Contemplate your face in Christ

7/31/2019 Contemplate your face in Christ

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Catechesis


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CONTEMPLA IL TUO VOLTO IN CRISTO

Catechesi in preparazione dellEUROFRAME2012

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Hardly have we been born, when we

have opened our eyes on the world and

looked upon it with astonishment. Growing

up we have discovered in a continuous

adventure of curiosity the images of things

and the faces of persons. Each one of us

discovered that life is a relationship and

that we are bound up with every other

living being by a mysterious reciprocal

influence. Even while we experienced our own personal independence, we have

realised that everything influences us, and that we in our turn exercise a power

over things and over the lives of others. We preserve a mysterious liberty over

our understanding, and this consciousness makes us unique and distinct from

every other person.

Arrived at adolescence, we are no longer content with instinctive emotions orreactions; we begin to question ourselves in the face of the promptings of life.

We want to understand why life exists rather than nothing, why some things make

us happy and others make us suffer. The beauty that we see around us and which

fascinates us right up to love seems to us so fragile and insecure. To cap it all,

when we encounter the death of a loved one we feel a natural rebellion, as though

faced with an injustice. Is happiness, then, which we spontaneously long for,

something ephemeral or can it really become an assured possession? And so we

set out in search of a source of life which will give us certainty on our travel. We

want to know whether there is a secret or a logic which underlies all things. But

we do not want to find a mere anonymous and impersonal force, a blind and deaf

destiny. In our innermost being, we want to find Someone, a personal Love, to be

the limpid source of every love and hope. Faith tells us that it was God himself

who instilled in our hearts the desire to seek him and to find him, sowing in our

heart a sacred restlessness which finds peace only in communion with him. Only

then will we comprehend the meaning of our life. We will fully find ourselves only

when we encounter God.


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In the experience and in the language of the Bible, the face is the reflection of

the heart, or rather of the person who commits himself. The face reveals the

heart and opens to communion: Just as water reflects the face, so one human

heart reflects another (Prov 27:19). A face to face encounter arouses the deepest

recognition of anothers heart, that is to say the reciprocal recognition of persons.

If we were isolated, we would never know one another. It is only by

comparing ourselves with others that we come to know what we are. Only by

encountering the face and heart of God can we truly come to know ourselves. The

account of creation passed on to us in the book of Genesis reveals to us that man

and woman are created in the image and likeness of God; therefore even after

sinning they retained a sharing in his life. That is why we ardently desire to see

the face of God, to know him and to enter into a profound communion with him!

The contemplation of nature (Psalm 8) and the experience of a God who grants

salvation through the events of history (Exodus), kindle in the hearts of believers

the unquenchable desire to participate totally in his life, almost to the point of

penetrating the mystery which hides him.

Prayer expresses this piercing aspiration to read in the face of God his anger,

his love, his plans for us.

Come, my heart says, seek his face!

Do not hide your face from me.

Do not turn your servant away in anger,

you who have been my help.

Do not cast me off, do not forsake me,

O God of my salvation! (Psalm 27:8-9)

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When shall I come and beholdthe face of God?(Psalm 42:2)

But this longing for a personal encounter with God, it seems, remains a

frustrated ambition even for the greatest prophets of the Old Testament, with

whom God dwelt as with friends. The Book of Exodus tells us that when Moses


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descended from Mount Sinai after having received the tablets of the law his face

was radiant, because he had conversed with God, so that he had to cover his face

with a veil (Exodus 34:29-35). But when Moses asked God to be allowed to look

upon his glory, the Lord put him in the depth of a cave and covered him until Hehad passed. God allowed him only to see his back, because his face cannot be

looked upon (Exodus 33:18-22). Only when the Son of God comes to be incarnate

will we be able to have a full and direct knowledge of God.

On the face of Christ the glory of the Father is authentically

reflected. In his Son made man, the invisible Father has assumed a

face which we are able to contemplate. Jesus reveals to us that

face which no one had ever previously seen (John 1:18). When the

apostle Philip asked him to show them the Father, Jesus replied

that in his humanity the apostles could already know the Father

and experience his action:

Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and we will be

satisfied. Jesus said to him, Have I been with you all this time,

Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me, has

seen the Father. How can you say, Show us the Father? Do you

not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words

that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwellsin me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and that the

Father is in me. (John 14:8-11)

In their faith in Christ the Son of God the apostles can now enter

into full communion with the Father and carry out his works,

following Jesus as master and Lord. St Paul teaches us that looking

upon the face of Christ in faith, we can reflect his glory upon the

world:

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as


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though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one

degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:18)

As in the face of Christ there is the reflection of that of the Father, so also in

the face of Christians -- that is to say, in their life consecrated to love there isreflected the glorious face of the risen Christ.

