Pumpenai, Lithuania, April 1^st, 2019

For freedom Christ set us free

Gal 5: 1

Dear Fathers, Brothers, Seminarians, and Novices: 

In a couple of weeks, we will solemnly celebrate Holy Week, appropriately called the Great Week of all Christendom. During this week we will contemplate Jesus Christ, Crucified and Risen, “who gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity, freeing us from all slaveries of sin, from the punishment due to sin, from death, from the power of the devil and from the mosaic law.”

For this the Son of God became flesh: to deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage, as the Apostle Paul teaches us.

Christ’s Paschal Mystery, an inexhaustible source of spirituality, must always illuminate our lives so that we can reach the noble goal of being experts in the wisdom of the cross, in the love of the cross, and in the joy of the cross, as our Constitutions so wisely instruct us, in order to live as a resurrected people, to live the freedom of God’s children characteristic of the new man, in accordance with the New Law – the Holy Spirit – always with immense joy and dedication to the mission.

Today, one of the most used words in the contemporary scene is probably “freedom.” And we see how many understand this being free – or living as resurrected – as freeing themselves from what externally restricts them in any way. Therefore, they hate discipline, they fall into the indulgence of the flesh, and are indifferent to the truth. There are not a few who also want a religion that adjusts itself to “their way” of living or even a religious life that adjusts to “their way.” For this reason, there has not been, nor will be, any lack of false prophets who dilute doctrine in order to make “religion” or “religious life” – and even Christian life itself – more popular (in the bad sense), to the point that it is difficult to distinguish it from a secular and worldly movement. But this is not the freedom that Christ won for us.

The freedom that our Redeemer won for us is that interior freedom of perfection, not in order to choose evil, but to possess the good. This is precisely the liberty that mainstream culture and modern man do not want, because among other things it implies responsibility and sacrifice.

That is why we, as religious of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, who want to show by our lives that Christ is alive, must, today and always, “live as if we were resurrected,” which implies, as our Directory of Spirituality explicitly states, to “seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. [To] set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth;” that is to say, to “live in the freedom of the children of God who are not enslaved: 

• neither under the elemental spirits of the universe;
• nor under the letter that brings death;
• nor under the spirit of the world;

because we must not submit again to the yoke of slavery… (otherwise) Christ would be of no benefit to us.”

The Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen said that “The root of all our trouble is that freedom for God and in God has been interpreted as freedom from God. Freedom is ours to give away. Each of us reveals what we believe to be the purpose of life by the way we use freedom. For those who would know the supreme purpose of freedom, turn to the life of Our Lord and Our Lady.”

Therefore, during the upcoming celebrations of the Paschal Mystery I want to invite all of you to contemplate our Redeemer in His Passion: from the pulpit of the cross and with His nailed hands, He threw open the floodgates of freedom, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness…

1. Jesus Christ, the only King who deserves to be served

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna, the Incarnate Word instructed us.

The whole scene of Calvary is wrapped in these words of our Lord, because in them is revealed the supreme battle of each soul: the battle to save our spiritual freedom.  We cannot serve God and money; we cannot save our life both in time and in eternity; we cannot celebrate here and in life everlasting; either we fast here and celebrate in heaven, or we have our party here and fast in eternity.

“Today they have extended in a great way the range of the abuses of freedom, and this leads to new forms of slavery, very dangerous ones, because they are disguised under the appearance of freedom.” In the name of this false freedom, or better said, “modern slavery,” many want the resurrection without going through the Passion. This is why they do not want to hear about penance, or active and passive purifications, or the fight against the world, the devil, and the flesh, or the urgency of the mission, or obedience, or serious spirituality, or the irreplaceable importance of a life of prayer, etc.: all those elements that are a part of the normal way of sanctification proposed by Christ.

The whole current environment will make it so that in order to live our freedom with Christ, we will very probably have to have a “hard time” of it. This is an unavoidable reality – as we learned back in the Seminary. Therefore, we should not be surprised to see in our own lives that which our Lord announced to us: If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world…, the world hates you.. And what is said of the world should also be applied to the worldly, be they laity, religious (or ex-), priests, or bishops. Nevertheless, what is important for us is to always keep in mind that true freedom consists in keeping our soul “ours,” even if we must lose our body to preserve it.

