Searching God never finish/ends...

Molveno, Italy, 10 August 2014

After getting up, I went to the balcon of my room to check how the day looked like. I found that that morning was an interesting morning one. In fact I could see a beautiful scene in front of me: the lake was so calm and the top of the mountains was so clear. Instead the previous day the scene was different completely because there were a thick clouds which prevented me to enjoy this beautiful natural panorama. I felt so grateful seeing all of this and because of it I wanted to glorify God who creates such beautiful things and gives me the chance for somedays to take a rest for moment specially to enjoy this natural fresh air.

It was Sunday morning, the 19 th Sunday of the ordinary time. I went to mass in the St. Carlo Borromeo parish with my confreres. I prefered participating the mass at 10 a.m. because at the afternoon I wanted to sleep longer. To reach the church I had to walk more than ten minutes from our house and it was pleasant because there was neither cold either rain.

That time, when participating the Eucharist in this parish, was the second time I participated the eucharistic since my arrival to Italy because last year i had participated it for the first time when i came here for 5 days only. The priest who celebrated the mass was the same who had celebrated it last year. The church was full of faithful like last year: many of them were standing because there were no more chairs. Among these faithful people there were quite a lot of elders about sixty years old and there were a few young faithful including us, Xaverian students and some children.

I was very happy seeing so many people in the church participating the act of love of Jesus Christ to his beloved people. I believed that this was a positive sign of a big thirst of God in their hearts. These people were here for holiday, for taking a rest with their family but in the midst of their resting time they spent a moment to say thanks to God. It means that in their daily life there is a thirst of God, they search God to fulfill their inner needs of value and meaning of their life.

I sincerely appreciated this attitude because there is something new i can learn. They offer me an example of being Christian. Because searching God never finish and in every time this call or needs must be continuously exercised.

I think that their humble attitude for having a thirst of God can be a challenge for me. They have been spending much of their time and energy working but they don’t forget God and they don’t cease to search Him. More than them I should spend much of my time and energy to find, to know and to relate with God who I testify in my whole life as a religious and consacrated man. If my thirst of God is less than theirs, it is meaningless for me to become a missionary.

From all of this i want to say that learning from the humble attitude of these faithful who search God as possibile as they can, they invite me to have a big desire to search, to find, to create an intimate relation with the giver and source of my life and vocation. Without it i will die, i will testify him falsely. It is so shameful if i do nothing to search Him with the great possibility and time which i have in front of me. Basically they have testified the true attitude of a Christian who relly believes.

The parish priest, in his homily commenting the reading where Jesus walks on the water and his disciples are in the storming sea, has told many things. He has insisted on many points underlining the contextual importance for those who were listening to. Here I want to ripropose some of these points which I think are useful to be known, internalized and implemented in my own life.

First, Jesus walks on the water to demonstrate that He has power over evil. In the time of Jesus, people thought that the sea had a great power over them. This evil power was so great so that the man had to be submited in front of its domination and as a consequence man lived in fearful sensation in his relationship with the sea, the forest and other things. This thought paralyzed man in such a way that they were not able to do anything in front of its powerful domination or at least people had to be obedient in front of its power. People were in an inferior condition. In this background we can understand well the importance of Jesus’ act in Mathew 14,22-33.

Mathew chooses this image of Jesus walking over the water to demonstrate that Jesus dominates the evil power. He wins over the evil things. With him there is nothing to be afraid of because He is our liberator and Savior. But in our daily life there are many things that make us incapable to be a free human in the evangelic perspective. There are many things that impead us to be his true disciples living our daily life according to His will or of his way of living and thinking. Sometimes our fear is so heavy that we can’t ignore it and we live following its guide. We are afraid of teaching Christian values to our children. We are afraid of accepting the immigrants entering in our cities because they are different from us regarding to their religions, cultures, and on their way of living. This fear is a clear sign which tells us that our faith in Jesus Christ is fragile or weak. If this is true, it is time to renew our faith which, through His gospel message, asks us to be convinced that in Him we have the power to win the temptations of the evil things which accompany us in our life, to combat our fear with faith. Jesus reigned not only 2000 years ago but reigns also now. His reign will come true through our commitment when we are able to accept the stranger in our community sharing things we have with them. His reign will be found also when we accompany our children, brothers and sisters to be faithful in living the Christian values although there are many obstacles in front of us.

Second, the Christians in the community of Mathew were living under the persecution. The storming sea which the disciples of Jesus are facing of is the image of the persecutions which they were still living or they had from their authority in their era. In this situation Mathew was trying to convince his fellow Christians  to have faith in God through his beloved Son, Jesus Christ because he didn’t leave them alone. The persecution was not the end of their esistence as Christians because God was always with them. Mathew was convincing his community not to lose their faith for the reason of the persecutions, instead he was teaching them to be united one another asking God’s help.

The priest has related this biblical background with the actual situation of our fellow Christians in Irak, Nigeria and in the other countries who are living under the persecution. They have to leave their country and have lost their family members, houses, churches and monasteries because of their faith in Jesus Christ. The priest has insisted that their suffering is not only theirs but have to be our suffering also: we have to participate not to increase their suffering or misery but to decrease it by helping them materially, by accepting them when they arrive in our countries seeking a  refuge and also by asking the government/authority where this persecution has been occurring to guarantee the freedom of professing their Christian faith. 

Pandri