Here and Now with Francis: 2/4/19 (Christ, encounter, vocation, consecration, offering)
From a homily
Everything, therefore, meets as Jesus arrives. What does this mean for us? Above all, that we too are called to welcome Jesus who comes to meet us. To encounter him: the God of life is to be encountered every day of our lives; not now and then, but every day. To follow Jesus is not a decision taken once and for all, it is a daily choice. And we do not meet the Lord virtually, but directly, we encounter him in our lives. Otherwise, Jesus becomes only a nice memory of the past. When we welcome him as the Lord of life, however, as the center and the beating heart of everything, then he is alive and lives anew in us. And what happened in the temple also happens to us: around him, everything meets, and life becomes harmonious. With Jesus, we find again the courage to carry on and the strength to remain firm. The encounter with the Lord is the source. It is important then to return to the source: to retrace in our mind the decisive moments of encounter with him, to renew our first love, perhaps writing down our love story with the Lord. This would be good for our consecrated life so that it does not become a time that passes by, but rather a time of encounter. [link]
This then is the consecrated life: praise which gives joy to God’s people, a prophetic vision that reveals what counts. When it is like this, then it flowers and becomes a summons for all of us to counter mediocrity: to counter a devaluation of our spiritual life, to counter the temptation to reduce God’s importance, to counter an accommodation to a comfortable and worldly life, to counter complaints, dissatisfaction and self-pity, to counter a mentality of resignation and “we have always done it this way”. Consecrated life is not about survival, but new life.
Everything, therefore, meets as Jesus arrives. What does this mean for us? Above all, that we too are called to welcome Jesus who comes to meet us. To encounter him: the God of life is to be encountered every day of our lives; not now and then, but every day. To follow Jesus is not a decision taken once and for all, it is a daily choice. And we do not meet the Lord virtually, but directly, we encounter him in our lives. Otherwise, Jesus becomes only a nice memory of the past. When we welcome him as the Lord of life, however, as the center and the beating heart of everything, then he is alive and lives anew in us. And what happened in the temple also happens to us: around him, everything meets, and life becomes harmonious. With Jesus, we find again the courage to carry on and the strength to remain firm. The encounter with the Lord is the source. It is important then to return to the source: to retrace in our mind the decisive moments of encounter with him, to renew our first love, perhaps writing down our love story with the Lord. This would be good for our consecrated life so that it does not become a time that passes by, but rather a time of encounter. [link]
