“Perform good works all the days of your life … give to the naked some of your clothing (Tobit 4:5.6)”.
The naked man is the image of the poorest among the poor, the son of a poverty that unlike hunger and thirst, even though you feel ashamed of it, you can’t hide it to others "I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself "(Gn 3:10). And the Father, who is merciful, clothes him so that he can’t hide forever.
Unfortunately, this is also a consequence of man's wickedness to his brothers, because he does not recognize them as such. The scenes of the concentration camps where men, women and children have suffered the total "stripping" are unforgettable and horrifying. " Clothes, even the foul clothes distributed, even the crude clogs with their wooden soles, are a tenuous but indispensable defense. Anyone who does not have them no longer perceives himself as a human being but rather as a worm: naked, slow, ignoble. "(If This Is a Man by Primo Levi).
These are very actual scenes that still occur. Only a few years ago the pictures of a reception centre for migrants, stripped naked, that resembled a lot a concentration camp went on our television screens. Those Pictures confirm that the dignity of man made in the image and likeness of God is an issue that becomes increasingly difficult to assimilate in a time when nothing is a "scandal", because we are falsely blinded, committed to show and demonstrate the new ideologies of "the single thought and technoscience" that destroy the Christian identity, rather than to recognize God as the sole Creator of the world and merciful Father of all creatures.
About this subject the Bible helps us showing particular interest in the innocent and humiliated nakedness of the poor, of the victim, of the marginalized person and It gives us figures that, touched by compassion for the needy, are a great example for mankind as far as the works of mercy and in particular the command "clothe the naked":Tabitha, was full of good works and made tunics and other garments (cf. Acts 9:36- 39), putting into practice the divine teachings;
St Martin, bishop of Tours, did not hesitate to halve his cloak to "share it" with the poor old man, covered only with a few rags, whom he met on a cold and rainy autumn day, performing in this way a gesture of solidarity and true mercy. That night Jesus appeared to him in a dream wearing that cloak, confirming the validity of the evangelical command: "I was naked and you clothed" me (Mt 25:36).
This is the mercy of God: a coat that goes down to cover our nakedness, which are the consequences of our fall into sin as it had happened with Adam. Not only, but also, like a cloak, it embraces, it shelters, it protects, it warms the heart and restores man to his dignity, it leads him to recognize himself as a person and son, the fruit of love.
The act of clothing the naked is an irradiation of God's mercy into the life of each of us and it is generated by love of neighbor; It transforms our charity and our faith into concrete actions, and give the other person the hope that it’s impossible to remain in misery forever.
It is an exchange where, the one who is deprived of something doesn’t become poor and the one who benefits from the gift is not humbled, but he is re-introduced and accepted by society.
For this reason we are called to cover, in addition to the nakedness of the body, those nakednesses that are less visible, for example violation of rights: the nakedness of the immigrant who fled his homeland in search of fortune and, as he does not arrive at the destination, he often lies, stripped of his identity, under the sea; the nakedness of children, deprived of their childhood, of their innocence and simplicity as victims of the frustration of adults; the nakedness of women forced to undress as they are reduced to a commodity and pleasure; the nakedness of the elder, stripped of his loved ones because he is closed in a nursing home and the nakedness of whoever experiences a state of inferiority thanks to someone who is apparently stronger.
In each of these figures it’s Christ, who expects to be clothed, helped and looked after in order to clothe, to help and look after in turn those who give way to the work of mercy.
Stripping in Christ is the path that the prophets, saints, mystics followed and to which we are all called to be covered with the Lord's presence. It means to take off all that doesn’t belong to God from our soul, as it happens in baptism, to be clothed with Light and Divine Will through His Son Jesus.
Luisa’s spirituality is the detailed description how a soul strips herself of herself, followed step by step by Jesus, starting with the daily habits, for example to be comfortable sitting in her chair while she was working, and then move on to the need to take the food, according to the other's availability, to the deprivation of affection for her loved ones and for the more insignificant things, such as to take off a ring at the dawn of her first mystical marriage with Jesus.
The intent was to clothe this soul with the greatest gift that God could do: His Divine Will. Prerequisite: the emptiness and transparency of the soul, that is deprived of the dark cloth of our inclinations.
The example is given to us by Jesus Himself, God who become Man, "He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant" (Phil 2:7); at birth He was covered with poor cloths and allowed men to strip Him completely in the last hour of His Passion, to be covered in insults and ridicules. Everything was made to remedy the misery into which man fell by sin.
“It was necessary that I be stripped, in order to repair for many who strip themselves of every modesty, of purity and of innocence; who strip themselves of every good and virtue, and of my Grace, clothing themselves with every brutality.”
Therefore Redemption comes to cover the creature with her lost beauty, with her noble and divine origin of which she stripped to respond to pride, to the "you will be like God" (Gen 3.5), and consequently it took a deformed and unhappy attitude. And it’s the humanity of Christ, with His wounds, that covers this deformity, adorning it with diamonds and pearls of His sorrows and clothing it with a magnificence to overcome the state of origin.
Jesus wanted to form a more beautiful garment, weaving it with His works, beading it with His Blood. But what is not His sorrow in seeing this garment being rejected, as creatures content themselves with remaining naked. Jesus Himself feels stripped and He is cold, He goes to the humble and helpful soul, and ask her to clothe and warm Him.
But how can the soul clothe Him? She is miserable, she has nothing. Jesus Himself says that she has His whole Will in her power. She has to absorb it within her, then she has to release It, and so she will make Him the most beautiful garment, a garment of Heaven, and divine. How warmed He will be. And He will clothe the soul with the garment of His Will, so that they may be clothed with one single uniform.
The soul who gives and gives herself in Christ, never remains without recompense. Her offer is reciprocated with a good, a new grace, a new sun that she adds to her path of holiness.
Mary, Mother of Mercy, who was completely covered by the Divine Will, comes to rescue souls to clothe them with a precious garment, and as the wavering soul wears it, she acquires courage and fortitude and is covered with a charity that doesn’t humiliate, but it helps others to cover themselves with tenderness and mercy.
Sovereign Queen, take in your hands our souls and clothe them with God's Will.
Fiat!