Talk One by Dr Giorgio Mazzola, President of the Secular Institute “Cristo Re” (Christ the King)
“Our life is to be as close as possible to the Mystery of the Incarnation, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
The lack of vocations in the world is not primarily the result of less attention to all the problems in the world but above all the loss of the sense of God.
The authentic comprehension of the Christian vocation is born from the contemplation of the mystery of the Holy Trinity. The Christian life is a participation in the life of the Trinity. Baptism makes us participants of the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus in a mysterious way: but what does this signify for our life?
Look at Jesus who is the full revelation of His Father and a perfect work of the Holy Spirit, or else, look at Him as Man in His own time. How did He live? In what way did He show the will of His Father?
His parables were meant to be understood to open the way for Heaven but His signs did not generate truth and His disciples did not understand: it is why only the unconditional offering of His life could open a branch in the hardened heart of man.
Participating in the Death and Resurrection of Jesus means that, even for us, like Jesus, the salvation of the world passes through the offering of one’s life. It deals with death.
We die when we remain faithful to our own duty, competence, loyalty, sincerity. We die when we don’t perceive the fruit of our own life given in custody to God in the context of an everyday life as that of all human beings (Virginity is an anticipation of death) where, for example, we ask ourselves: what are we doing here? For what does it serve the offering of my life in an indifferent world? It is Christ’s experience in the Garden of Gethsemane.
It was so for Jesus: so is it for the Christian the place of our offering to God is our life. This is the contribution of the Secular Institute for the Church…our life. Our life is a call to be the place of the revelation of the Father.
We do not have to think about other places; life is “enough”. It is life itself which indicates the times and the ways of our faithfulness to God. Whereas as Christians very often we think that we have to achieve something of ours, of oneself we have very little trust in the ordinary. We try to look for places consonant with us, often protected. It is the reaction of the prophet Jonah when he heard the call of the Lord: do you prefer to choose on your own the place of your mission?
It is the intention of the document of Secular Institutes ‘Primo Feliciter’ which says: The world is not simply the place of the apostolate but in it through the relationships and its activity, we discover that every secular reality is supernatural because all the world is created by God and comes from Him and leads to Him.
“It is in Him that dwells corporally the fullness of the divinity, and you participate of His fullness.” (Colossians 2:9-10a)
The Word, the divine logos lives the human experience, and in this we understand the authentic profound emotion in the human being; regarding love, friendship, but also a piece of music, a romance, a painting, a film, choir singing, the face of a child, but also a piece of work well done, an understanding, a perfect equation…
This is our style of life: we try to show the signs of the Presence of the Son of God in our ordinary life, with a beautiful life and knowing how to indicate those, where existence shows traces of the corporal presence of the word.
“The place of your apostolate is therefore all the human.” (Pope Benedict XVI in the International Conference of Secular Institutes, 3 Feb 2007)
[Translation by Doris Cordina from Italian into English]
Talk two by Dr Giorgio Mazzola, President of the Secular Institute “Cristo Re” (Christ the King)
“The poverty of Christ as the heart and distinctive character of our style of life.”
We learn poverty in contemplating the poor heart of Christ. Unless we become poor, we don’t do anything Christian.
Poverty is accepting life with its limitations, its oppositions and all this is entrusted to the Lord, including the fruit, very often hidden, of our fidelity. It is poverty of whoever accepts to search with fatigue what the Word of God has to say to the world.
Our style of life as Christians in the world, however, is often that of someone who already knows everything, who knows what to say about life. But this attitude shuts many doors. Jesus made Himself servant and defined Himself as servant. The servant is one who does not have his own programme, who does not decide about his own life. Everything is determined by the will of his master.
The lack of a distinctive sign in attire or in a visible community is not only practical but also, and above all, spiritual. It is the poverty of one who does not want to have privileges or protection.
“To you it is not asked to institute particular ways of life, of apostolic commitment, of social interventions except those which could be born form personal relationships found by prophetic richness.” (Pope Benedict XVI to the participants of the International Conference of Secular Institutes, 3 Feb 2007)
Poverty is in the one who renounces to do anything of his “own”, who renounces possessions.
Poverty is in the one who does not base his successes in great works, to be able to be fully docile to the Spirit.
Poverty is in the one who really believes that “grace is enough”.
Even the Church is called to be poor, and not to put itself too much in the centre. The Church must put at the centre of her life Jesus poor, His poverty.
Neither the help to poor people, although very important, but above all, one’s own poverty, not much ad only in material things and means, but poor in efficiency, in activity, in frenzy.
This poverty becomes sobriety of initiatives in the face of actual situations -the multiplying of groups, books and periodicals, of meetings, equipment, refresher courses, school of evangelisation etc. This appears to be always an evident contrast. I am not saying that one does not need to study. But the Christian life has to be lived in its essentials.
Sobriety of language: we have the sacred scriptures and an extraordinary liturgy (if we don’t ruin it). Among the Christians the most broken commandment is probably the second: ‘Do not call the name of God in vain.’
Too many words said without respect and awareness of the Presence of His Divine Majesty.
In the second place, our religious language (words, manners, pictures etc.) must be purified from being an attitude of devotion and habit to be able to be a language which meets the interior life of men and women of this time: this is a field in which secular institutes can give an important contribution.
There are some typical examples which show how bad habits have left out the Gospel and have generated empty language (that is, initiatives against world hunger or the collection of money in favour of some projects, the prayer of the faithful etc.)
Other cases show that they are moving to a pagan language: that is, certain songs with the tunes of parties; the bad habit of clapping which introduces a pagan cult of the person.
But the Gospel is not so! When we have done what we had to do, we remember that we are useless servants.
Conclusion: The letter for the baptism of the nephew taken from the diary of Dietrich Bon Hoeffer: “Today you will be baptised so that you become a Christian.” (Reflections for the Baptismal Day of Dietrich Wilhelm Rudiger Betz Le, May 1944)
