2 AT THE HEART OF CHRISTIAN LIVING

A good spirituality project needs strong roots.

It will grow into a huge tree only when it is planted on rich and firm soil.

What are such roots?

The answer is very simple. God's presence is the grounding for such a project. God takes the initiative in loving and seeking us out. We respond to his first move. At the heart of Christian belief is this invitation to live in the light of God's presence recognizing that God alone can make us happy. God is love and surrounds us with love.

We live God's love in our human existence. One thing is certain this love is not to be found outside our daily living. If I do not love life convinced that God's presence in my life gives me the right to love everything about it then naturally I will run away from life. I will try to escape or I will seek to control life's difficulties for fear they might cut me off from myself.

The story of Nicodemus

Nicodemus was an honest and down to earth enough man not to be taken in by passing fads. One day he went to see for himself if this Jesus was really all that people were making him out to be. Jesus ignored Nicodemus' question and told Nicodemus that if he wanted to understand batter he would have to "be born from above". What was Jesus trying to say to Nicodemus in this phrase? John's gospel tells us:

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi. we know that you are a teacher who has come from God: for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God."

Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you. no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above."

Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?"

Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit." (Jn. 3:1-5)

When faced with Nicodemus' question Jesus seeks to lead the man to a deeper level of understanding. Jesus does this through challenging him to be 'born from above'. Then he explains that this re-birth is not a physical one, but one which touches his attitude of mind. Here both heart and head have to change.

The project that Jesus puts before Nicodemus can only be understood in terms of a shift in reasoning. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him" (Jn. 3:16-17).

Nicodemus' story is a model for the beginning of any exploration into Christian living.

Like Nicodemus we too want to know from Jesus who he is and how far we can really trust him. Life is too precious to be lost chasing the latest craze that emerges. Jesus does not reply in a way which will ensure him popularity. He presents a pre-condition: "you must be born from above". It is almost as if Jesus is saying only the person who can change his or her reasoning can understand what I am saying. Jesus does not say 'I am this and that' instead he tells us who God is and what his plan for us is.

We are the world that God loves. God loves us. God loves our life and wants us to have that life in all its fitness and abundance (Jn. 10:10)

He became totally and fully one of us and one with us. This is the wonderful good news that Jesus reveals to Nicodemus and through him to us.

Standing at a crossroads

The spiritual person recognizes that, like Nicodemus, only God can quench the thirst for life and happiness that lies within. The spiritual person runs after God as the deer seeks running streams (Ps. 42:2). Continually the question arises, where can we find God and experience his presence and the joy that presence gives'?

If I do not love life, if I am not convinced of God's presence in my life then living becomes an uphill struggle with a bulging back-pack. If instead we see life as a well-proven road where God comes towards us, we would take that road come what may.

We stand at the crossroads. Two roads open up before us. One goes uphill. It starts from our daily living and carries us, around a variety of double bends, toward God. The other is like the road the scriptures speak about in describing the Hebrews' homecoming. God has taken the initiative. In order to make the journey a happier one for the exiles he has levelled off the mountains and filled in the valleys (cf. Lk. 3). He has invented motorways to enable him to reach his sons and daughters more easily.

The first road is the one God takes in coming to meet us. The second is that which leads from us to God. We move towards God because God is coming towards us.

The 'spiritual' person has always been a God-seeker and at times that searching has been in darkness. Jesus tells Nicodemus, however, that the initiative is God's not ours. God is the one who seeks us out.

Salesian living: a specific direction

Like so many of the great saints before them, both Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello recognized this fact of life. They spoke often of the experience which made sense of human existence. The formula they used and repeated again and again was "the presence of God". At the heart of Christian living lies the belief that God is present in our lives, in all that happens and in each and every moment.

They lived this "presence of God". The communities of Mornese and Valdocco were rooted in the certainty and experience of this presence. Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello's lives show this even if their way of expressing these truths carry the cultural overtones of their day and perhaps ring badly in our ears today.

