"By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another”(Jn 13:35). This is the command that Jesus left his apostles, so that they can be recognized as Christians, and, who in turn, make Know it.
Love is the badge of the Christian. Without love man loses his own identity, that of creature made in the image and likeness of God, who is all Love. Without love even the community life in any form, would not be fruitful, but it would become a breeding ground for conflicts.
The words of Jesus are thus not only a command, but revelations. They attest the possibility for man to enter into communion with God and with each other, a possibility that is confirmed and demonstrable through life, through works, through a vital participation in the life of the other, in good times and in bad.
It is precisely in the meeting with the unfortunate brother (The Good Samaritan - Luke, 10:33 to 34) that God calls us to show our loyalty to His name, that is Mercy (Pope Francis) and also to take on after His Son Jesus and for his sake, the face of Mercy (Misericordiae Vultus), in an operational and practical way.
“Let us not love in word, neither with the tongue; but in deed and truth." (1 Gv.3:18). The works of mercy are charitable actions by which we come to the aid of our neighbor in his spiritual and bodily necessities (C.C.C.2447).
In the Old Testament we can already see these acts made to aid the needy person, capable of satisfying a physical need, " to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house" (Is.58,7); to dress up who has no clothes, to take care of orphans and widows (Job 31:16-23); to bury the dead, to give alms to the poor (Tb 1:16 -18), in imitation of God.
And it’s God who defines for man the right way, the way of charity. He himself fed his people with manna that He sent down from Heaven; He clothed Adam and Eve, "The Lord God made clothes from animal skins for the man and his wife and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21).
In the New Testament Jesus, Mercy incarnate, teaches us to practice mercy, starting with a beatitude "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy" (Mt.5:7). And in Matthew, in the Final Judgment, Jesus “makes a list” of these works, on the basis of which we shall be judged: all that we have done or we have not done to the least of our brothers, we will have done or we will not done to Him. "And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life." (Mt 25:46)
Merciful are those who are touched by the uncomfortable condition of the other person and when they intervene to remedy, they meet the mercy of God that goes toward them. Their attention, their care that, following the example of Jesus, they grant to the poor, the weak, the sick, the imprisoned, the last, that the worldly society refuses to see, are made to the same Jesus.
He identifies Himself with these creatures, he takes upon Himself all human misery, because He has compassion of it . "God who was flesh is moved by human misery, by our need, from our suffering" (The name of God is Mercy). Let’s not forget that this state of misery that man experiences for having disobeyed his Creator because of the original sin, is a clear sign of the need for salvation that only Christ can work.
For this reason, no one can or should feel exempt from this need. The real miserable is the one who is indignant and rejects all forms of assistance, but God waits patiently for him. The works of mercy (a word derived from Latin and it means the compassion that comes from the heart) help us in this way: they push us to open our hearts to each other and to God, for true love makes no discrimination; They prepare us to become what God has chosen for each of us, shifting our objective from having to being. They help us to set out for that way that all of us are called to follow, the path of holiness.
With Luisa, the spirituality of the Living in the Divine Will reveals mercy, it is a continuous act of practicing this virtue in everyday life and to realize it in every act of the day, even in the smallest act, till it becomes ethics.
God created man with an act of infinite love and with a free act of His Will. Man, in his being, keeps the brand of the Divine Act, although he is ungrateful in recognizing it, as the engine that drives all its natural and spiritual body.
Every act leads man to the origin of the eternal act of God.
The human act, acquires its divine value when it is done in God, in His Will, which introduces us into the narrow gate (Mt 7,13-14) that is the humanity of Jesus where all the acts of all creatures are kept and wait to be reciprocated in order to be returned as purified acts.
The human act, done in God, in His Will, is the multiplication of the same act for so many times as God wants to multiply it, for the benefit of souls. "You give them something to eat" (Lk 9:13) is the equivalent of "multiply your act in my Act and you will feed all these souls with the food of My Will."
By revealing Himself, God reveals His true identity: the Divine Will, that is Love, as the seat of His Will is His Heart, His merciful heart. Therefore every act-action by man is called to be a reflection of the Divine Love.
Luisa, with her immolation in bed in her room, experienced her great work of mercy which, in imitation of Christ, marked her entire life by fulfilling with every single act, her office of rescuer in favor of souls, leaving a well-defined concept that is, because of the non-measurable nature of God's mercy, as it is infinite, also the works of mercy can not be depleted or be enclosed in a list.
The works of mercy are many acts of good, like some beautiful flowers that sprout up from the heart and that the Church, as a Guide and Mother distinguished in corporal works of mercy (support person) and spiritual (consolation in spirit) just to help us to realize them. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven" "Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted."
This is a diversity, it is never a division. Man consists of body and soul (spirit), he lives of actions involving both the one and the other and they can’ be separated, if not with death.
And it is the spirit that gives life to the body, "it is the flesh that is enlivened by the spirit" (St. Thomas Aquinas), because the spirit will never die and is our eternal life. And to get this eternal life in the joy we are called to live the works of mercy.
The idea of spiritual works of mercy seems to be following to the text of Matthew 25, by some scholars, such as the Greek philosopher and theologian Origen, who showed in the works listed by the evangelist a material and spiritual value.
If the Merciful is the one who intervenes to help the "poor" with material or spiritual goods is equally true that the same "poor" is wealth for the first. He, out of his poverty has still something to offer: wisdom, dignity, the whole Christ who becomes humble, poor among the poor and sinful, and that only for love he descended up to the creature to elevate her and transform her in him, her Creator.
In this year of Mercy, inaugurated at the opening of the extraordinary Jubilee on 8 December last year, Pope Francis invites us to practice them, and together we want to follow the 14 works of mercy of the Christian tradition.
the seven corporal works of mercy: to feed the hungry; to give drink to the thirsty; to clothe the naked; to shelter the homeless; to visit the sick; to visit prisoners; to bury the dead.
and the seven spiritual works of mercy: To counsel the doubtful; to instruct the ignorant; to admonish sinners; to comfort the afflicted; To forgive offences willingly; to bear wrongs patiently; To pray for the living and the dead.
They are and remain the basis for our examination of conscience. They are forms of service and evangelization that, like Jesus, every brother gives to the another in a mutual exchange of values. Give to receive.
The exercise of works of mercy communicates the graces to those who practices them. Through the works of mercy we accomplish the Will of God, we give to others something of ourselves and the Lord, who looks at the heart, will give us what we need.
FIAT!