Sometimes we can preserve our soul easily, but occasions can arise that demand even the sacrifice of our life. The example of innumerable martyrs throughout the history of the Church shows that in order to save their souls and remain faithful to God, they considered losing their lives as nothing. It has been said of them that in order to be free, love for life did not deter them from death.

For all of us the supreme moment will arrive in which we must choose between temporal pleasure and eternal freedom. Not once, but many times in our life, in diverse circumstances and on different levels. This option was very clearly presented to our Lord on Calvary and He kept His soul free, even at the cost of His life. He lowered Himself to the corporal slavery of the Cross in order to keep His soul “His” and surrendered Himself into his Father’s hands.

Christ yielded His majesty to the supremacy of His enemies, He enslaved His hands and feet to their nails, He subjected His body to the tomb, surrendered His most Holy Name to the scorn of His enemies, poured out His most Precious Blood when He remained unmoved before the lance, submitted His consolation to his enemies’ plan of pain, and put His life, like a servant, at His feet. But He always kept His spirit free for Himself. That is to say, Christ gave His body up to the brutality of men, but not His soul, because he knew that, maintaining His freedom, He could recover all the rest that He had surrendered into their hands. His enemies knew this, and that is why they tried in every way to enslave His spirit by defying His power: Let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him.

If Jesus Christ, having the power to come down from the cross, nevertheless refused, then in reality He was not a crucified prisoner, but rather a judge on His bench and a king on His throne. If He, having the power to come down from the Cross, had in fact done so, He would have submitted to the will of His enemies and therefore, He would have become their slave, desacralizing and trampling the precious gift of freedom.

Christ refused to do the human thing, to come down from the Cross. He did the divine thing and stayed there! And by doing so, He kept His soul “His.” Having kept His spirit for Himself, Christ was master of Himself.  This is the model to which we must conform our lives, since nothing less is expected of us: “We want to form priestly souls of priests who are not ‘tributaries,’ priests who will fully live the Christian and priestly kingship and lordship”, our Constitutions say.

This is why they strongly exhort us to live a life of mastery, namely: 

a) Dominion over oneself: in the measure that man triumphs over sin, he dominates the incentives of the flesh, and governs his soul and body. The religious, in the measure that he subjects his soul completely to God, becomes indifferent and detached from the things of the world. This doesn’t imply a powerlessness, but on the contrary, a dominant and free will, able to be devoted to things of the world without being dominated by them. 

b) Dominion over people: in the measure that the religious generously surrenders to the service of Jesus Christ – the only King that deserves to be served – he acquires an effective, though spiritual, royalty over men, even over those who have power and authority, and even over those who abuse it. This dominion comes about because the religious takes the burden of their sin and their hardships upon himself, by a humble and helpful love that comes through his self-sacrifice.  

c) Dominion over the world, and this in two ways: 

– By collaborating with the created world through work, and with the redeemed world through apostolate. For this royalty to be effective, there must be a dedication to things, along with a detachment from and an indifference to these same things. 

– By leaving the world behind, be it for fidelity to the same world (a means and not an end), or by fidelity to God, resisting concupiscence, temptations, and sins of the world; by being indifferent to the maxims, jeers and persecutions of the world, depending only on our good conscience illuminated by faith, ready for martyrdom – the full and total rejection of the evil world – for fidelity to God.

I think that it would be very fruitful during these days of Lent to contemplate and observe the fact that our Lord kept His spirit free at the most terrible price to remind us that not even fear of crucifixion is a motive for abandoning the most glorious of all freedoms: that of being able to hand over our soul to God.

In so far as we remain fast in our purpose as religious of the Incarnate Word, namely: “We seek the glory of God and the salvation of our own souls, and those of our brethren. We do this especially by practicing those virtues that allow us to share more fully in Christ’s emptying of Himself” and in committing all our strength to inculturate the Gospel, we can say that we advance towards the goal. We must keep this resolution intact like Christ conserved His spirit: “a true religious has to love and keep strict faithfulness to his Institute, who has begotten him in the religious life, to the point of, if necessary, giving his life.” No less than this is expected of us. To act in any other way would be to conduct ourselves as enemies of the cross of Christ.

One of the last words of Christ on the cross, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit, shows that our Lord never lost sight of His objective and, since He didn’t, He sacrificed all the rest in order to keep Himself free to reach it. 