These two saints did not remove themselves from life in order to meet the Lord in a better way. For them "living in God's presence" was equivalent to living daily life to the full. Theirs was an intuition which became a life choice for them.

Accepting young people where they were at in their lives enabled these two saints to save them in a holistic way. They were convinced that God was present in the hearts of the young, even in the hearts of those who seemed to be almost 'evil'.

They lived God's presence in joy and work. Carrying out their duty with patient, loving kindness was their road to self-discipline.

They imbibed God's love through their prayer it was a joyful encounter between the lover and the loved one and a handing over in trust of all one's needs.

In these communities there was no tension between work and prayer, between God and people, between personal prayer and the awareness of God's presence in life. There was no dichotomy. Daily living was the special moment, the place where they met God and freely accepted to follow his designs.

The challenge they made and continue to make to the Church is that we meet God, not only in prayer in Church, but also in the rhythm of work and daily living. The slogan written on the corridors of Valdocco, "God sees you" and "every stitch an act of love of God" uttered in the workrooms of Mornese were the terms Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello used to describe this conviction.

The wellspring: discovering the Incarnation

Our Salesian story has looked long and hard at what the wellspring of "Salesian Youth Spirituality" really is. We reflected a great deal on the meaning of our lives. We looked for this wellspring by trying to understand something of the mystery of God.

It is not enough to find a clever response to this question. We want one which fits into God's plan. In the center of it all is the complex model of what we call spiritual life. Contemporary theology presents us with a model which enables us to reach into the depths of God's saving project for the world. Jesus of Nazareth is the one sure reference point we have in seeking to discover how God comes to meet us in our humanness, in our day to day living. In Jesus, God becomes flesh, taking on our humanity, making our lives his life.

The Salesian Family moved by Don Bosco's extraordinary pastoral intuitions has always been really alert to those theological models which stress God's presence and love in our daily lives. Certainly God's face is always hidden in mystery.

Some models of thinking present God as close to us, others instead present his splendor and 'otherness'.

Don Bosco taught us to prefer the former to the latter. Thus, when the Church, through the Council in "Gaudium et spes", presented the incarnation as the criterion for pastoral and theological renewal, we gladly recognized and owned it.

"Salesian Youth Spirituality" takes on board the insights of Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello, exposes these perceptions to the blast of "fresh air" released by the Council and places the incarnation at the very heart of Christian living.

God's closeness through the Incarnation

When believers talk about the incarnation they are referring to a specific fact of Jesus' life. This fact is that God chose to become one of us in order to save us. Through Mary's openness to God's action in her life, at a specific moment in time and history, God became as we are.

In this sense the incarnation is a part of Jesus' life, an experience among many others. It is an experience which we relate to easily and one we like very much.

However, this does not mean we can detach it from the other experiences of Jesus' life. The incarnation carries us towards Easter. God became one of us in order to offer us God's saving power.

The gospels point out that when Jesus' disciples refer to the incarnation they do not see it detached from everything else. They view it rather as a lens opening up on everything else Jesus did and said. It is a decisive point in Jesus' life which serves to give meaning to all the rest.

Perhaps an example better illustrates this point. If someone wants to take a photograph of a landscape, the first decision to be made is where to position the camera. The choice is a decisive one because the camera will capture only what the lens points towards.

Jesus' disciples viewed the incarnation as the point where the shot was taken in order to understand the rest of the Master's life.

They grew in awareness of this fact because Jesus wanted it that way.

It is enough to think of the angry exchanges between Jesus and the doctors of the law who judged his behavior on the basis of what they knew of God.

Jesus instead tells them that the only way they can know God is through him. Jesus reveals the face of God in the human form that Mary gave him. In Jesus the inaccessible and mysterious, the transcendent and ineffable God takes on a human form and becomes the "word" (cf. DV 13).

In the human form and word of Jesus of Nazareth we can both speak of God and speak to God.

We are able to understand who God is for us and what he is asking of us.

Jesus reveals the face of God

The pages of the gospel reveal the face of a God who is close to people, passionate about life and committed to everyone's happiness. Jesus does not ask us to choose between God and human happiness. Instead Jesus affirms that God's glory is indeed the person who is happy and fully alive. The "jealous" God of many of the pages of the Old Testament becomes in Jesus the God of "love".

