Dear friends of Gethsemane, peace be with you! In this Christmas season and at the beginning of the new year we have had and will have the great gift of listening to and meditating on the mystery of the Incarnation: God becomes flesh and manifests himself to all humanity. We know and see with our own eyes that a part of humanity seems to remain indifferent and incredulous before the visit of the Lord who comes to redeem us. The Prologue of John the Evangelist states this: "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God. (...) In him was life and life was the light of men; light shines in darkness, but darkness did not receive it. (...) He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not recognize him. (...) He came among his people, but his own did not receive him." (Jn 1,1.4-5.10-11). We can simply say that they are "old and always new things!" But we do not want to focus only on the non-reception of the Son of God... It would always be a too human re-reading! Let us turn our attention to the infinite Love that God the Father manifests in giving his only Son to all humanity beyond the capacity of acceptance that it demonstrates. And the gift with wonder begins to shine in us in an immeasurable way in belonging to Him: "To those who received him, however, he gave power to become children of God: to those who believe in his name, who were not born of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (...) From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace." (Jn 1,12-13.16). It is also the great mystery that HERE at Gethsemane, as in all the places of our redemption, God manifests himself concretely in a sublime and entirely new way, giving of himself: in his infinite Love, in his most precious Blood, in his Flesh, through his will... joined to the will of the Father, we were born his children! We too can praise the Lord with John and say: "From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace" (Jn 1:16). The beloved disciple finally writes: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..." (Jn 1:14). I share with you a number of questions that remain open to the search for our concrete support. I wonder: in this New Year, although still in the pandemic, how can we all allow God to "incarnate"? What is the concrete way to welcome him, love him, adore him and follow him in the way of love? What prevents us from accepting him? How does he "incarnate" in my house, in our reality? Happy New Year, may it be in the Lord.
Hora Sancta
We are the sons of St. Francis, and we are THE custodians, according to the will of God, of one of the places that Jesus loved the most: the garden called GETHSEMANE. This is a unique place in the world. It is the place where the Lord manifested his Yes forever by being ready to enter where nobody else had ever entered, where he plunged into darkness, in the final battle against death, in which humanity has always ended up being a loser.