III — JESUS’ COMPASSION

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Presence of God. — O Jesus, my Lord and Father, have compassion on my poor soul and sustain it with your grace.

Meditation

1 — One thought surfaces in a special way from the liturgy of the day and dominates it all: the Lord is the merciful Father who has compassion on us and nourishes our souls. Our soul is always hungry, always in need of nourishment and support for its supernatural life. God alone can give us fitting nourishment, and today the Church has us address to Him this beautiful prayer: “O God of hosts, from whom proceeds all that is best, sow in our hearts love... increase in us the spirit of religion... nourish in us all that is good and preserve what You have nourished” (Collect). The heavenly Father benignly receives our supplication and answers us by directing us to his divine Son, to his Only-Begotten whom He sent into the world so that it might have life in Him. Precisely in the Epistle St. Paul reminds us that “as we were baptized into Christ’s death,” so in Him we have “risen to newness of life” and in Him we can “live unto God.” In Jesus, therefore, in his redemption, we find all that we need to nourish the life of our souls; we find grace, love, faith, support for our good resolutions, just as we had asked in the Collect. It is a great joy for us to hear repeated that we have risen in Christ to “newness of life”; it is a great comfort for our weakness. Yet one dark point remains: but then why do we continue to fall, why do we still find ourselves so miserable? A more attentive reading of the Epistle lets us discover the reason: because we are not yet wholly “dead” with Christ, because in us “the old man” has not yet been “crucified” to the point of no longer being “slaves of sin.” In a word, if we want to live fully the life that Christ conquered for us by his death, we must first die with Him. And since this concerns not the material death of the body but a spiritual death to our defects and passions, this death must be continuously renewed: “et quotidie morior” (1 Cor. 15:31), every day I die to myself. The weakness of our spiritual life depends on the insufficiency of our death. 2 — In the Gospel we hear Jesus’ good words: “I have compassion on this multitude.” Jesus has compassion on us, on our weaknesses, our faintheartedness, the irresolution of our will. He sees our souls tired, hungry, in need of help, and, as one day to the crowds that came to hear Him, He repeats to us too: “I have compassion!” Jesus’ compassion is directed first of all to our spiritual needs. For these He has already provided abundantly by his Passion and Death; yet He wishes to continue providing for them every day in the most personal and most direct way by offering Himself as food to our souls. The Gospel speaks to us of the second multiplication of loaves, but for us, more fortunate than the crowds of Palestine, Jesus has reserved a bread infinitely more nourishing and more precious: the Eucharist.

Enchanted by Jesus’ word, the crowds had followed Him, forgetting even their own needs: for three days they had stayed with Him and had nothing to eat. What a lesson for us, too often far more concerned with material food than with spiritual! And Jesus, after having abundantly provided for the needs of their spirit, thinks also of those of the body. His disciples, instead, are astonished: “How can anyone here in a desert find bread enough to satisfy them?” They had already witnessed the first multiplication of loaves, but now they seem not to remember it at all and remain distrustful. How many times we too have touched with our hand the miracles of grace, the miracles of divine Providence! Yet it is not rare that before new difficult or obscure cases we remain hesitant; it almost seems we doubt God’s omnipotence. Let us think, for example, of our spiritual life: there are still dead points to conquer, to overcome... we have tried so many times and perhaps now no longer have the courage to try again. Oh, if we had greater faith, if we cast ourselves into God with greater confidence! Perhaps one beautiful act of full trust would be enough to gain the victory. Jesus looks at us and repeats: “I have compassion on this multitude,” and his compassion is not sterile, but life-giving action, help and actual grace for our soul. Why, then, do we not have greater trust in Him?

Colloquy

“Ah, my Lord! your help is absolutely necessary for me: without You I can do nothing at all. Through your mercy, O Lord, do not permit that my soul be deceived into abandoning the path begun. Give me light to recognize that all my good depends on perseverance...

“Make me understand that my faith in You must prevail over my misery and that I must never be frightened by my weakness. O Jesus, I remember that You too in the garden said: ‘the flesh is weak.’ I must therefore let the flesh do its office without dismaying myself. If even You, who are without sin, experienced the weakness of human nature, how could I wish to be so strong as to feel no fear at all? O Lord, therefore I do not want to be preoccupied with my fears, nor lose courage because of my weakness. I want instead to trust in your mercy, wholly distrusting my own strength, convinced that my weakness comes entirely from leaning on myself” (cf. T.G. M. II, 6; P. 3, 10 and 12).

“To You, O Lord, I have recourse; let me never be confounded. Save me in your justice. Incline your ear to me, deliver me speedily. Be to me a rock of refuge, a sheltering place where I may be saved, for You are my rock and my refuge. For your Name’s sake assist me and guide me. Into your hands I commend my spirit; You have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God. I will rejoice and be glad in your mercy, because You, seeing my misery and knowing the anguish of my soul, will not abandon me into the hand of the enemy, but will set my feet in safety... I trust in You, O Lord, save me by your mercy! Let me not be confounded for having invoked You... for You reserve great good for those who fear You and grant it to all who take refuge in You. Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who hope in the Lord” (cf. Ps. 30).