“And to young people, I say: ‘Do not be afraid! Accept the invitation of the Church and of Christ the Lord!’”. With these words, Pope Leo, on this past 11th of May, World Day of Prayer for Vocations, addressed the young people of the world. They are an echo of those pronounced on numerous occasions by St. John Paul II during his long pontificate, and taken up by his successors. They are the echo of another word, that of Jesus who, walking on the water, approached the fearful and incredulous disciples on the boat: Take courage, it is I, do not fear! (Mk 6:50).
Even in the stories of our recently ordained priests that we publish in this newsletter, there appears a strange fear of God, a fear that we all know well.
The fear, however, is always preceded by something else: an invitation that reaches us through apparently casual circumstances. Running up against someone, hearing a certain phrase, looking at a landscape, something is moved in a definitive way in the depths of ourselves.
Recently, I came across a beautiful passage of C.S. Lewis, taken from the book The Four Loves, which speaks of this: “For a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work. […] It is He who has spread the board and it is He who has chosen the guests. It is He, we may dare to hope, who sometimes does, and always should, provide. Let us not reckon without our Host.”
Every human story is the intertwining of the freedom of God with that of man. At times, this connection is not harmonious and this causes solitude, evil and pain, like the many small and great wars unfortunately show us. Other times, instead, the two freedoms become ever closer; and in this way, when our freedom finally is open to that of God, life blossoms.
This, in the end, is the path of our entire life, but also that of every day. There are solemn moments of every existence, like those our deacons were able to live on the 21st of June, pronouncing their definitive yes to Christ. But these special moments are given to be lived again and again, because every day is decisive to renew our “yes” to Christ who makes all things new. “True newness grows only in continuity; man is created to make definitive decisions, he is created to remain and, in this way, bears fruit,” said Benedict XVI in a homily.
It is He who remains with us so that we might learn to remain in Him
It is necessary, therefore, to pass through this strange fear. It is a fear that pushes us to distance ourselves from God, who bursts into our life to lead us to places that we do not know. But perhaps it is more of a fear of ourselves, fear of not being good enough or fear of losing something. Lord, leave me for I am a sinner, as Peter exclaimed when the divinity of Jesus came to encounter his sinfulness (Lk 5:8).
We do not defeat this fear; it is Christ who does. Through the Church, He guides us, He comforts us and He sustains us, so that we might abandon ourselves with trust to His fidelity, to His invitation to follow Him, present in all things. It is He who remains with us so that we might learn to remain in Him.
Every moment is a new beginning that is reborn in the wake of what we have already lived. The “yes” to what God asks us in the present is therefore, new but not disassociated from the “yes” of a moment earlier. And in this way, the more the “yes” goes forward, the more that strange fear gives way to a mysterious joy, as Chiara Corbella called it, the joy that attracted us when we encountered Him, when He invited us to stay with Him: the substance of our definitive and daily “yes.” In time, we get to know, in an ever increasing way, He who calls us; we discover that He loves us. He is the secret Teacher who lies behind all of reality and continues to tell us: “Have courage, it is I, do not fear!”.
