Dear brothers and sisters, Fiat!

The Gospel of Luke, in the passage of Jesus’ journey toward Jerusalem, presents to us some messages that mean to descend into peoples’ heart. Jesus sees a lot of people who follow Him and therefore He turns back and explains what Christianity involves. Jesus is achieving a great fame and many people are attracted  to Him  but, as it often happens, the amount of people does not correspond to the quality and transparency of the life style. Jesus speaks openly and says that whoever does not carry his cross and follow Him cannot be His disciple.

Then He piles it on when He says to hate loves one because of the Gospel. The context makes us understand that to hate must not be interpreted in the sense of going against the fourth commandment, but it actually means “to love less than” or “to put behind”.

Jesus says that it is not easy to follow Him because you have put Him in first place always, so not even family links can impede God’s lordship over man.

Then Jesus mentions two parables taken from the Jewish context, but they refer to all times.

The first parable concerns a builder and the second a king, with a similar message: before starting any endeavour, you have to pause and reflect and to consider whether you are able to complete the work. The architect and the king accomplish this kind of effort, why doesn’t the Christian work in this perspective?

Jesus, at the end, reiterates the saying of being peoples capable of giving up all our possessions to gain eternal life.

Sometimes we take these passages lightly, or we say that they are too challenging.

But if we go down deep, we can see that we must grow and that it is important to make choices consistent with our belief. The radicality of the evangelical choice invites us not only to assert some ideas, but to accomplish them, even if we are aware of the cost of that choice. If we are called to choose between Jesus and money, pleasure or a career lived in such a way to destroy other people, we must undoubtedly choose Jesus. He invites us to meditate and consider if we want to become Christians or not , avoiding the risk of being tepid people or keeping a foot in both camps.

The Gospel seems to tell  us to empty ourselves  of all that is human, so that our will  may rise up to Heaven and the Divine Will descend upon earth

Nothing enters into Heaven to live communal life with God, if it not completely divinized and transformed completely into Him; nor can His Divine Will descend upon earth and carry out Its Life as within Its own center if It does not find the human will emptied of everything, so as to fill it with all the goods which God’s Will contains.

So the human will be nothing other than a most thin veil, which will serve Him to cover Himself and to dwell inside of it, almost like a consecrated host, in which God forms His Life, He does all the good He wants, He prays, He suffers, He enjoys. And the host does not oppose – it leaves Him free; its office is to be there to keep Him hidden, and to comply in mute silence to preserve His Sacramental Life.

This is the point we are at: our will entering Heaven, and God’s Will descending upon earth. Therefore, our will must no longer have life – it must have no reason to exist.

The same happened to Jesus’ Humanity: though It had a human will, this will was all intent on giving life to the Divine Will. It never arbitrated itself, not even to breathe on its own, but its breath also it would take and give in the Divine Will. This is why the Eternal Will reigned in His Humanity on earth as It does in Heaven, It lived Its terrestrial Life in It, and Jesus’ human will, fully sacrificed to the Divine, impetrated that, at the appropriate time, the Divine would descend upon earth to live in the midst of creatures, just as It lives in Heaven.

Jesus entrusts Luisa an important task – to live in the midst of the Most Holy Trinity and to make all that is theirs hers own, and to give it to Them on behalf of her brothers; so that, drawn by what is Theirs, They may be bound to the human generations, and give them, once again, the supreme kiss of the union of their will with God’s Will, which He gave man in Creation.”

Today we have changed the order of values, so what is necessary has become superfluous; having, appearances and power have become the criteria of our life, and we have lost the sense of simplicity, of listening, of dialogue, of silence, of reflection.

We are full of things, but empty of meaning and hope. This is the greatest poverty that we are experiencing today. May the Lord grant us the strength to put into practice these teachings through clear choices to be lived in faith, even at the cost of paying personally.

Fiat!

don Marco

From the website: http://www.luisapiccarretaofficial.org/news/luisa-in-the-world/157

After the association “Little Children of the Divine Will – Philippines and USA “(LCDW), this month we talk about the Korean community, whose establishment is much more recent.

This community has been founded in the Archdiocese of Seoul, where in 2009, retreats for priests, religious and hundreds of faithful were starting to be organized. Then, following approval by the then Archbishop, Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-Suk, about 300 faithful every month began to gather in Seoul at the Parish of Jeong Neug Parish (Our Lady of the Rosary) under the spiritual guide of the parish priest, Father Paul Beum Joo Lee  (born in 1951 and ordained a priest in 1983), to pray together, and then they divided into smaller groups to study and share the spirituality of the Divine Will.

Currently, there are 37 Divine Will prayer groups in Korea with the sole purpose of growing in the Knowledge of the spirituality of the Divine Will They officially started their meetings, weekly or sometimes monthly, in January 2009.

In truth, spiritual retreats for priests and religious people have already been organized in 2006, and in 2005 for lay people. Since then, about 2,000 people have been participating in these days of knowledge and deepening of the spirituality of the Divine Will.

In 2004, the Centre for Studies on the Divine Will was born. It is active in Korea and has the purpose of studying this spirituality and spreading it among the faithful. It is guided by 7 priests: three of them belong to the Congregation of the Missionaries of Maryknoll, that is, Gerald P. Farrell who brought the knowledge of the writings of Luisa from the United States to Korea, Father Joseph Slaby MM and P. Henry Beninati, the other four are: Father Rak Chang Chae Joseph, Father Francis Xavier Choi, Father Francis Ho Young Moon and Father Paul Lee. This group of priests meets every two months to deepen the knowledge of the writings of Luisa.

Together with the group of priests there is a group of volunteers that was born in September 2009: 35 lay members, men and women, who meet once a month to be formed, and they have the task of animating Divine Will meetings and retreats.

The spiritual formation usually consists first in the deepening of the writings of Luisa as the “Hours of the Passion,” The Virgin Mary in the Kingdom of the Divine Will “and” The rounds in the Divine Will “, then later in the study of the more difficult passages  contained in the books of  Luisa’s. Diary

Moreover, formation includes participation in retreats and two-week pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Italy, especially to Corato for visiting  Luisa’s house and the Church Santa Maria Greca.

As regards the retreats, four were organized recently, in 2013.

Three of them were held in Seoul, South Korea.

From April 11 to 13, a retreat was held in the Parish of Our Lady of the Rosary in Seoul, South Korea with 400 people, almost all of whom in their first meeting with this spirituality. Whereas, from April 15 to 20, again in Seoul there was another for those who already Knew it, for lay people, priests and religious  people in a House for spiritual exercises in which as many 225 people took part, including 15 priests, 50 women religious and 160 lay people.

From April 22 to 26, eight priests met at the House of the Maryknoll missionaries (Seoul), Among them there was  F. A. S. Antonisany, National Coordinator of the Marian Movement of Priests in India, who positively moved, expressed his wish to organize in India similar days of prayer and reflection.

Lastly, on April 29 there was a meeting of about 20 religious people of the Community “Sisters of the Mother of Jesus”, in the Diocese of Incheon, very close to North Korea. Its founder, Father Francis Moon of the  Archdiocese of Seoul, who is a friend of Father Gerald Farrell and Father Joseph Slaby, introduced years ago the spirituality of the Divine Will in his Institute.

The participation of 153 Koreans in the IV International Conference “Church in the Divine Will” which took place from April 23 to April 26 2015 in Corato was very characteristic.

Article published by LO STRADONE newspaper – July 2016

Francesca Maria Testini