Among the many pages of the gospel, there are two in particular that the Salesian tradition homes in on, they are central to our understanding of our faith. In these two extracts the Incarnation is seen as the God whom Jesus revealed.

"Walk tall, with heads held high... "

A page of Luke's gospel which helps us understand who God is for us and where he stands in relation to us is that of the crippled woman. Indirectly it points towards the aim of our "Salesian Youth Spirituality".

Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight.

When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment".

When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God' (Lk. 13:10-13).

Faced then with the anger of the official of the synagogue because he had dared to go against the law and heal someone on the Sabbath, Jesus replies, "ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?" (Lk. 13:16).

It is not the only episode in the gospels where such a point is made. indeed the whole of the gospel is written in this tone. It reflects Jesus' desire to bring life where there are signs of death. The struggle to enable those who for different reasons are weighed down with burdens to hold their heads high and walk tall seems to be a cause running through the whole of Jesus' life.

In God's name Jesus encourages all who are oppressed to walk tall. He restores dignity to those who have been deprived of it. It is a far cry from religious experiences which use God to devalue life and human happiness. Jesus is truly the sign of the one who is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the one who says "I, the Lord your God, brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves. I broke the power that held you down and I let you walk with your heads held high" (Lev. 26: 13).

Jesus works in this way in God's name. indeed, the angry exchanges between himself and those who found his way of behaving despicable, witness to the fact that Jesus' actions show clearly whose side God is on.

The Good Shepherd

Don Bosco often spoke to his young people of the Good Shepherd. Like Jesus, Don Bosco was a sign of who God is for them. Another page of the gospel runs:

Again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you. I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they win listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father" (Jn. 10:7-18).

Jesus paints a type of self-portrait in the figure of the "good shepherd". in it he depicts God's basic attitude towards his people and asks that we work in the same way.

It is a very challenging proposal. It is a spirituality which attempts to contemplate God in and through action.

We are in good company. The "good shepherd" figure has impressed Christians down the ages. It was a figure drawn onto the walls of the Catacombs to give hope to those facing death because they remained faithful to the name of Jesus. It was carved onto the stones of Cathedral walls through the centuries to remind us of the task we have to accomplish. Don Bosco himself was so struck by the figure of the good shepherd that he declared in words and with his life, "I have promised God that to my last breath I will spend my life for the good of my poor young people".

Jesus the "good shepherd" reveals who God is for us and who we are invited to be in fidelity to his plan for us. To give one's life for one's sheep, right to the last breath, is to love without any half measures.

God in our humanity

The incarnation reveals God's face. This discovery is enough to have us praising God for the rest of our lives.

But there is something more that adds another dimension to Christian living. The incarnation, because it is rooted in the mystery of God, reveals a greatness which has no limits. We, women and men marked with the poverty of our weakness, the betrayal of sin, have become so new as to depict a face of God and speak a word about his passionate love for all. Our humanity is assumed by Jesus. God is revealed and speaks in Jesus, showing how our humanity might become the word and the face of God.

There is a deep compatibility between our humanity, that of Jesus and God. It is this affinity which enables us to say with the gospel, "Whenever you did this for the least important of my people, you did it for me" (Mt. 25:40).

Jesus' humanity which Mary allowed to take shape within her own body reveals God's face. Our humanity is the humanity of Jesus. Undoubtedly Jesus lived his humanity to the utmost. It was not, however, an exclusive way of living it out. We are substantially what Jesus is so totally. Certainly we are this in a way that is poor and often disturbed, but we are as Jesus is, the place of the presence and closeness of God.

"Salesian Youth Spirituality" is founded on the Incarnation and is a spirituality which loves life. It recognizes in humanity and in life the place where God is continually present and close to each of us, like the good and welcoming Father who saves and fills life. Reflecting in this way on our lives and the meaning of our lives impels us to be true to life and to live it to the full.