This novena, which we have concluded today, has been aimed at showing us the love of the Father, so that we can experience it as the source of our joy. During these nine days we have been invited to deepen our trust in God, to glorify Him, to love Him and to enter into an intimate friendship with Him.
God’s joy is to be in the midst of us, the people. And this applies to each and every one of us.
Unfortunately, there are many who do not yet know their Heavenly Father, and we Christians generally lack a relationship of complete trust with Him, but what a richness life acquires when we begin to discover our Father’s love everywhere, when we know that we are protected by Him, when we perceive how His love works in us and leads us on the path to perfection!
God wants those who already know Him to live in an ever closer relationship with Him. Then they will be able to understand with increasing clarity His desires, which flow from the heart of a Father who thirsts for His children and wants to fill them with His riches.
It is easy to understand why the Father invites those who have already begun to love Him to seek with Him those who are still lost.
In the message to Mother Eugenia Ravasio, our Father mentions His desire that the righteous, that is, those who try to live according to His commandments, show even more fervour in helping people to find faith in God. In this message the Father asks us to go to the people and witness to His love, because if they knew what He is really like and how tenderly He loves His children, the hearts of many would turn more easily to Him.
For our personal lives as well as for our apostolate, it is essential that we ourselves fully awaken to the love of our Father and allow ourselves to be filled with it. Then we will be able to show people more convincingly what God is really like.
God longs for all peoples, and especially for those whom He has chosen to be His first fruits and who, at least for the most part, have not yet recognised their Messiah.
There are so many ways to reach people today: direct ways and indirect ways.
Our Father is looking for souls who will give themselves unreservedly to His love. In a special way, He calls those who, through their consecration, have entered into a special relationship of love with Him. It is precisely in these “children of His love” that God wishes to dwell more deeply, so that they may bear witness to His love in the world.
Day by day we can discover the Father’s love and grow in it. Day by day, through our prayer and witness, we can proclaim the Father’s love to those who are far from Him. Day by day we can be a cause of joy to the Father, who can do great things out of the smallest things.
All of Heaven, and especially our Lord Jesus Christ, would rejoice if we would abandon ourselves and give ourselves completely and unreservedly to the love of the Father. We can do this, for example, by making a personal consecration to Him or by renewing and deepening our consecration. Everything comes from Him and everything returns to Him. The Church addresses each of her prayers to the Father through Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit.
May our beloved Mother help us to fulfil the Father’s will as she did, so that we may become like her vessels of His love, so that the Holy Spirit may descend upon us and Christ may be born ever more deeply in our hearts!
May our lives embrace the infinite love of our Father and glorify Him through our response to His love and service to others!