One day Eli′sha went on to Shunem, where a wealthy woman lived, who urged him to eat some food. So whenever he passed that way, he would turn in there to eat food. And she said to her husband, “Behold now, I perceive that this is a holy man of God, who is continually passing our way. Let us make a small roof chamber with walls, and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, so that whenever he comes to us, he can go in there.”
One day he came there, and he turned into the chamber and rested there. And he said to Geha′zi his servant, “Call this Shu′nammite.” When he had called her, she stood before him. And he said to him, “Say now to her, See, you have taken all this trouble for us; what is to be done for you? Would you have a word spoken on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?” She answered, “I dwell among my own people.” And he said, “What then is to be done for her?” Geha′zi answered, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is old.” He said, “Call her.” And when he had called her, she stood in the doorway. And he said, “At this season, when the time comes round, you shall embrace a son.”
Second Book of Kings 4:8-16
It is always a joy to arrive at this moment of the year, which culminates with the ordination of our youngest brothers. During the solemn liturgy in which they are consecrated, there is always a moment that moves me greatly. It is that in which the newly ordained are helped to put on, for the first time, their sacred vestments. Yesterday, repeating this gesture, I was admiring the beauty of the dalmatic in which Alessandro was vested. It seemed like a military uniform from other times, almost like armour. And also with the chasuble worn by Giovanni, a regal garment that expresses the dignity of the priestly munus. These garments are the symbol of a humanity renewed in Christ, newly clothed with Him, and in a completely particular way. They are the sign of a new creation, of the character -to use the word of theology- that yesterday was imparted on our two brothers with the sacrament they received.
I want, therefore, to express the great joy that I feel for these two brothers and, at the same time, thank those who have followed them along the path of their formation. As you all can imagine, the care that we dedicate to this educative work has the goal of allowing the young men who enter into the Fraternity to embrace their vocation in a fully free and conscious way. We desire that, arriving before the bishop who will consecrate them, they can pronounce a convinced “yes” to Christ from the depths of their heart and make a definitive commitment. It is a work that is difficult at times, but always beautiful, above all because it gives us the possibility of living together for a few years, in which reciprocal knowledge becomes profound and lasting friendships are born.
For all of this I desire today to thank the Lord together with you all.
We are welcomed as men of God. Not, therefore, for our personal sanctity, above all, but for the sacred reality that we represent.
The liturgy today puts in front of us a beautiful story, taken from the Second Book of Kings. It is certainly an extraordinary one but nevertheless it helps us to understand how the Fraternity of St. Charles conceives of mission and how we want to live it out concretely. It describes, in fact, a typical dynamic that is repeated every time that a missionary reaches the place where they have been sent. I am referring to the establishment of a great familiarity between a man of God (2 Kings 4:9) and the persons who involve themselves with him and open their home to him, putting at his disposal that which they have to sustain him in his mission. In the case of which the Scripture speaks here, two spouses of wealthy status decide to build a new room with walls on the second level of their home and furnish it with a bed, a table, a chair and a lamp (2 Kings 4:10). Eli’sha has already been a guest at their table more than once, when he has passed through. Now the wife insists that he have a space that is reserved for him, one that is adequate for prayer, meditation and writing. A place where he can rest. The essential furnishings that they put at his disposition are the sign of an attentive care, of the desire to offer to the prophet a welcoming place: “so that whenever he comes to us, he can go in there” (2 Kings 4:10), says the wife to the husband, presenting him this project. And the motivation that she offers him is also significant: “I perceive that this is a holy man of God, who is continually passing our way” (2 Kings 4:9).
