Thursday, January 3, 2013

Matthew 9:13


Matthew 9:13

‘Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” ’ (Mt 9:13).

Caravaggio, when he painted the call of Levi, had a great intuition: he identified the gaze of Jesus with the ray of light that illuminates the faces of Levi and his tax collector friends.

Mercy needs to meet with misery, in order to manifest itself. The Son of Man came not for the righteous, but sinners. “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.”

To make ourselves known to the Lord means to undress ourselves of the fig leaves with which we want to hide our nakedness and to let ourselves to be dressed by His embrace. If we allow ourselves to love, then we too will be able to love: we will sell everything to possess the hidden treasure, the precious pearl.

Levi, whose name still suggests those living with obsession for money, became Matthew, evangelist and evangelizer, martyr, all of God, to the point of the gift of life.

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An Experience of Life:

When my husband abandoned us, Luke was four years old and for him I found the strength to continue to live.

One day I heard it said, for the first time, that God is love and sustains those who suffer ... I realized that I had to make a decisive change in my life. For Luke I had to be mother and father, without tarnishing with my deep resentment his relationship with his father.

Trying to live the Gospel step by step, caused in me a change; the great love for only one man was being poured out on those who passed by me: relatives, friends, colleagues, students ...

After a silence of almost ten years, Luke met his father and, not having grown up in resentment, it seemed normal for him to get back in touch with him.

Last year Frank was in the hospital and I recommended to Luke to visit him. When we had huge financial problems Luke spontaneously asked for help from his father who offered to him total willingness to help. He, who once had stripped us of everything, even taking away the spoons, now began to give back to us not that which he had deprived us, but the love that we had given to him.


E.F., Italy