You can experience God’s gifts
only by renewing His grace within yourself.
Otherwise, they would just get wasted.
Routine and rules in the place of Soul
dimmed many vocations
and dreams.
Hardness often became usual
and then scandal.
Also us, when called by Our Lord,
if we do not love Him with all our hearts
and do not love each other
with the same love of a father or a mother,
a child or a sibling,
may fall into this routine:
having just empty words
in place of our heart.
History warns us
against those risks.
And Mary, with Her motherly love,
will not abandon us, so that God’s gifts
are always within us,
according to the Word of His Son.
And the Holy Ghost, Who is love
and renews all the things,
will guide us so that, in every moment,
we can be what God wants us to be.
Complete abandonment
can give daily results
and bring us do things even mightier than Him,
not because we are better than Him,
but because our poverty
meets His Grace.
When loved, we can love;
when forgiven, we can forgive;
when understood, we can understand;
when listened to, we can listen;
when comforted, we can comfort,
because God’s goodness is within us.
And the same goodness
God offers us,
we should offer to our brothers and sisters
to guide them towards Him
and help them find a meaning in life.
So that, whoever meets us
would not feel lost.
As I finish writing those pages,
I feel a deep melancholy growing within me.
It is addressed to all the daughters
and sons I have in the world.
The majority of them does not know yet
that, one day, they will knock
at the door of one of our Arsenals
and say: «I want to donate myself to God».
They do not know it yet,
but God does, and so do I.
And I already love all of them like a father.
«Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.» (Romans, 12, 310-13)