Having to grow in grace and in beauty, he needed a Supreme Will, which would not only keep company with his human will, but would substitute for the operating of the creature. But this great gift also he despised and did not want to know. We can see how the Divine Will enters the primary life of the creature; and as long as It maintains Its first act, Its life, the creature grows always in grace, in light, in beauty; she preserves the bond of the first act of her creation, and God receives the glory of all created things, because they serve His Will operating in the creature – the only purpose of all Creation.
May the Divine Will be for us more than life and the first act of all our actions.