This was the recommendation of the Incarnate Wisdom to the rich young man: Go, sell what you have, in order to be able to run more perfectly on the road to eternal life. Our Lord Himself left everything, including His life, and in this way, He taught us the way and the price of “eternal freedom”, as Mgr. Fulton Sheen so beautifully called it. 

From Christ’s sacrifice of His life in order to keep His spirit free, we ought to learn to never let ourselves be conquered by the sorrows, trials, and disappointments of this life, from whomever they come. Because the danger will always exist – and not a few have fallen into it – that, forgetting the ideal, we will focus more on saving our body than saving our soul, and, wanting to have a part in the world, we do not take part in the Redemption. We would run the risk of resembling of that Demas who, enamored of the present world, deserted the preaching of Saint Paul and his mission, as it has sadly repeated itself throughout the history of the Church and, in fact, has also happened with some of those who were with us.

How often we blame people, things, and sometimes even institutions for being indifferent to our pains and sorrows, as though these were the most important things. Sometimes it even seems like we want nature to suspend its work, or people to stop doing their duties, not just to attend to our needs, but also to console us with their sympathy.

If we forget that often work is more than comfort, we will become like those people who get seasick and want the boat to stop, without caring that hundreds of people will be delayed and can forget about arriving to their destination, if necessary, just so they will be taken care of.

Let us notice that Our Lord on the Cross could have made all of nature attend to His wounds; He could have changed the crown of thorns into a wreath of roses, His nails into a scepter, His Blood into a royal robe, His cross into a golden throne, His wounds into precious stones. But this would have meant that the ideal of sitting at the right hand of the Father in glory would have become secondary to an immediate and temporal earthly consolation. Thus, the goal of His life would have been less important than a moment in it; the freedom of His spirit would have relegated to the healing of His hands; the superior being would have been enslaved to the inferior being, and this is precisely what we must avoid. So, we have to be very attentive, since this temptation constantly appears and reappears in our lives.

We must keep in mind that the only necessary and most important thing in the Christian life is to save our souls and to purchase the glorious freedom of the children of God. Christ remained on the cross until all was finished. He is our Model, and like Him we ought to remain on the cross until our lives are consumed. In other words, we should never descend from the end and supreme purpose of life: the salvation of our souls; but rather persevere to the end in our faithful surrender to God. This is our eternal destiny and the goal of our faith. 

Often the temptation could be strong and the temporal advantages appear enormous, unmissable, and within arm’s reach; but in these moments, we should remember the great difference between the concern for temporal pleasures and the attraction of our heavenly destination. Because as the Apostle Saint Paul says: The sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us. 

Remember when we were kids and a toy broke or we did not get something that we fancied, we felt like the world was collapsing around us for the “tragedy” that had happened to us? Now, let us think: these “great sorrows” of childhood that later, with maturity, become insignificant, are they not the symbol of the triviality of our current sorrows and sufferings, in comparison with the joys that wait for us in the mansions of the House of the Father? Because What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him and persevere to the end with great fidelity.

2. We were called for freedom

The sublime example of the Man of Sorrows, which is our road to travel in order to keep our souls free and for God alone, is also from the beginning – and should remain so always – the ideal to be reflected in the whole Institute with regard to its foundational charism and spiritual patrimony, which is like the soul that animates it.

Throughout these 35 years of existence, how many trials, how many attacks, how many contradictions we have had to face to keep – like Christ – the spirit intact! But it was worth it!

This is how it ought to be, and this is how it should continue. The sorrows and crosses of life are unavoidable for a good Christian, but at the same time they are unmistakable signs of our belonging to Christ. This is the golden teaching written in the very essence of the Paschal Mystery that we contemplate in a special way during Holy Week. What better sign of our reality than the sign of the cross! That is why from the beginning we have asked for the grace of “poverty and persecution” and we ought to continue to beg for it.

But like we said before, Jesus Christ is the only King who deserves to be served, and therefore, it is worth it to resist the maxims, taunts, and persecutions of the world and of the worldly, and even be ready to be martyred for loyalty to God, remaining unwavering in the charism and the specific and single purpose of the Institute. 

We would not be able to say that we were progressing if, as the years go by – through external pressure or internal problems, through fear or under the pretext of “fervor,” for some passing trend or apocalyptic wind, or through self-seeking, or for diplomacy of convenience, of for whatever motive – we go changing our objective and finish by blurring our identity. This is, in particular, the argument of attack and, at the same time, the temptation of many religious orders, and is perhaps the principal cause of their fall and descent to complete destruction and demise (in some cases we could even speak of “free-fall”).

It is good to note and remember that “all true renewal of religious life consists in a constant return, with the necessary adaptation, to the spirit bequeathed by the Founder and the observance of the Constitutions, that is to say, the patrimony of the Institute, in which is contained the riches that the Holy Spirit has granted it for the good of the Church.” This is a constant teaching of the Magisterium of the Church.

Unfortunately, sometimes, under the pretext of zeal or “saving” action, some want to move us away from our identity or ferociously attack some of the non-negotiable elements included in the charism. The history of religious life clearly teaches us that this has been and is a constant of authentic charisms in the Church. Our Institute has not been exempted from these dangers and this should not surprise us.

We have to know that, if we are faithful to our vocation in the Church, we will be attacked and slandered: or because we are Thomists, or because we carry out popular missions, or because we send missionaries to missions ad gentes, or because of the solemnity of our liturgy, or because we read the great Christian mystics, and here we have to add a long etcetera. How many trials, obstacles, contradictions, malicious stories and other “senselessness” they have made us suffer throughout these 35 years! How often they have accused us of one thing only to then accuse us of the contrary! How many – including from those whom we believed to be “ours” – have fallen into these nets! How many acted like those who passed by Calvary shouting, save yourself… [and] come down from the cross!, since they also were interested in salvation… but physical, not spiritual, and equated the saving power of Christ with being free from tribulation! They forgot Saint Paul’s warning: For you were called for freedom, brothers. But do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh; that is why they did not make further progress, for their foolishness was plain to all. We should not forget that being persecuted for Christ’s name, for our fidelity to him, is the last Beatitude proclaimed by the Lord, and has, of course, one condition: that what is said of us be false: Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.

Blessed John Henry Newman said: “… the religion of the natural man in every age and place – often very beautiful on the surface, but worthless in God’s sight – is good, as far as it goes, but worthless and hopeless, because it does not go further, because it is based on self-sufficiency, and results in self-satisfaction. I grant, it may be beautiful to look at[…]; it may have all the delicacy, the amiableness, the tenderness, the religious sentiment […]; but still it is rejected by the heart-searching God, because all such persons walk by their own light, not by the True Light of men, because self is their supreme teacher, and because they pace round and round in the small circle of their own thoughts and of their own judgments, careless to know what God says to them, and fearless of being condemned by Him…”

The only religion that can help the world is precisely that which contradicts the world and whose supreme acts are the Beatitudes. That is why the Lord laughs at them, because he sees that their day is coming.

“Man cannot be genuinely free,” warned John Paul the Great, “or foster true freedom unless he recognizes and lives the transcendence of his being over the world and his relationship with God; for freedom is always the freedom of man made in the image of his Creator. […] To be set free from injustice, fear, constraint and suffering would be useless, if we were to remain slaves in the depths of our hearts, slaves of sin. To be truly free, man must be set free from this slavery and transformed into a new creature. The radical freedom of man thus lies at the deepest level: the level of openness to God by conversion of heart, for it is in man’s heart that the roots of every form of subjection, every violation of freedom, are found. Finally, for the Christian, freedom does not come from man himself: it is manifested in obedience to the will of God and in fidelity to his love. It is then that the disciple of Christ finds the strength to fight for freedom in this world.”

As the Apostle said: But you, remain faithful to what you have learned since, as the prophet said: They will fight against you, but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you – oracle of the Lord. So, let us risk all to remain anchored in the truth, in the charism, and in the spiritual patrimony of the Institute, all of which, in the end, is being faithful to God Who inspired it. Because “an enterprise which is going to do so much for the glory of God and the salvation of men will have its way strewn with thorns and crosses. If you don’t take risks for God, you won’t give anything worthwhile.”

