Allocutio for the Legion of Mary meeting - 20 February 2017
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One big aspect of
being a Legionary is the apostolate work we do, which is actually evangelization.
Fr Bede McGregor, O.P
gave this definition of evangelization at the 2012 International Eucharistic
Congress.
He said:
"Evangelization is facilitating
an authentic meeting of another person with Jesus Christ…"
“Authentic”. There are many imitation goods circulating in the
markets in our time. You might have watched the online video. We can even use plastic to make something that looks and feels so much like a real cabbage.
But however similar it is, it is not real. And how do we tell? By the
substance. What is beneath the superficial that the eye cannot see.
I would like to
suggest that it is also possible to facilitate imitation meetings of people with
Jesus through the work that we do in His Name. Acts we may perform that look
charitable, kind, loving. But the substance beneath the surface might not
actually be charity, kindness and love. It may be obligation,
self-glorification, even Christian duty and the list goes on.
The truth is… Imitation
meetings with Jesus cannot allow a person to truly encounter Him. And that is not evangelisation.
Since God is love, authentic encounters with Jesus is the encounter
with love itself. When we love and the person experiences this love, he is
experiencing God, even though he may not be aware it is God. I was working in a women's shelter, and there were moments a girl was crying because of family problems. I can be beside her and place my hand on her back to comfort her. But I can do that while thinking about something else actually or just telling myself that she is crying, I am a staff here, and so I should do something to comfort her. In my heart, I am not with her in her pain, I am not loving her by my presence, and she will not experience love.
The work we do
becomes only the router for us to transmit the signal of love. And only then can the
person come to know Jesus and the compassionate love of God. John Powell
wrote, “Unselfish human love is the sacramental introduction to the God of
love.”
And this is our call
and purpose of our Legionary work. We work as part of a larger reality of
Church, to continue Jesus’ mission of spreading the Good News of God’s infinite
love for His people. Our apostolate work is not just to make a suffering person
feel better, to offer help to one who is not coping optimally, etc. These are
different expressions of our one underlying mission to continue the mission of
Jesus.
And this was what
Mary did, especially by being herself the vessel that
brought Jesus into our world. She gave Love to us. We are familiar with the
story of the Annunciation. Her ‘yes’ was needed for the incarnation, for God to
love us through Jesus. Similarly, our ‘yes’ is needed for the continued
incarnation of God through our apostolate work. Not just an imitation incarnation
but that deep within us as we are performing each work, we love. In what we
say, we love. In what we hold ourselves back from saying or doing, we love. That love
becomes the energy at the foundation of all we think, say and do.
I would like to invite
us in this week, in all our daily routines and the additional we may do as our
Legionary apostolate work, that we pay extra attention to our very subtle
intentions. May we be more conscious to love as Jesus loves us. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment