414th Meditation
“If there is something that I desire, (…) it is the return of the prodigal sons to their Father’s house. I am referring in particular to the Jews…” (Father’s message to Sister Eugenia Ravasio).
If our Father’s wishes are most sacred to us, we can easily understand that one of His great concerns is that the Jewish People, His “Firstborn”, return to Him. The Apostle Paul was so inflamed with love for his people that, in his zeal, he uttered these words: “For I wished myself to be an anathema from Christ, for my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom 9:3).
While not neglecting prayer for all people, the return of the chosen and long-suffering people to the Father’s House, recognising the Messiah whom the Father sent them, must become for us a deep longing and prayerful intention.
Jesus wept over Jerusalem, because it did not recognise the hour of grace (Lk 19:41-42). We know the consequences of this.
It is a delusion to believe that the Jewish people would have their own way of salvation that would lead them to God and therefore would not need the Messiah to be proclaimed to them. If there are Catholics today who think this way, they do not know the burning desire of the Father, they have not internalised the moving words of St. Paul and they have not understood the Redemption that the Son of God brought to all mankind.
This desire that the Father entrusts to us, invites us to better understand His Heart. How could He forget those whom He so painstakingly brought out of Egypt and led through the desert? How could He forget those whom He prepared for so long for the coming of His beloved Son? How could He forget those for whom Jesus asked on the Cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34)?
How could He forget those for whom St. Peter testifies that they “did it through ignorance”, while at the same time calling them to conversion, so that “the times of refreshment shall come from the presence of the Lord, and he shall send him who hath been preached unto you, Jesus Christ” (Acts 3:17-20)?