The disciples of the Lord, who follow him along the ways of the Gospel, have

always considered Jesus as a model of life to be perfectly imitated, in order to

rediscover ourselves and bring to a successful conclusion our every aspiration to

happiness. The Second Vatican Council teaches:

The Church knows full well that her message is in harmony with the most

secret desires of the human heart, since it champions the dignity of mans calling,

giving hope once more to those who already despair of their higher destiny. Her

message, far from impairing man, helps him to develop himself by bestowing light,

life, and freedom. Apart from this message nothing is able to satisfy the heart of

man: Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests

in thee (St Augustine). In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh

that the mystery of man truly becomes clear ... Christ ... in the very revelation of

the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to

light his most high calling. (Gaudium et Spes 21-22).

In knowing Christ, the Saints have discovered their vocation and have become

for the world an authentic image of their Master.

Saint Francis of Assisi, although he received a Christian education, in his youth

was rather attracted by the pleasures of life and filled with the desire for worldly

glory. His social environment, made up of merchants and soldiers, pushed him

towards a life of ambition and success. Only gradually there occurred the personal

meeting with Christ which radically changed his life, overturning completely his


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world of values. As he recounted in his Testament, the Lord took him from a life of

sin and guided him with his grace on the path of conversion. In studying the slow

conversion of St Francis, we find ourselves faced with a story of surprising

relevance to today. There is no question here of a lightning transformation, but ofa progressive and irresistible action of Gods Spirit, that slowly takes possession of

a human life.

Francis experienced the search for the hidden face of God, he felt that his

personal destiny was played out above all in the unceasing search for the presence

of God, which for him was realised above all in the encounter with Christ.

The face of Christ in the poor. Francis narrates in these words how the

Lord came to meet him and guided him on the path of conversion. When I was in

sin, I found it an exceedingly bitter sight to see lepers. Then the Lord Himself

brought me among them and I treated them with compassion. When I came away

from them, what I had found bitter was changed to sweetness of soul and body.

After this I waited a little and then left the world(Testament1-3).

To this young man , totally absorbed in vanity and dreams of chivalry, lepers

caused horror because of their ugly and miserable appearance which excluded

them from society. Francis was enlightened to recognise in them the face of

Christ, who for us made himself poor and abhorrent in the sacrifice of the cross.

So the poor ever remained for him a faithful image of Christ: In eachand every one

of the poor he detected the face of Christ(Legenda MajorIII, VII). This is how he

explained to a friar how he should look upon the poor:

Brother, whenever you see a poor person, a mirror of the Lord and his poor

mother is placed before you. Likewise in the sick, look closely for the infirmities

which He acceptedfor our sake ... Always Francis gazed upon the face of his Christ.

Always he caressed the Man of Sorrows, familiar with suffering (2Cel 85).

The face of the Crucified in the

service of the Church. The truth of this

encounter was fully confirmed in the

experience of San Damiano, a little country

church which Francis entered to pray, led by

the Spirit. Here, on his knees before the


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crucifix, Francis received the revelation of how union with the crucified is realised

in humble service given to His Church.

He was walking one day by the church of San Damiano, which was abandonedby everyone and almost in ruins. Led by the Spirit he went in to pray and knelt

down devoutly before the Crucified and, touched in an extraordinary way by divine

grace, he discovered that he was totally changed. While he was so profoundly

affected, suddenly and this was something unheard of in previous ages the

image of Christ crucified with the lips of the painting spoke to him. Francis, it

said calling him by name, go, rebuild my house which as you can see is all in

ruins. At these words, Francis was more than a little stunned, trembling, and

almost out of his senses. But immediately he prepared to obey and pulled himself

together to carry out the command(2Cel10).

So Francis, contemplating the face of the crucified Christ, understood the

beauty of Gods love, which offers itself without ceasing as a sacrifice for our

salvation.

In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be

the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1Jn 4:10).

Francis loved the Church passionately, her priests and all her faithful, in theprofound conviction that only by putting himself at their service would he become

the true servant and imitator of Christ.

The face Christ in the fraternity. In his fraternity, a gift from God, Francis

experienced in a particular way the encounter with the Lord. After the Lord gave

me some Brothers, there was no one to show me what I ought to do, but the Most

High Himself revealed to me that I should live according to the holy Gospel. I had

this written down in a few words and simply and the Lord Pope approved it for me

(Test14-15).

Francis wanted to live the Gospel with his friars minor, in poverty and

simplicity, at the service of the Kingdom of God. There life was to be lived under

the benevolent gaze of the Lord who guided them through his Spirit, the true

Superior of the fraternity. The friars minor were to be Christians totally docile to

the action of the Spirit who revealed Christ to us and taught us his ways. For this

reason Francis exhorted the friars to have always hearts and minds turned to the


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Lord (Rnb XXII:19), that they might be nourished by his beauty and imitate his

examples.

