Peace and Joy in Jesus and Mary!
We are being witnesses to the action of the Holy Spirit as never before, it is He who will convince the world of Jesus' stateliness and it is He who gathers us today at the Lamb's Weddings. The Spirit and the Bride are saying Come!; it is the Spirit, along with the Bride (the Church) who are inviting all men, of all races, peoples and nations to a festivity, to a new Pentecost, to a new era of holiness as never seen before.
Awaken Church of Christ; your God is coming robed in majesty, and desires to meet his spotless and wrinkleless bride, beautiful and splendorous.
Let us say too, MARANATHA (Come Lord Jesus) those thirsty of salvation; let us go through the only door: Jesus-Christ and let us drink out of the side of His Eucharistic and Mysterious Heart. He keeps moaning mystically from the cross: "I am Thirsty"; thirst for souls, thirst to see his Church united in love, and in the peace of all of his children.
We are here to quench that thirst and to receive that water of life, the downpour of his Spirit. Jesus promised us: "Let anyone who is thirsty, come to me; and let the one who believes in me drink, for the Scripture says: Out of him shall flow rivers of living water." (John 7: 37-38) Saint John adds that he was referring to the Spirit which all who believed in him were to receive.
Brothers and sisters, do we really love Jesus' Heart? To love is to die to the desires of my flesh (fornications, impurity, shamelessness, idol worship, magic, hatred, violence, jealousy, anger, ambition, division, faction, rivalry, drunkenness, orgies, etc…); those things will not inherit the Kingdom of God (see Gal. 5:18). In which of these desires am I? is my Church?
We have come here to be healed, cleaned, forgiven in this jubilee year. The Lord says: "Wash and make yourselves clean. Remove from my sight the evil of your deeds. Put an end to your wickedness and learn to do good… Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they be crimson red, they will be white as wool." (Is. 1:16-18). The prophet tells us in another passage of the servant song : "Destroyed because of our sins, he was crushed for our wickedness. Though his punishment we are made whole; by his wounds we are healed." (Is. 53:5).
Let us allow Him to heal us. If the distressed invokes the Lord, He will listen to him. It is necessary that we understand, and that we accept that the true ecumenism or unity among Christians will be given as the fruit of our bowing down before God's powerful hand. (1 P. 5:6). The contrite and humiliated heart attracts God's blessing. Lower yourselves before God, and He will raise you up (Jam. 4:10).
The "Mea Culpa" that the Church invites us to live in this jubilee year does not have to be an empty or superficial rite, lacking in an authentic spirit of contrition. We have to open the heart to the flame of the Holy Spirit so that the burning with his fire make us surrender our conceit, our pride, our arrogance. The author of Unity is and will be the Holy Spirit, that is why we have to invoke him with fervor: "COME HOLY SPIRIT".
The Holy Father John Paul II, on May 9th 1999, in front of the Patriarch Teoctist of Romania, pointed out, among other things in his homily: "I strongly desire and pray that we can arrive as soon as we can to full fraternal communion between all believers in Christ in the West and in the East. For this unity, enlivened by love, prayed the divine master in the cenacle the day before his passion and death.
This unity among Christians is above all the work of the Holy Spirit, whom we should invoke without ceasing. On the day of Pentecost, the Apostles, who up until that moment were inhibited and afraid, were completely filled with courage and apostolic zeal.
Jesus came to reveal to us the mysterious face of the Father. He is the Father's Sacrament, whoever sees Him sees the Father (John 14:9). For this reason his death is our liberation and his resurrection our glory. Jesus, died and resurrected, communicates us his Spirit in order to be able to call His Father and our Father "Abba!"....... We have not received the spirit of slaves in order to relapse into fear. Love throws out fear, for this reason, the authentic disciple of Jesus doesn't fear the future, doesn't become frightened in the face of threats, for he knows very well that we are more than winners in Christ. He has conquered all of our enemies put together.
In the measure that each one of us becomes aware of his status as Child of God he will make an effort to live in Holiness. He will desire to be pleasing in God's eyes. Nothing satisfies more the Father trice holy than that his children become saints.
When I realize my status as Child of God, I will understand in the Spirit that each man is my brother and is the object of my love, respect and affection.
When I am convinced of my status as Child of God I will accept with sincere love the one who is by my side without caring whether he is an Orthodox, a Lutheran, a Calvinist, Methodist, Anglican, Presbyterian, Pentecostal or interdenominational. My eyes will be able to look at him with a pure soul, without blemish and deceitfulness. And Love will rise above restrictions and dogmatic stances. As Saint John of the Cross says, in the evening, we will be examined according to our love. "Love one another with a pure heart," (1 P. 1:22b). "Love will cover a multitude of our sins" (1 P. 4:8). Love can do anything because it comes from God and God is love.
Let us look at ourselves for a couple of seconds to the eye and ask: Am I convinced of my Faith, that your Father is my Father, that your God is my God, and that then you are my brother and my sister? Give me your hand and you will be my brother. If we can unite our hands, why cannot we unite our hearts?
