Dearest Brothers and Sisters,

There are moments in which one is left scarce for words… and yet something must also be expressed! In thinking of the many times I have been asked that in the Notizario, there should be something useful for the aspirants, I have decided to write today by using the very words that were spoken to me by an aspirant, in 1978, in the vestibule of the Church dedicated to Mary Immaculate, in Naples. This particular sister, that had long been a sympathiser, she had stated "I have never had the courage to enter as an aspirant as I was afraid of the words of the consecration: ‘I seek God alone.’ I never understood how one could love God alone… I loved not only him, but my husband as well, the tenderest love of my children, my mother and father, I love many good and beautiful things, I love many other people as well… Then I understood something, God is Love. He is like a large river in which there are rocks big and small. All are bathed in the waters of this river, they are immersed and are part of it. And so I understood that the river is the love of God and the rocks that are bathed by the waters of that river of love are all those whom I love.

"I am able to love ‘God alone’ as all the other loves I have, are contained in my love for him, just as those rocks that are bathed by the waters of the great river. To seek God alone does not mean neglecting others, but to find all others in him, to take care of them because they are part of him. Now I no longer have any doubts about entering into aspirancy."

I recall what I replied to this sister (who has since remained faithful after 27 years of consecration) "It is a grace of God to have understood this, as you have understood not only with your mind but with your heart as well; the love of God is truly an immense river that contains all our lives and that draws them with it’s force from earth to heaven."

Dearest sisters and Brothers, long through these years I have often referred to this image of the river to that current of life in which we of the community are immersed... How many lives drawn by the current of God have reached their eternal destination and have ended their course in the great sea of the glory of God! The vision of the history of the community from it’s dawn to it’s journey today, in her tending to the perfection of love that is God, allows us to recognize in each of us one of those rocks in which the aspirant of Naples saw as immersed in this great river. In Biblical imagery, water is sign of the strength of the Spirit, it’s sign of the truth which is Christ, which is God. This uncomplicated symbolism that was able to speak to the heart of an aspirant, if we have matured that spiritual intelligence that in Church each year we ask for by the intercession of St John the evangelist, becomes in us also awareness of the Trinitarian mystery, participation to the life of the mystical body, but also participation to the life of the most holy Trinity.

Does the simplicity of the symbolism of the rocks in the large river, seem excessive when compared to the sublime contemplation of the mystery of God? No my dear brothers and sisters. By our vocation, we are called and trained for this. In the new community year that begins in September, we will all be called to a deeper understanding of this, by our reading of ‘The Christian mystery in the liturgical year’. May what that aspirant, 27 years ago, understood with the eyes of the heart, regarding God’s great love, and love for others, be for us too, a reference for that spiritual understanding and contemplation that the community offers and asks of us! May the grace of the transfiguration give us all this vision. This ‘vision of the Spirit’ that Cardinal Piovanelli, implored for us, from our Manual. May the summer break not allow us to take our attention away from the Lord.