This is an experience that we too have! In the place where we are sent, we too are cared for, looked after. We are welcomed with the same attention that was reserved for Eli’sha not because we are special or important persons but because of that which we carry, because of the esteem that Christians have for the fact that God has chosen us. We are welcomed as men of God. Not, therefore, for our personal sanctity, above all, but for the sacred reality that we represent. And nevertheless the esteem that we receive a priori accompanies us as individuals as well in a concrete way. How many times, in these days as well, have I seen with my own eyes this kind of relationship around our brother missionaries! The friendships that are created in this way, in light of the faith, have a particular tone, one that is profoundly deep. People look at us with familiarity and respect. We are the object of care, maternal and paternal, on the part of those who are older. Those who are younger give us a trusting gaze that is proper to a son or a brother. And through all of this richness of human sentiments, there is an expression of the deference that is destined for the things of God.
This event, which always and in new ways is repeated, contains, above all, a warning for us missionaries. The friendships that we receive as a gift for the pure fact of being among the consecrated of God are sacred and God asks us to safeguard in our turn the persons that take care of us. It is, however, also a sign of consolation for the mothers, the fathers and all of the persons who have thus far, with love and faithfulness, taken care of the lives of the young priests who they see depart for distant lands.
We desire to live our mission building familial relationships in Christ, which profoundly involves us with the persons we encounter.
A second experience.
The relationship that is born with the persons whom we encounter on mission enters into the most intimate corners of lives of those who welcome the missionary. In the case about which the Scripture speaks, the prophet comes into contact with the drama of a woman who, being the life of a man who is already elderly, no longer has any hope of bringing a child into the world. Eli’sha, grateful for the care (2 Kings 4:13) with which he has been welcomed, takes an interest in the situation of this family. What is there that is more beautiful and natural than this participation in the lives of the persons who open their homes to us? He calls, therefore, the woman and asks her what he can do for her. Perhaps she wants him to present some request to the king of Israel or the head of the army. The woman evades the question: she is doing fine and lives peacefully with everyone. Eli’sha nevertheless insists and when he intuits the desire that she does not even have the courage to reveal, he promises her solemnly in the name of God that she will have a child within the year.
The story proceeds in a dramatic way. We know that the son is born and up to a certain point grows up well. Suddenly, however, while he is in the fields with his father, comes down with an illness and is sent back to the house by way of a servant and there dies in the arms of his mother. The woman finds herself again impotent before a destiny that presents itself with hostility against her desire for maternity.
The woman then goes to the upper level and lays the boy down on the bed of the man of God (2 Kings 4:21), then runs immediately to inform the prophet. She finds him on Mount Carmel, in prayer. Having reached him, she insists that he come back to her house. At first, Eli’sha resists, not wanting to leave his quiet place, but in the end, he agrees to her wish. He goes with her, prays and obtains again the life of the child. We note that Eli’sha is described by Scripture as a man with a surly temperament, who lives withdrawn in prayer for long periods. He is not a man who loves to expose himself to the chit-chat of the people or certain occasions of conviviality. Rather, he seeks silence and is not the kind of man who is used to confiding in anyone and much less a woman. It is surprising, therefore, to see the docility with which he follows this sorrowing mother. Equally surprising is the tenacity and insistence with which he implores the favor from God. First, in fact, he sends his servant to place his rod on the body of the child. However, this has no effect. Then he reaches the house of the woman himself and, after having prayed again, he lays down on the small body that has become cold by now. He joins his hands to those of the child, and his eyes and his mouth to the eyes and the mouth of the child. The body of the boy slowly regains heat but remains inert. Eli’sha then leaves the room and begins to wander here and there around the house, as if he needed to recuperate her energies after a great effort. Finally, he goes up again to the upper level, and again lowers himself on the small body and finally obtains the full resurrection of the child, who comes back to life as if reawakening from a heavy sleep (2 Kings 4:29-35).
This biblical story, full of details, testifies to us on the one hand that the mother of the child reached in the relationship with the prophet a profound confidence. She arrives, in fact, to demand the impossible. The protests that she presents to Eli’sha for the death of her son anticipates the words with which Martha and Mary will ask Jesus for the miracle of the resurrection of their brother, Lazarus (cfr. Jn 11:21.23). The story however witnesses to the profound affection that Eli’sha feels for the members of the family that welcomed him. and this also anticipates that mysterious cry into which Jesus erupts out of the love he feels for his friends in Bethany, before granting the request of the two sisters (cfr. Jn 11:35).