So on Mount La Verna, after he had received the Stigmata which conformed

him even physically to Christ, he blessed Brother Leo with the words of the biblicalpriestly blessing :

May the Lord bless you and keep you;

May the Lord show his face to you and have mercy on you,

May the Lord turn his countenance to you and give you peace.

After 800 years, the Franciscan experience retains all its truth: he who

contemplates without ceasing the face of Christ will become his most faithful

imitator.

Clare of Assisi was an ardent and constant disciple

of Francis. From him she learned to follow the poor

and crucified Christ in order to incarnate totally his

Gospel. In Francis Clare found not so much a

theoretical doctrine, but a concrete model of life,

which made the joy of following Christ burn in her

heart. She herself records how Franciss living

lesson was expressed in the loving imitation of theSon of God:

The Son of God made himself our way; and this

was shown and taught us in both word and

example by our blessed Father Francis, his true

lover and imitator. (Testament of Clare 5)

Christ is a way to be followed, from Bethlehem

to Calvary, in a total and generous participation in the mysteries of salvation, as

recounted by the Gospel. Poverty, which Clare loved so passionately, is not a


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political dimension, but a participation in the poverty lived by the Lord. It is a gift

to be accepted with love and simplicity. Clare sees the person of Christ as a

mirror, in which we can see reflected our ideal image, and so discover our own

vocation, that which we will become if we are generous in imitating our model.In this mirror there shine forth blessed poverty, holy humility and ineffable

charity, as you can contemplate by the grace of God in the whole mirror. Look

with attention ... at the poverty of the one placed in a manger and wrapped in

swaddling clothes. O wonderful humility, o stupendous poverty! ... then consider

the holy humility, the blessed poverty, the pains and sorrows without number

which he suffered for the redemption of the human race. At the end of the same

mirror contemplate the ineffable charity, which made him suffer on the tree of the

cross, and to die on it the most shameful death ... therefore allow yourself to be

ever more on fire with that ardour of love, o queen of the celestial King! (4 Letter

to Agnes 18-32)

The contemplated image of Christ becomes a vocation to be incarnated, a

dynamism which transforms the person with the force of love and makes it a

participant in the life of Christ. Contemplating the face of Christ, Clare can live the

evangelical commandment of love which sums up Gods revelation:

Place your mind in the mirror of eternity, place your soul in the splendour ofjoy, place your heart in the figure of the divine substance and transform yourself

wholly through contemplation into the image of his divinity, so that you too may

feel what the friends feel who taste the hidden sweetness which God himself has

from the beginning reserved for those who love him! (3 Letter to Agnes 12-14)

This is the core of the Gospel. It is the response to the Lords invitation, inviting

us to live that same love which characterised his mission, and which can give the

highest meaning to our life also.

Which is the first of all the commandments? Jesus answered, The first is

this: Listen o Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord; Love the Lord your God with

all your heart and with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

The second is this: Love your neighbour as yourself. There is no other

commandment greater than these (Mark12:28-31).

The word of the Gospel remains for always and awaits our response of faith.

We too, like every generation of believers, have to fix our look on the face of


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Christ in order to know our vocation and together with Him bring peace and love

into the world.

Young people above all are today called to commit themselves with energy

and generosity to the new evangelisation, to which the Church is calling them.The enthusiasm and energy of youth must be put at the service of the Gospel to

offer the world a credible witness. Let us accept the invitation given to the young

people by Pope Benedict XVI at the 26th

World Youth Day:

You, too, if you believe, if you know to live and witness to your faith every day, will

become instruments to help other young people like you to rediscover the joy of

life which comes from the encounter with Christ!

Fr Carlo Serri, O.F.M.

President of UFME

(English Translation by Boniface Kruger, O.F.M.)


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1. Are you satisfied with your life? What areyour greatest desires for the future?

2. Do you think that you know Jesus sufficiently

well? Who is he for you?

3. Do you read the Gospel, alone or in

community, in order to live the teaching of Jesus?

4. Where should you make changes in your life in

order to be more like our Lord?

5. What could you do to witness to your faith to

everyone and change the world?

Why do we seek God?: YOUCAT 1-6 Man is a religious being: CCC 27-43 To know Jesus Christ the Son of God: YOUCAT 71-112 I believe in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God: CCC 422-682

The Blessing of Saint Francis to BrotherLeo

May the Lord bless you and

keep you;

May He show his face to you

and be merciful to you.

May he turn his countenance

to you and give you peace.May the Lord bless you,

Brother Leo

Before taking part in

EUROFRAME,

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Clare Sisters nearest to you?

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Contemplate your face in Christ