3. The cross: prelude to the glory of the Resurrection 

During Holy Week we will more than once have the opportunity to listen to the account of the Passion of Our Lord, and if we pay attention, we will see that no difficulty, no matter how great, dissuaded Christ from His divine purpose: giving His life for man’s redemption. He didn’t even permit twelve legions of angels to help Him in His darkest hour, nor the sponge soaked with vinegar to touch His lips to mitigate the pains of the Cross.

The Incarnate Word, freely, deliberately, and always with the same purpose of redeeming us, took upon Himself corporal suffering, mental anguish, bitter disappointment, the false judgement of justice, the betrayal of true friendship, the perversion of the honor of the court, and violent separation from the love of His Mother. And after three hours of agony He said: It is finished.

This cry of Our Lord wants to tell us that suffering is part of God’s plan. If not, He would have rejected it. This is something we know well, but it is good to remember it: the cross is part of God’s plan, otherwise Jesus would not have embraced it. Even more, the cross is God’s plan. The crown of thorns is part of God’s plan, otherwise He would not have worn it. Nothing is accidental in the Passion; all is providentially ordered, calculated by God for our greater good. The plan’s complete meaning would not be completely revealed until three days later, in His Resurrection.

This same plan is ours to repeat, and on our choices depend eternal realities. This is why what is important is not so much what the sufferings, trials, and obstacles will be, but rather how we react to them. Because our attitude before the cross immortalizes us, for good or for evil.

One wonders if there was ever a more optimistic expression about the trials of this life than those words of Saint Paul that our proper law delights in citing: all things work for good for those who love God. Saint Paul does not say that all the catastrophes and experiences that happen to us, from the only definitive point of view of faith, come together for our good, because no one who has faith would say that life does not have its miseries. It simply means that those who have faith react differently to the same affliction than those who do not have faith or who have a very weak faith. It is faith that makes one not seek the agreeable or productive in life, but rather accept even sorrow and pain as a part of the framework of the mantle of holiness that God weaves for each one.

Ven. Fulton Sheen said – and we should learn these words well and always give thanks for the crosses that come upon us: “The attacks and external problems rather root than destabilize a man with true faith, like the storm roots the oak more deeply into the earth.” This we have also often experienced. 

As our faith increases, we draw nearer to the folly of the cross that gives us the ability to transcend defeat, that does not repay anyone evil for evil, and that, despite the difficulties and troubles of this life, does not get discouraged. Because we know that before us advances the One who instead of the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross and offered us His Heart for the repose of our lives.

From this it follows learning to make the most of sufferings and at least fighting to bear them with greatest patience, without voluntary complaints, increasing them by voluntary and permanent immolation, and by universal intercession, making them fruitful for the good of all, especially the poor, sinners, and enemies.

And so, our proper law encourages us to rejoice also in sufferings: as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, conscious that the suffering of the cross is necessary and the unavoidable condition of the glory of the Resurrection. Jesus did not deceive us; He told us clearly: You will grieve, but your grief will become joy, and He assured us: I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.

Only those who genuinely love Our Lord and have faith in eternal life can laugh at the falsity and vanity of this world’s pomp; a laugh that wells up from the Infinite towards the finite that tries to set itself up as an absolute.

Christ on the cross, despoiling the principalities and the powers, … made a public spectacle of them, leading them away in triumph by it, and he put all things beneath his feet, that is to say, he deprived them of their dominion, they have lost their power. Jesus Himself told us: Take courage, I have conquered the world. . 

Therefore, before the many battles that are and will be ours throughout our life – individually and as an Institute – and even in the midst of the worst anguish, “we all have to let the joy of faith slowly revive as a quiet yet firm trust” and pray like Blessed John Henry Newman, saying, “Teach us, dear Lord, frequently and attentively to consider this truth: that if I gain the whole world and lose you, in the end I have lost everything; whereas if I lose the world and gain you, in the end I have lost nothing.”

In the midst of crosses, let us remain firm upon our Cornerstone and respond to the worldly like Daniel did, who before the mockery of the haughty monarch who said: Who is the God who can deliver you out of my hands? responded: Our God, whom we serve, can save us from the white-hot furnace and from your hands, O king… But even if he will not, you should know, O king, that we will not serve your god or worship the golden statue which you set up.

