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VII.-
THE CONTEMPLATIONS OF THE THIRD WEEK
In the Third we
contemplate the Mysteries of Christ's Passion and Death. It is not
the first time during the retreat that we contemplate Christ in
his Passion. The image of Christ on the cross is present in the
First week already. Christ giving his life, for me is the
unquestionable proof of God's love for me. God has blessed me with
many gifts, has healed my wounds and forgiven my sins many times.
I should know that He loves me and deserves my faith and trust.
But I might still question His love. Does God really love me even
after my weaknesses and infidelity.
The image of Christ on
the Cross, gift of the Father, is at the beginning of my love
story with Him. He showed me God's respect, acceptance and love.
He dies for me so that I should not die for ever. In Him the
Father tells me how much He wants to communicate His life and love
to me.
Now on the Third week
we wish to understand and love Christ more. In the Third week, we
pray for the grace to contemplate the last battle over evil being
fought in Christ’s heart and to discover His love for the Father
and for us overcoming the destructive power of evil. The Spirit
can make us see with the eyes of faith, in the darkness of the
Passion Christ's love, purity and glory. This is the last battle
against evil, the winning battle to redeem the human family from
the grips of evil. Christ doesn't preach any more. He has already
proclaimed the Good News to us in parables and miracles. He
doesn't denounce evil taking away its deceiving masks from
pharisees and false prophets. He has already done that. Christ is
the Good Shepherd taking good care of His flock, but He is not
fighting the enemies outside the gate. The wolves are already
inside, charging on the shepherd himself. The destructive power of
evil wants to hurt and destroy Christ Himself.
During the Passion
Christ is silent or speaks very briefly. He doesn't make miracles.
Christ lets the power of darkness get hold of Him. He turns
Himself towards the Father. And Christ is not destroyed by evil.
It is the power of evil that is overpowered by Christ's love. The
power of Christ's love for the Father and for us is stronger than
that of evil.
In the Third week we
learn the lesson we have to remember in all our activities and
temptations. An impossible lesson indeed for us, weak humans. The
lesson that “all battles against the power of evil have to be
fought, first of all, in our own hearts”. The lesson that "it is
by the power of the Spirit, purifying and transforming our hearts,
that we love God and all creatures in Him". That grace brings us
the peace and joy of knowing that God's glory and love dwell in
our hearts and nobody can take them away.
Our prayer in the
Third week has a genuine human resonance and a divine depth at the
same time. The grace of the Third week is the knowledge of Christ
in all his humanity, when He shares our most painful wounds.
Christ lets himself be hurt by evil like we are hurt. His wounds
are even more painful and unjust because He is pure, merciful and
loving. We humans know how evil hurts us and brings the worse out
of us. Devious flattery or skilful distortion, fearful friends or
callous enemies, unscrupulous lords or shameless playboys, moody
crowds or cruel soldiers, physical pain and the fear of death...
all powerful evils threaten the peaceful presence of goodness and
love in our hearts. Evil makes us evil. The power of evil touches
our heart and infects it with feelings of hate, desires of
revenge, or the darkness of despair.
Christ has been hurt
by evil. But evil didn't make Him evil. Christ has overcome evil.
Christ shows us how to conquer it: evil is conquered in the heart.
Evil is conquered by God's goodness and love. Only God's Spirit
has the power to overcome evil. Christ lives by the Spirit of God.
Never in Christ's life is the love for the Father so present in
Him as during His Passion and Death. Christ teaches us to pray as
He prayed. In His prayer Christ opened the heart to the Spirit.
And the Spirit entered the heart to protect it from evil, to give
Him love. The glory of the Passion is the glory of the Spirit
conquering evil in a human heart. By doing so Christ brings hope
to an human beings because in Him we see that there is a stronger
power than the power of evil. When the Spirit is present in our
heart poisonous bites do not poison us, evil doesn't make us evil.
His life-giving-Spirit is stronger than the destructive power of
evil. In Christ, love is stronger than darkness and evil.
VIII.- THE FOURTH WEEK
The Fourth week is
necessary in order to know Christ and to identify ourselves with
Him. In the Fourth week we contemplate Christ risen and glorious.
A Christ at peace, a joyous Christ. Christ has fulfilled His
mission, shows his care, his humour, his desire to bring peace and
joy to His disciples. We see now a playful Christ, treating each
disciple in the most touching way. In Christ we discover God's
sense of humour, the tenderness of His love, the charm of suspense
and adventure.
These are the last
touches in the picture of God who has become human in Christ. This
is the human face we want to discover in ourselves too, a sense of
humour, a taste for playfulness, joy and adventure. Under the
light of the Spirit we have faced our weaknesses, our impotence to
love. We have started to walk on the footsteps of Christ. We are
asking the wisdom to integrate our duties with the exigencies of
the apostolate, our human weakness with the vocation to become
divine. We have discovered the miracles of redemption at work in
our hearts. We want to share in his suffering and become like Him
in His death. Now in the 4th. week we ask the grace to be raised
from death to life. This is the hope for ourselves and for those
who follow Christ.
Transformed by the
glory and joy of the Fourth week the disciple looks at the world
with concerned eyes indeed, but also with a trusting heart knowing
that all we have to do is listen and follow God's will. God's
projects are projects of mercy, wisdom and glory. The disciple
believes that God is in charge today as He has always been and,
for those who work with Him, nothing happens outside His power and
Providence.
Rome, Christmas 1993
A.M.D.G.
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