Transcript of Abbot’s Talk of Monday, 11 February 2002
What I would like to reflect with you is "How do you view your life?" What does it mean to have a faith view of your life? When the Lord chose the apostles, let say, Andrew and Peter, brothers. When He called them, did He just say, "follow me?" Or did He have a bigger vision? Well, if He’s the Son of God then He certainly had the idea that they would be in glory with Him for eternity. But the apostles, of course, they have to struggle through life, crosses, grow in faith and so on and both of those apostles died on the cross. And so we have two possible views of our life. What happens in daily life and that what we know by faith where God is leading us. And we must exercise both.
So when you read for instance Paul’s whoever, scripture scholars are not sure, anyway, Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians which he gives us God’s plan. It says, "Praise be the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who has bestowed on us, in Christ, every spiritual blessing in the heavens." God chose us in him, before the world began to be holy and blameless in his sight, to be full of love. He likewise predestined us, through Christ Jesus, to be his adopted sons, such was his will and pleasure. That all might praise the glorious favor he has bestowed on us in his beloved. It is in Christ and through his blood that we have been redeemed and our sins forgiven so immeasurably generous is God’s favor to us. God has given us the wisdom to understand fully the mystery, the plan he has, pleased to decree in Christ to be carried out with the fullness of time, namely to bring all things in the heavens and on the earth into one under Christ’s headship.
So God is moving all of us to live a life full of love and in the process grow in greater community because the end product, of course, is the whole mystical body in glory as Chapter 21 of Book of Revelation says, "you don’t need a life in heaven because God will be all in all it’s light and it’s life." Now, of course, we could take tons of saints, so I’m going to take an exaggerated saint because you’ll never forget it. We should’ve had him as our procurator, St. Joseph Cottolengo. He was ministering to a woman in poverty who died in the process. He was so shocked by it that he immediately went out and purchased five houses to start a hospital, which he had no money for. He got some friends, doctors, nurses, volunteers, and started the place. Five houses. Soon it wasn’t enough.
So he began then to take care of the elderly, who were abandoned and the idiots he called them his "good boys and girls." The cholera came in 1831 on Italy and the government refused to let him keep the hospital going because they were bringing together so many people and so many problems they felt it was too dangerous. He didn’t even hesitate. He simply said "in my experience when you transplant a cabbage it grows better." So he started the place somewhere else. And he called the first house "picalocassa" it’s "Little House of Providence." Started again. Built a hospital, orphanages, homes for the aged, idiots, crippled, blind and so on. You know what, he never had an accountant! He never counted the revenues, nor the debits. And every time the Lord came through. But he did cheat. He formed houses of religious men and women to pray. He formed a Carmelite house of strict observance. He got them started. He formed a women’s kind of apostolic community. Men’s apostolic community and so on. And had them praying. And those institutions are going on today. So I want to reflect on Ephesians 1; 3-10 and how often do you reflect on your daily life from the point of view of what God is doing and what direction God wants to take in that daily life? And how are you allowing the Lord to move you in that direction?