FRIENDS and SERVANTS of the WORD
31 OCTOBER 2024
30TH Thursday of Ordinary Time
ALL SAINTS EVE
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling! Behold, your house will be abandoned. But I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” (Luke 13: 34-35)
How shall I live this Word? 
In these verses, the tenderness of Jesus and the hardness of heart that sometimes characterizes men and women are mixed… Jesus who would like us around Him, under His wings, as something precious and delicate, to protect and bless… But “you did not want this”. Often, we do not want to stay there and we end up feeling abandoned.
Abandoned not because He leaves us alone, but because He lets us choose freely, and we choose something else. Let us not lose the opportunities that life gives us to meet and love Him, in the Eucharist, in prayer, in His Word, in forgiveness given and received, in moments when patience is put to the test, in bearing those who bother us, in welcoming with affection those we meet… and in everything that the Spirit inspires us, with the healthy restlessness of those who love.
Lord, help me to welcome You now, to love You. I have only today, this hour, this instant. Give me the courage to always say yes, and to tell You now, so that I can be a sign of Your love and Your tenderness for every life that You put beside me. Remain with me.
The voice of Pope Francis Holy Mass for the General Chapter of the Augustinians 2013
Here, then, is the anxiety of love: always seek, without ceasing, the good of the other, of the loved one, with the intensity that leads even to tears. [… ]. How are we with the restlessness of love? Do we believe in love for God and others? Not in an abstract way, not only with words, but the concrete person we meet; the person who is next to us! Do we let ourselves be disturbed by their needs or do we remain closed in ourselves, in our communities, which is often for us ‘community-comfort’? Sometimes, you can live in a condominium without knowing who lives next door; or you can be in community, without really knowing your brother. I think of consecrated people who are not fertile, who are ‘bachelors-spinsters’. The restlessness of love always pushes us to go out to meet the other, without waiting for the other to manifest their need.
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