Jesus Christ made use of life’s contradictions in order to redeem us; we also ought to make use of them to apply the fruits of this redemption. “The co-redemptive efficacy of our sufferings depends on their union with the Cross, and in the measure and degree of that union.” So we also ought to learn to take on the adverse circumstances, the crosses of this life, without that “depressive attitude that sees more evil than good,” but rather, assume them with supernatural joy in the soul.

The worldly person will always have sadness as a companion, be it open or hidden, because he cannot escape from the reality of knowing that outside this world that is perishing, he is a wretch: the fleshly person does not accept what pertains to the Spirit of God, for to him it is foolishness. Whereas the more one is supernatural, the more one is joyful, not because he does not suffer adversities, but precisely because he disposes himself to receive the gift of the wisdom of the cross that necessarily brings with it the joy of the cross. 

This joy of the cross is closely related to the Redemption, because it is Christ raised on the wood for our salvation who raises us from the precariousness of this world. Only those who are in the world without being of the world can have an appreciation for the events of this life that is serious and free from sorrow. If one always has before him the Kingdom of God, heaven as a goal, one sees this world and society with all its problems much more clearly and according to the truth: The spiritual person, … can judge everything but is not subject to judgment by anyone.

Let us embed in our mind and in our heart that ours is “to be victims with the Victim” but always victorious in spirit. This is to live as resurrected, that is to say, according to the consequences of the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ:

• To live according to the New Law – the Holy Spirit –: which means “to live according to the reality that the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us. It is to live according to faith working through love, and love never fails.”

• To live in the freedom of the children of God since for freedom Christ set us free. “Authentic freedom identifies with holiness, with the New Law, with the Christian faith and with charity. It is freedom of the children of God. Freedom has truth as its foundation… [and] is characteristic of those who allow the Holy Spirit to lead them.”

• To live as new men: The new man is opposed to the old man, corrupted through deceitful desires. “The new man is the ‘interior man’, strengthened with power through his Spirit. The new man is identified with the spiritual man. He is the man who sings the ‘new song.’”

• To live with immense joy: “For us, joy must be manifested in special ways: in the celebration of the Lord’s Day, Sunday; in having a sense of feasting; and in the recreation that we call eutrapelia.” Joy that “is spiritual and supernatural, and arises from meditating on the mystery of the [Resurrection of the Lord].” Therefore, “joy can be felt in both prosperity and adversity. In prosperity it consists not in the goods we enjoy but in those we hope for; not in the pleasures we experience but in the promise of those which we believe without our seeing. Riches may abound but those for which we hope are the kind which moths do not eat, rust consume, nor thieves break through and steal. Even in adversity there can be joy in the assurance that the Divine Master Himself died through the Cross as the condition of His Resurrection.”

• To live with great commitment to the mission: without dodging the missionary adventure; conserving “spiritual fervor, the joy of evangelizing, even when we have to sow among tears.”

* * * * *

Dear all: sorrows, labors, sacrifices… what do they matter? While we announce the One who said: I am the resurrection and the life, nothing should distress us. We must transmit God’s truth, even at the price of our blood. We must transmit God’s holiness, accepting to be signs of contradiction. We must transmit God’s will, even to giving our lives for the sheep.

May this Easter that we will soon celebrate find us more and more determined to be new men. Let us not fear the Cross, but rather be ardent to sacrifice ourselves.

Easter means the most absolute freedom. It is the freedom that Christ won for us when He died on the Cross, to give us the example that we should always give the most eminent priority to the Will of the Father. And with this He taught us not to be tributaries, not to submit to temporal powers, or to the spirit of the world, or to cultural trends, as if they were the final end instead of God.

Let us not forget one of the greatest teachings of the Letter to the Galatians: that for freedom Christ has set us free; this is a sentence full of meaning. And the best way to be free is in imitating Him, that is, shifting ourselves from the center of motivation and fixing our choices, decisions, and actions in Divine Love. Let us always keep in mind that freedom is ours to give; we are free to choose our servitude. Surrendering to God’s love is giving oneself up to happiness and therefore, being perfectly free. And thus, to serve Him is to reign. 

May the Most Holy Virgin Mary, the freest person after Christ, grant us the grace to follow each day of our lives her wise motherly advice: Do whatever he tells you.

I wish you a very fruitful Holy Week and a joyful Easter and send you all a big hug.

In the Incarnate Word,

Fr. Gustavo Nieto, IVE 

General Superior