Thursday 32nd week even numbered year
“The kingdom of God doesn’t lend itself for observation, and no one will say’ Look, there it is! Or : ’Here it is!”
The kingdom of God has a temporal dimension, it is present at the moment, present in the Person of Jesus. He is present in the Church which is the Body of of Christ, and which presents the mystery of his Incarnation in the union between what is human and what is divine.
By his loving presence and healings, Jesus brings the Kingdom of God furtehr into our hearts. We don’t discern it in a visible manner yet love can activiate our heart , making it sensitive. And so God’s Kingdom welcomes into each person’s lives, each of our relationships. Jesus is this Love personified, who transforms everything he touches, bringing his Love into t he world by healing it from sin!
Jesus is the Kingdom of God in person, the only touch of his hand, his gaze, his heart, establishes the Kingdom of God here and now.
This Kingdom is given to us and is transmitted to us so we reveal it today through loving hearts and through our hands, which bring forward this reign of Peace and of Love, in the Eucharistic “attitude of the Gift of his Life.”
“Jesus said again to his disciples :”A time will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of man and will not see it."
If the Kingdom is present in our midst, it is not in all is fullness. We are waiting for a future coming and a plentiful future. We can only taste now a foretaste of this future reality. We continue to live with many sufferings and hardships.
The kingdom remains under attack by Evil. At times we can’t se the fruit of how Christ Jesus bought us back.
We need to enrich our faith and hope. This former virtue give sus the necessary confidence to believe in Jesus’ promise, that he will come again and will introduce us into the fullness of His Kingdom.
This I how we can represent for ourselves God’s Kingdom : like when we arein the mountains and we see the sun come up, watching the hillside become invaded little by little by the light. Out of obscurity we can see big splashes that gradually all become enlightened and filled with light; we can nevr say atw hat point the mountain side became full of light..
’Before this comes about, he Son of man will have to suffer greatly’. This is going to transform our relationships. Jesus is this Kingdom that is announced in the Word of God which comes about little by little in our lives.
“They will say to you ’ Look, it is there!’ Or ’Look it is here!’ Don’t move, don’t go running off. For as lightening from one part of Heaven lights up the other part, so will the Son of Man be when the Day comes.”
Jesus prepares his disciples for the scandal of the Crucifixion. It si a reminder how the Kingdom comes at the price of hs passion and his Blood poured out for all mankind. His pierced side on he Cross is contemplated by Mary, she is the New Eve, brought out of Adam’s side. This is the reality of the delicate presence one which is laborious, of God’s mystery acting in all of Creation. This light enlightens each moment of history and human adventure. It is the revelation of God’s love at work in the Lord Jesus at the time of his Passion. This is where Jesus will reveal the Mystery of his being, his Love, his eucharistic attitude in the womb of the God of Life.
From now on the love and welcome that transform our lives is a light which will be able to make God’s Kingdom visible as if it is already at work in us.
It is our true Light, we don’t have to run but to welcome each moment of our life, marked by the revelation of the Mystery of God’s Infinite Love.
It is in our daily life that God’s Reign comes from now on. It frees us from all slavery. Jesu comes and converts the world from slavery which we bear within us so as to receive ourselves as the beloved child of the Father.