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I am getting ready to preach a retreat, this time to the Capuchins, and more specifically to the postulants. I look at the calendar, and here the deadlines are chasing crazy, the tasks to be done are boiling and bubbling like boiling water. The notebook is filled with notes divided into: urgent, this week, later, when the money will be … I admit, I constantly rewrite some of these activities for the next week …
I encourage Capuchins to be passive, of course, passive in Christianity. In Christianity, in essence, that is, in adherence to the living God. Less effort and goal-setting, less self-gaze, less seeing your way to perfection. I will not ask at which rung of the ladder of perfection they are or in which Paradise chamber they are. I will ask them Christ’s question: “Do you love me? Do you love me more? ” After all, Christianity is not a task to be done, but a person to love.
Sometimes we focus too much on ourselves, paradoxically also on our way to God. Exactly, the problem in ours, because what’s ours, if His? It’s good to plan everything like this, set goals, achieve them and be happy … But someone else goes on the road.
Count the steps you took on the way to God … And now count the steps that God took and takes to meet you … And whose path it is, whose effort ?
I can already see the indignation of the pious and the righteous: this is heresy, an invitation to mediocrity and surrender to the wave that is carrying us. And where is the place for effort, spiritual work, fighting sins, perfection …?
I encourage Capuchins to be passive. To look at the path that God is taking, fighting for me … Without any further stretching of spiritual muscles … Without cutting the forest of my own imperfections with a penknife … Because faith is not my achievements and spiritual successes, but a person to love.
Let’s look at the Master of failures. Hmm, at least in this Jesus I follow … Three years of apostolic work and twelve students, because they are not students and a few pious women, and somehow they always find themselves, so it seems to be a weak success …
When did Jesus do the most? Preaching, healing, working miracles? Jesus did the most on the Cross! The most important thing was not what Jesus did, but what they did with Jesus! They killed him, and he lives. So the most important thing is not what you do, but what He does with you, in you and with you…
Is salvation my merit, can I deserve God …?
We read two texts about the Good Samaritan and a sinful woman …
The Merciful Samaritan is not only a pious story that we are to be good and help, but a story about God who helps me. That half-dead bruiser is me, and Christ the Samaritan. And it is He who does everything. He washes my wounds, covers them with oil and wine, and takes them to an inn. Maybe you should read this parable like this…
The sinful woman does not utter any words except “Nobody, Lord”. He does not apologize for sins, we do not even know if he is sorry. Today’s lawyers and liturgists would be outraged: where are the five conditions, stole, confessional …? She doesn’t deserve forgiveness … And you deserve? After all, Christianity is a grace … Jesus rises above all this … and does not ask anything … He looks with love … She received everything without anything …
Be passive… so that He can act. Because isn’t the priest’s task only for God not to disturb? Let Him act, be God… Sit in silence, look at the sky, see Him coming towards me. He does not ask about anything, he does not poke in his conscience, looking for any detail … but he silently binds up your wounds. Look at Mercy and not just poverty…
Look at Him, not yourself…. Just this one time!
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