ON THE ADVENT OF ELIJAH
Mt. 17, 10-13
Jesus was killed on the Cross, more precisely He gave His life.
Saint John the Baptist was killed by the Jews, like many of God’s prophets.
But the Jews thought of the Messiah that he would not die but would come and make wars always triumphant to put the Jews to rule the world.
And the Blessed Virgin, though she had been brought up in perfect obedience to God, had been brought up in a Jewish environment, would also think something similar of the Messiah.
And came the Presentation of the Child in the Temple, when He was 40 days old, and it would be a special day for them and sure that the Blessed Virgin and Saint Joseph were very happy, but the Holy Spirit sends the elderly Simeon to tell the Holy Family that Jesus was going to be "a sign that many will reject" and the Virgin saw, because God showed it to Her, the hands pierced by the nails that Jesus was going to have 33 years later. And Her heart was pierced with pain, pain of Perfect Mother, pain of Perfect creature. That was the first dagger in the Heart of the Virgin (we know it from the devotion of the 7 sorrows and tears of the Virgin, I have described (copied from the web) in my blog in the title of "Prayers"). And we also know from the Prophecies and Revelations of Santa Brigida that the Virgin looked at the hands of the little Child with expression of pain and the Jesus baby was going to die of pain seeing the suffering expressed in the face of the Blessed Virgin, but She consoled Herself thinking that "It was the Will of the Father".
All the problems and pain that God sends into our life, always, in the long run, are better for us (if we kept at least meditating in Him and praying) the dramas in our life are sent to us to seek God more intensely, like any child who gets hurt and immediately looks at his mother or father crying. But if we do not seek for Him either in the good or in the bad situations it is that we do not care about our Father Creator, and He gives us signs, and if we do not use them to convert us to His Love and Wisdom... he lets us do our will, He does not force us to love Him and hate the devil, who always tempts us. And you know, if someone chooses to sin and not convert himself to God... he ends up in hell with the devil, who has already been sentenced.
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The Virgin Mary defeated the devil in a tremendous way. Because Luciel, when he was in heaven (who was later called Lucifer) rebelled along with his angel followers because they did not want to worship Jesus in human form. They had the pride of not obeying God. On the other hand, the Blessed Virgin, with that deep pain of Perfect Mother, did obey God, even though it hurt a lot, and accepted the mission that God gave Her.
She was obedient in the midst of Mother’s pain, the demon was rejected for a disobedience that would have only required some humility. The devil is terrified of the Virgin because She always defeats him. Satan was expelled from Heaven, and the Virgin Mary, most humble, obedient and always perfect, was elevated to Queen and Lady of all creation.
And do we obey God or our plans?
We have a mission, each person created, and God gives us gifts to fulfill it. While we don’t know, we prepare ourselves by being obedient to what we have to do: daily prayer (the morning, the evening, daily rosary, reading of the Bible 15 min. daily and meditation to know God more and more; and to love Him more and more thinking about what He suffered for us to pay our sins. And we: what sacrifices and penances are we willing to do to die to our sins and live in God’s grace?
Remember that the First Commandment is the greatest and may require more effort from us, but if we love God with all our heart we will love to imitate the Saints, who so pleased Him with their lives, and we will love and obey Him and we will know Him every day more... and God rewards us greatly with heavenly gifts already in this life. God created us with a mission and gave us the gifts to fulfill it. Discovering it and making it is what makes us more plenty and fulfilled. Jesus already knew before coming into the world what He would have to suffer for us. Holy Mary knew at the Annunciation that She was going to be the Mother of God and then at the Presentation of the Child She knew it would be painful to be the Mother of the Messiah God (our sins provoke Her sufferings), and then, on the Cross, Jesus gave Her to us as our Mother.
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I tell you something about the life of Saint Camillo de Lelis (his feast day is on July 14, the day I gave this catechesis in Spanish), to whom it was hard to see his mission. And what he suffered as a painful obstacle it was send by God to help him to find his mission in life.
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Saint Camillus was born in 1550, in Italy and orphaned by his mother from an early age. His father was an army officer who was always absent for the war campaigns, then, his youth was disorderly and lacking a solid guide. He enlisted as a soldier at the age of 17 but his gambling habit led him to gamble (and lose) his weapons and then even his clothes. After his conversion, the game demon still tempted him terribly and he had to avoid even the sight of cards. He was kicked out of the army and had to beg and as he had a wound in his leg, he went to the hospital where he volunteered as a servant to pay for treatment, but because of his quarrelsome nature he was expelled from there too.
He set to work on the construction of a Capuchin convent and there one day heard the preaching of a monk who reached his soul and became immediately and abruptly converted. He asked to be admitted as a monk but his wound opened and he had to leave. He returned again and the wound opened again. That hurt him very much because he thought God rejected him, but it would be the instrument of God to lead him to the path of his vocation. He returned to the hospital but now he was a man full of charity who treated the sick with the utmost delicacy and charity, as if serving the Lord. It hurt him to see how salaried nurses neglected the sick. He took care of them and soon several men of good joined him.
Over time, this first company of "servants of the sick" was transformed into a religious order which, to the three traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, Saint Camillus added a fourth and revolutionary vow: that of assisting the sick, even the infectious, at the risk of their own life.
He was seen until the end of his life dragging his sick leg around the hospital watching that all the sick were well cared for, especially spiritually.
^^ San Camilo de Lelis was not only a charitable man, but a true innovator in the field of health care, establishing hygiene protocols and personalized care that were centuries ahead of that time, and which are considered precursors of modern nursing. He insisted on the importance of room cleanliness, ventilation, food quality and, above all, humane and respectful treatment for each patient. His organizational genius led him to send his religious men to the battlefields to care for the wounded from all sides, creating what has been considered the first military ambulance service in history.
Camilo’s life was a continual martyrdom because of his poor health, for in addition to the ulcer in his leg, he suffered from serious stomach ailments, kidney and other diseases that tormented him without respite. However, he never allowed his own sufferings to prevent him from serving others, but refused to rest, claiming that it was not proper for a good general to die in bed while his soldiers were fighting on the front. Until his last days, he could be seen crawling through the hospital wards to make sure that no sick person was left unattended, finally dying in Rome on July 14, 1614, surrounded by an immense fame of holiness.