Mons. Enrique Díaz Díaz shares with Exaudi readers his reflection on the Gospel of this Sunday, March 17, 2024, titled: “Create in me, Lord, a pure heart”
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Jeremiah 31, 31-34: “I will put my law in his mind and engrave it deep in his heart”
Psalm 50: “Create in me, Lord, a pure heart”
Hebrews 5, 7-9: “He learned to obey and became the author of eternal salvation”
Saint John 12, 20-33: “If a grain of wheat sown in the ground dies, it will produce much fruit”
When does our life gain more meaning? Some are willing to give their lives for a handful of coins; some are willing to offer their person for a little glory; but some are willing to give themselves totally so that others may have life and life in abundance. Where there seems to be failure, life springs forth. This Sunday places us in front of that strong contradiction that Jesus offers us: to have life we must give it fully, voluntarily… lovingly.
The expression that Saint John presents when he shows us what it means for Jesus to accept the will of the Father is impressive. And it is not that God the Father is an avenging god who seeks the suffering of his children, as someone has wanted us to believe, as if he needed blood, pain and death to forgive our sins. But Christ is not the Messiah of power, war and revenge, but the Messiah of surrender, love and forgiveness. It is human to feel afraid of pain and death and Jesus goes through this experience, hence his expression, “Now that I am afraid”, he shows us his anguish that makes him exclaim his request to the Father: “Father, deliver me from this hour.”, which he asked “with shouts and tears”. But he overcomes it because of the strength that the Father gives him and because of his decision to love to the extreme. He knows that in this way, with that freedom, the prince of this world can be judged and thrown out. His “hour” is God’s hour, for this hour he has come. It is the moment of the Father that Jesus makes his own, and towards which he directs all his activity. The meaning of his hour is not only of death, but also of his glory and his triumph. There, in that fact that seems only a failure, the glory of this Man is manifested, and, through him, the glory of the Father. Jesus makes his time coincide with the Father’s time.
We divide our life and our time, and we shield ourselves by thinking that there are opportune moments to live in the horizon of God and his plan, and others to give ourselves “pleasure” by living in the style of the world. But today Jesus teaches us that every moment is a special moment of grace and that we must live it to the fullest, that we must fill it with all our work, our dedication and our heart. You cannot leave “wasted time”, voids and gaps. We have to live with a dynamism of total surrender, accepting a path of passion to defend and give our lives as Jesus did. No one should absurdly waste his life, leaving things in the hands of others. No one has the right to let their story slip away into indifference. His time is also God’s time, and so he must fill it with meaning. We cannot forget that our life has meaning when it manifests the glory of God, and that the glory of God is that man (every man, woman, child, poor person) has life.
Yes, we all agree that we want to give life, but not all of us agree that it needs to die like a grain of wheat in order to be fertile. We all want to illuminate, but the candle to give light has to wear out and end little by little, and many of us are afraid of wear and tear and suffering. We all want to give meaning and flavor to the lives of others, but the salt to give flavor has to dissolve and become nothing to penetrate everything. If it remains encased in itself, it ends up “salting” and decomposing the food. We all want to be like Jesus, but we are not always willing to follow him and serve as he teaches us. There is only one way to bear fruit, to be light and to give flavor: full and unconditional surrender. But we are afraid of sacrifice and effort. Our world deceives us by making us expect easy fruits, artificial lights and deceptive flavors. We have believed what the market offers: cheap and individualistic happiness. But it is not the way of Jesus nor the true way of man. This attitude seeks the happiness of a few and for a short time. True happiness goes far beyond wild cards, it is found in the full donation of our time and our hearts. It is making our time, our intention and our desires coincide with the Father’s desires in the same style as Jesus.
Today we find the fundamental lesson of Jesus and his following: the self-giving love of one who gives himself, until he loses himself, is the way to achieve full happiness. The apparent contradictions of this gospel lead us to reflect deeply: winning to lose, giving to preserve, dying to live, make it very clear what the true value of a man and a Christian is. It is the time and interests of the world opposed to the interests and time of God. What must we die to, what must we surrender, what do we need to lose to make our hour, an hour of grace, an hour of God?
We are approaching Holy Week, it will be common to see the representations and the Stations of the Cross in our towns, but how are we going to accompany Jesus? Are we willing to carry his cross? Can we be grain that dies to give life, salt that dissolves to give flavor, candle that dissolves to give light? Do we prefer our comfort and our selfishness? How do we follow and accompany Jesus?
Come, Lord, to our help, so that we can always live and act with that love that prompted your Son to give himself for us, that we may learn from him to be seed, salt and light. Amen.