This too, therefore, is an experience that we have. We too become profoundly affectionate towards the persons and the families that welcome us in our places of mission. We too suffer and rejoice with them, as if for our own family. Truly this prophecy of Jesus is realized for us when he said: there is no one who leaves homes or brothers or sisters or mother or father or sons or fields for my sake and for the Gospel, who does not receive, already in this time, the hundredfold in homes and brothers and sisters and mothers and sons and fields (Mk 10:29-30). Rather, the dynamism at the heart of mission for us lies in the multiplication, the hundredfold increase, in all places, of relationships of this kind. We desire to live mission building in Christ new familial relationships, involving us profoundly with the persons that we meet and living as our own the affections and ties of those who welcome us. Jesus Himself lived His mission this way and teaches us to continue to do so.
Christ does not take away anything of what He has given us through the natural order; rather, He gives everything a new dimension.
With this in the background, the Church invites us today to listen to some other shocking words of Jesus. He addresses them to the disciples whom he sends on mission in the villages of Galilee, and they are addressed to missionaries of every time. If, however, in different ways, each one of us too heard echoing in them a call that has touched us intimately, communicating the urgency of a decision. We do not want, therefore, to evade its content or diminish its scope. We want, rather, to discover the positive promise that they contain.
Jesus therefore says: He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me (Matt 10:37).
This way of speaking can sound harsh, especially to our ears which have been habituated to the formalism of the politically correct. And in fact, we cannot penetrate the meaning of this provocation of Jesus if not beginning from faith, if not, therefore, responding to the question: “Who is He who is pronouncing these words?”. Who, in fact, can command with such decision the affections of another person? Who can claim the right to give voice to a similar claim, arriving to say that the disciple who does not meet these conditions that He has laid down is not worthy of him? Who can claim for himself the place that is owed to primary relationships? Are they not constitutive for my person, not only from a physical point of view but also psychological, cultural, spiritual? Who then can claim to replace them?
Only God can. Only God can place Himself as an alternative to familial ties, to the story that is born from flesh and blood.
In reality, however, God does not place Himself as an alternative to the affections and fundamental relationships of the person whom He calls. In these years we have often reflected, together with the parents of our seminarians and priests, on this fact. And we have discovered together that, even though it seems to be difficult to accept it, it is, in the end, sweet to surrender oneself to the greater reality to which Christ wants to introduce us. For the parents and the siblings of man whom Christ reserves for Himself, in fact, God Himself has in seed form a new modality of being fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. A more profound and wider modality, which does not lose anything of what nature has given, but contains it and transcends it. It transfigures it. Who is my mother and who are my brothers? (Mk 3:33). This question that Jesus launched to His mother and His relatives regards us directly. Did Jesus really want to diminish the meaning of relationship with them? Did he perhaps want to declare the nullity of these relations and pass to another, to new and more interesting relationship? On the contrary, that day Jesus sent His carnal relatives to unite themselves to His new relatives of faith. He invited them to enter into a new family which He was founding, a family without any limits, universal. That day, Jesus said to His mother the word that he would then repeat looking at her from on high on the cross. He told her that she would have become the mother of all Christians and of all men.
Behold, therefore, the promise that today the Lord makes to each of you, parents. You will continue to be fathers and mothers, but in a family more vast and extensive. In your son, you will receive other songs and your paternity and maternity will result as augmented and dilated. And you too, brothers, sisters and friends of these newly sent by Christ, you will continue to be that which you are for them, but in a horizon that, by force of their being sent, widens also for you to the entire world. Christ does not take away anything of what He has given us through the natural order; rather, He gives everything a new dimension.
