“Animals in the Ark” – Reflection for Thursday between Ascension and Pentecost 2020

Gospel Jn 17:20-26

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying:

“I pray not only for these,

but also for those who will believe in me through their word,

so that they may all be one,

as you, Father, are in me and I in you,

that they also may be in us,

that the world may believe that you sent me.

And I have given them the glory you gave me,

so that they may be one, as we are one,

I in them and you in me,

that they may be brought to perfection as one,

that the world may know that you sent me,

and that you loved them even as you loved me.

Father, they are your gift to me.

I wish that where I am they also may be with me,

that they may see my glory that you gave me,

because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

Righteous Father, the world also does not know you,

but I know you, and they know that you sent me.

I made known to them your name and I will make it known,

that the love with which you loved me

may be in them and I in them.”

Dear brothers and sisters,

Do we see God in each of our histories? 

It isn't an easy thing to do. It is necessary to learn to contemplate the glory that the Father gave to Christ in the Church where Christ is in us. The eternal love of the Father for his Son, their love relationship that existed "before the creation of the world," entered into our time in space to let participate in this love, precisely in the Church.

We, too, like Jesus, have always been in the Father. He thought of us, he chose us, and he loved us before appearing in the Blessed Virgin Mary's womb. He "gave us" to the Son so that the Son would tear us away from sin and death and bring us home to be where HE IS. Thanks to the preaching of the Apostles, this news has been passed to us by their words. If we believe in the Word, then we find that in the Church, we are "brought into perfection as one." This is communion, a foretaste of heaven. Communion, therefore, is born from the act of LISTENING, which welcomes the Word. 

Without the PREACHING and the PROCLAMATION of the WORD, unity is not even imaginable. Our flesh makes even the noblest desires and plans impossible. Yet, the good news is that we are not left helpless in our impotence, because Jesus intercedes with the Father. He reveals his glorious wounds so that in the Church, disciples can welcome the Word, be guarded in it, experience its power incarnate as the Truth, and thus, become authentic witnesses of his VICTORY OVER DEATH. 

We have a wonderful mission! Our lives are decisive factors for the "world to believe!" If we do not carry out this mission, we have failed and wasted our lives. Remember, brothers and sisters, we will be judged by the measure of which we have loved. To love is to experience BEING ONE with the FATHER and the SON through the HOLY SPIRIT. As Father and Son are one, "the world can believe" in the salvation Christ won for us. 

For this reason, nothing is more critical for us as Christians than the Church. Day after day, Jesus makes the Father known to us by entering intimately into our being. He pours forth the love that makes him one with the Father. 

Indeed, the Church is a slice of heaven where Christ conquers every division that sows death in the world. We exist in a world that confuses love with the thirst for affirmation and equality. If we do not know God, it is impossible to accept and love the other as he is, with his defects and inability to fulfill our expectations. 

My dear brothers and sisters, we were chosen and called into the Church as Noah picked and brought the different species of animals into the Ark. Among us, there are lions and lambs, chickens and pigs, snakes and mules. But, just as happened in the Ark, no one kills another animal to feed himself. The love of Christ and his glory envelops us, satisfies us, and unites us. This communion is an experience here in this world of the heaven we anticipate. It is the word "I in them and you in me" fulfilled, the word that Jesus supplicated in the Upper Room. 

For this reason, the Church can sail through the waters of the flood that submerge the world, showing "perfection as one" to each generation. We are witnesses to the fact that those who live in communion lack nothing because the Father's love for the Son is in them. Thus, seeing him, the world can know that the Father sent the Son, incarnate in us Christians, sent in his name to save every person. 

In Christ,

Fr. Mauro