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Dear friends of schoenstatt.org,<br>
each Sunday, our spanish speaking readers enjoy Fr Carlos Padilla`s
Sunday sermon... Now we also receive it in English.<br>
Greetings,<br>
maria<br>
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<div class="" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393168062334_4033"
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393168062334_4036"
style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.399999618530273px">Padre
Padilla’s Homily February 23, 2014</span></div>
<div class="" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393168062334_4042"
style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:garamond,'new
york',times,serif;font-size:19.09090805053711px;text-align:justify"><span
id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393168062334_4043"
style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.399999618530273px">Love
thy enemy, pray for those who persecute you.</span></div>
<div class="" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393168062334_4046"
style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:garamond,'new
york',times,serif;font-size:19.09090805053711px;text-align:justify"><i
id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393168062334_4045"><span
id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393168062334_4044"
style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.399999618530273px">The
breadth of the law doesn’t merely consist of giving
the corresponding amount, the minimum; but rather the
maximum. …</span></i></div>
<div class="" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393168062334_4048"
style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:garamond,'new
york',times,serif;font-size:19.09090805053711px;text-align:justify"><span
id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393168062334_4047"
style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.399999618530273px">The
other day, an eight year old girl asked me ‘What must I
do so that Jesus speaks to me?’ The question surprised
me but at the same time seemed so elemental. Is it
clear, what we must do so that God speaks to us? It
doesn’t appear that easy. His silences are disconcerting
and he words often seem incomprehensible to us. It
appears he doesn’t speak our language. At least, we
don’t understand him. His voice seems to be a whisper,
a cadence in the soul, a melody we barely listen to. But
he is there at our side, everyday accompanying us on our
path. He embraces us from behind without our feeling
his arms. He holds us when we feel tired and
overwhelmed. He tugs on us so to draw us from our
laziness, when we feel we can’t follow him. He speaks
and is silent, always watching over us. Yes, his gaze
is that of a father who loves, an open door to heaven,
an abyss of grace, a flare of hope in the middle of the
night. He continues to contemplate our steps, to foresee
our falls, to wait for us when we lose heart. But yes,
he respects our liberty. Never violent, he doesn’t force
us. He only wants to entice us with his love. To draw us
in with his voice. And suddenly, resting in his arms, we
have a new-come peace. And in our heart we find new
answers, as though He had sewn them in the soul as we
slept. It requires, with certainty, a garden well kept,
a ground worked, deep and fertile. It requires a deep
ocean because, in the noises of the daily world, His
voice is lost. It requires that we spend time at his
side, that we seek him out, that we spend time waiting
in a fruitless wait. It invites us to seek Him in
persons, in places, in emptiness. He doesn’t want us to
merely find him in people who we love, who fascinate us.
He wants us to find him also in those who are
displeasing to us, in the faces of those who are not our
friends. He wants us to read the book of our lives,
filled with errors and erasures. With patience, we
decipher signals, we lift stones, ventilating the place
in our souls where God wanders. Yes, clearly God speaks
to us. We can’t do anything so that he speaks to us more
or more clearly. But yes, we can do much to learn to
listen to his voice in the midst of so many voices that
confuse us. God speaks to us in humanity and through
humanity he leads us to the heights, to his heart.
Father Kentenich said “All that is created can inflame
my heart. A feminine figure, a beautiful land, a thought
etc. All of that might attract me, but in the final
terms, how I act [respond] should be in accord with the
divine.” We always want to go to greater heights, to
skip to the heights….</span></div>
<div class="" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393168062334_4056"
style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:garamond,'new
york',times,serif;font-size:19.09090805053711px;text-align:justify">
<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393168062334_4057"
style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.399999618530273px">Today
we hear what we are. God says that we are saints. “You
shall be saint because, I, the Lord, your God am holy.”
God has placed his glory in our heart, he has sown his
divine life in our soul. We are saints because he is
saint. Saint Paul said we are temples of God “Did you
not know that you are a saint, that the spirit of God
lives in you.The temple of God is holy; the temple of
God is in you. Make no mistake. If one of you thinks he
is wise in this world, he will be fooled in order to
become wise. Because the wisdom of this world is foolish
before God. 1 Corinthians 3, 16-23. It has to do with
longing, with tending to the intimacy with God. It has
to do with living in the temple of our flesh, in a
profound union with God. He lives in us, in our
transformed lives. But sometimes this temple has no
order, it lacks peace, it is muddied, it bears obstacles
that keep us from rising higher. The soul is heavy. It
weighs and pulls us down. It blunderingly enslaves us.
We want to love God but we love ourselves selfishly. We
desire to perfect that love…. But we don’t feel worthy
of His presence and we yearn it. We need to learn to
pray, to see God in our lives, to love Him in the temple
in our hearts. Although we like spectacular things and
extraordinary encounters with God, God speaks to us in
our very life, in the holy temple of the soul, filled
with our loved ones and our unloved ones, filled with
our encounters and our missed encounters, filled with
our accords and our rantings, filled with routine. There
is God watching over, wanting to live in our hearts.</span></div>
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