Year of Faith - Year of Love Vincentian Style

We just started the year of faith a few weeks ago, and this leads us to many thoughts and also many different ways to commemorate and live this special year. I worry that like many things it becomes a mere celebration of a new theme and not what it is intended to be. Which is a renewal of our living out our faith, not just a mere profession of our faith. I guess for the english speaking of the Church, this can be somewhat easier, because of the liturgical text changes recently made has forced to take a closer look at the words we say each time we come together for our eucharistic celebrations and try not to fumble as we say words like "consubstancial". All this aside I have tried to infuse our gatherings with a desire to deepen not just liturgical celebrations, but the effect all this has in our lives.

 

Vincent always invites us to do our best, to carry out what we have been entrusted with a deep sense of purpose, deep sense of mission. "To see Christ in the other" and that in turn that they may see "Christ in us", and our communion increases. This year I tried to look as an invitation to live this year of Faith, as a year of Love. Truly those words we hear: "for God so loved the world that he sent us his only son..." always resonate in our daily living. God's love, Father - Son - Holy Spirit, overflowing created us, calls us, and maintains us continuously. In our profession and living out that believe, is an invitation to acknowledge that relationship of love. The inmensity of that love is always present in our lives, and is continously infusing life that helps us truly Be.

 

I see in this Year of Faith, a chance to renew and in  which we can accomplish three goals: How we can enter to a deeper relationship with God creator, souce of all love and life. How we can deepen our love for ourselves, a truer picture of our graces and wrinkles, and living our personal vocations as a gift. And finally, How we can deepen our relationship with the other, as we are called to be Church and have the capacity to see other as a sibling, and equally entrusted in the mission. This requires time, I have to admit it gets hard to find long moments, but it is necessary. We don't want to becomes people who just do things, without it having a true connection that any of us. Words that are just said, help us to become politicians, but not practitioners of God's goodness.

 

So I guess its all about that moment, short or long, but deep a one. If a prayer is a simple word like "Abba", but it is full of meaning, recognizing that Father who loves, hears and never forgets us, then it is enough. For not for saying more, do we mean more. So I invite you, and remind myself,  to Love. My Faith invites me enter continuously in this dynamic of love and enjoy it. Knowing and Trusting that it will sustain us for all eternity. Remember what Vincent said "Do not overburden yourself with rules of devotion, but persist in doing well those you have, your daily actions, your work; in a word, let everything revolve around doing well what you are doing.." Au revoir mon amis.