Who made the Virgin mother? Jesus. Jesus is formed in her and then forms the Virgin, making her fully a woman, fully a wife, fully a mother, fully a queen.
What did she do? Consecrate your entire existence to Him, and tenderly caress, care for the Gift. This morning we are going to fix our gaze on this Virgin, on the Virgin, the Virgin of Advent: she is pregnant.
When we are shouting throughout Advent: 'Come! ' It is because we have faith, we talk to someone who is our life. 'Come!
' It is the cry of the beloved who begs for what she herself cannot do, nor even deserves: for life to burst into her bowels. The Virgin is pregnant, full of life, of grace, of Jesus. And we see in it the forgetfulness of haste.
How is that 'come! ' possible? so ardent with the oblivion of haste?
It is clear: she is already enjoying the presence of the One who inhabits her. The Virgin would be longing to see her child, his eyes, his hands, his. .
. , but that did not stop her from enjoying the present moment. The promise that God has made to us about our lives cannot make us nervous or uneasy, because she knows that this gestation period is necessary for her child to be born perfect.
That is why Advent invites us to enjoy the present having a lot of tenderness, there is a lot of tenderness in the Virgin. But the Virgin does not have tenderness for herself, the tenderness is being given to her by the One she carries within herself. What's more, tenderness is awakened by another: I do not awaken tenderness in myself, it is awakened by the child, by the life he carries in his womb.
For this reason, María enjoys the present, she is not worried about what is to come. And caress, with time, with time, the One who, being in her womb, receives the constant caress of the Mother, because she is giving her own body and her own life to Him. This is the caress: not just a soft hand, but his entire body at the disposal of this life.
This is consecration: all of it consecrated to that life that it has inside and that is why it takes care of itself, and that is why it is guarded, and that is why it prays, and that is why it caresses, because it loves the life that it carries in its womb. The future does not unsettle us, nor does the rush make us uneasy when the present is already inhabited and full of meaning because, furthermore, everything happens at the pace that God wants. A child is not made in a month, it is ruined, life has its rhythm, it has its time, and the Son of God submitted to the rhythm of life, so that we learn to wait, already enjoying his presence.
Look at the Mother, how she caresses the gift of God, forgotten by all time. He knows every day how everything has to happen. Knowing how to wait, the Virgin of Advent is teaching us to know how to wait.
How many times does evil enter here: 'I already had to be. . .
', 'it seems that nothing happens in my life'. When you are saying: 'I already. .
. it seems to me. .
. ' is that you believe that you have to bring the gift to its fullness and at the pace that you thought. What does the Virgin of Advent do?
Caress the gift. Wait immersed in prayer, immersed in prayer, enjoying that the poverella, the small creature, 'magnificat', that an immense God has thought of her, has chosen her, has consecrated her, has made her a temple of Trinitarian love, and He enjoys caressing the gift, he can't do more. Give yourself, consecrate yourself to the gift, and caress with infinite tenderness the miracle that the emptiness of man without Jesus has already disappeared, life has already dawned in us.
Therefore, it is time to gratefully render every word of impatience before God. That 'come, hurry up' doesn't have to be a demand. You get restless when you are impatient, and that is why Jesus is not conceived sooner.
If the Virgin had gotten nervous in the fourth month and they had tried to have her born, what would have happened? Life has its times, its rhythms and God is very patient with us. Patience is the art of peace, it is not putting up with ourselves but the art!
It is an art, the art of knowing how to wait while enjoying the present moment. The world does not know how to do this, they are always looking for new things because the void is so great without Jesus, -I say the world when there is no faith, I mean. .
. -. The void is so big that it must be filled with adventures, with trips, with new, strange, different experiences, to cry again every night in bed, the emptiness, the loneliness.
One more minute. This is what is required: caring for Jesus here, now. No one is made by force of blows, but by tenderness.
They say that a maternal caress calms more than any strong painkiller, a child is crying, you give him a pill: he continues crying. Because the physical wound does not hurt, the absence of the heart, of love, hurts. Physical pain can be endured, but the pain of the emptiness of the heart, the pain of nothingness, of the lack of love, that is hell, the absence of love, is unbearable.
And there is no painkiller that can calm that pain. That is why I asked this morning, I asked for each one of us that, at home, here, a community Advent be lived, in communion, Jesus being formed in each of us, but knowing that 'you did it to Me'. That tenderness not only has to translate into something that I take care of inside myself, but taking care of my life and my interior, taking care of my sister.
You can give the caress that you want to give to Jesus today, the service that you want to give to Jesus, however you are and as you can today, no other rhythm is asked of you. May the community be that womb in which Jesus is being formed and we caress each of my sisters. Communion, only one: Jesus, Iesu Communio, Jesus, cared for, guarded, not only in me, all of you are that Church, that Jesus whom I have to caress, guard, love.
And I asked him for those Easter phrases to be fulfilled, I hope they can be seen in our house, what incomparable tenderness and charity! It has to be seen, the tenderness is seen. Have you ever seen tenderness?
I do! Charity is seen. Have you seen the charity?
They are visible. May our home be this: 'look at the Virgin, look at the tenderness, look at the charity', lived in communion. May the Virgin of Advent teach us that incomparable tenderness and charity, incomparable because it is not hers, it is not typical of the creature, it is typical of God in the creature, that is why it is incomparable.