This is a Divine Nuptial call for Reconciliation and Unity. Let us us be reconciled with God and with our brother. The voice of our Beloved echoes and we can perceive the sound of his steps; Wouldn't be our best welcome that he finds us reconciled in Love? What are we waiting for?
The one who is seated at the right hand of the Father (Jesus-Christ) will return as He promised. It is time to wake up from lethargy, the light dispels the darkness and the night of disunity gives way to the daylight of reconciliation. The winter of incomprehension and of disputes among Christians cannot resist to the coming of the Spirit's spring, the days of unification, of recreation and sanctification of God's people.
If Christ has not Resurrected our faith is useless, as well as our hope and this effort for unity which we, as believers in him, make today.
Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, president of the committee for the great jubilee of 2000, told of a beautiful anecdote in his homily for the closing ceremony to the week of prayer for the unity of Saint Paul outside the city. This legend was entrusted to him by an orthodox monk.
When Christ, after Easter, was ascending into Heaven, he glanced at the earth, and saw it immersed in darkness, except for little lights which shone in the city of Jerusalem. During the ascension, he came across the archangel Gabriel, who used to make his missions to the earth, and who asked the Lord: "What are those little lights?" Christ answered him: "they are the apostles gathered around my mother; and my plan is to send, as soon as I get to Heaven, the Holy Spirit, so that those little flames will turn into a big fire that will enkindle with love the whole earth." Gabriel dared to ask: "And, What would you do if the plan fails?" After some moments of silence, the Lord answered: "I do not have any plans." (L'OSSERVATORE ROMANO N.4 (1.622) 28/1/2000 p. 12) And the Cardinal asks in turn: Are we convinced that this is the Lord's only plan? The only one that can win over the divisive forces?
Dear brothers and sisters, I want to make a strong appeal to you at the end of my intervention, which comes out of my Heart. Since I was a little kid, I saw in my family the drama of division.
In 1979, in the Church of Reconciliation, brother Roger Schutz prayed for me in front of the Icon of the Virgin, and it awakened in me a phase that has turned into a maxim of my priestly ministry: "passion for unity." In the name of Jesus-Christ, I ask you to let yourselves be reconciled with God.
I represent a small country of merely two and a half million of inhabitants with a privileged geographic location. Since the discovery of America, it has served as a country of transit for all peoples. In our national emblem, there is the Latin phrase: Pro mundi beneficio.
The Panama Canal is not only a marvelous work of human inventiveness. It is for me a symbol where, for merely 14 kilometers long and through an array of dams, come together two oceans: the Atlantic and the Pacific. What makes this union possible?
Two factors: 1. The opening of a dam 2. The nourishment of fresh waters of a lake called Gatϊn, which, once the floodgates opened, allow the ships to go through one dam to the other.
The Lord's Heart is an open channel into which all men can immerse themselves and navigate without fear. He desires that his three dams: CATHOLICS, ORTHODOXS AND PROTESTANTS, open our floodgates, so that the fresh waters of his Holy Spirit flow through one another without resistance. Open your doors to the Redeemer, without fear, let us not be afraid. That we may all be able to travel about the ocean of God's love, which is the open side of Christ, Channel of Grace. These two great oceans that are connected through the Panama Canal, represent to me the Hearts of Jesus and Mary that are only one through the spirit. My passion for unity encourages me to ask you in the name of those two Hearts and who cry out "Love me" (when you love your neighbor you are loving me). May we compromise with concrete acts to live and act in Love. Let us ask for the feelings of his Heart.
"Jesus, teach me to search what you searched for, to feel what you felt, to speak what you spoke, to think what you thought, to love what you Love."
Let no one leave this Nuptial calling as he arrived, may we all be completely transformed by Love. I raise my prayer and my eternal gratitude to the organizers, especially to Vassula Ryden, for having trusted me to expound this reflection.
Jesus-Christ, Son of the Living God, our Lord and Savior, Beginning and End, You, who are the same yesterday and today and for ever, to you I raise my humble prayer with the feelings of your heart. That all may be one, like you are one with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Send once more upon this ecumenical gathering the Consoler, send your fire; touch, heal, transform, renew and free our sick hearts. Heal the wounds of our division, resentments, fears and mutual distrust. Heal us from prejudice, and from false appreciations and fearful judgments between us.
Come Spirit, giver of life, and place your living breath upon our dried bones. Come Spirit and prepare our souls by making them beautiful with you new gifts and perfuming them with the odor of virtues. Awake in each heart, the thirst for holiness, for everything that you touch you sanctify. Come Spirit and renew the face of this world, of our Church and of all peoples, so that all hatred and violence disappear, the noise of guns is silenced for ever and that it may give way to a culture of fraternity where all men have a right to the daily Bread, and that the dignity of every man and woman be respected.
Come Holy Spirit and with the new era, mother of reconciliation, mother of the new humankind, Most Holy Mother, may all races, peoples, and nations find each other. May we, all under your Mantle, be able to speak in one single language about God's children, the language of Love. That Love which sprang from the open side of the crucified will endure forever. Yours be glory, power, and praise forever and ever. Amen, amen and amen.
Fr. Teofilo Cristobal of the Consoler Director of Divine Mercy's Fraternity of Jesus and Mary's Sacred Hearts. Panama.