Make All Things New
Proyects 181: World CLC Day 2024
     1. Our departure point is the Contemplation on the Incarnation
     2. The triptych: SE 102{102} The First Prelude is to survey the history of the matter I am to contemplate. Here it is how the three Divine Persons gazed on the whole surface or circuit of the world, full of people; and how, seeing that they were all going down into hell, they decide in their eternity that the Second Person should become a human being, in order to save the human race. And thus, when the fullness of time had come, they sent the angel St. Gabriel to Our Lady.

A triptych is a work of art that is divided into three panels joined by hinges.
In the first points of the contemplation on the Incarnation[1], Ignatius invite us to contemplate the desires of God and he creates an Icon with three parts. We can imagine the icon as a triptych with three panels:

• the world, at that time the maps of the world were not very developed. Ignatius speaks about the “surface or circuit of the world” meaning the flatness or the roundness. The world could be understood as plain or spherical.
• the Trinity, always mysterious and difficult to imagine, (Trinity icon of Rublev. 15^th Century)
• and the room inside the house of Our Lady in Nazareth. (Saint Ignatius called them the chambers, which is a noble ancient Spanish world to speak about castles and palace rooms)

This triptych represents the need for salvation and the way of salvation of the world.
The desire of God:  “Let us work the redemption of the human race,”

In times of synodality and discernment: The dialogue of the Trinity is like a spiritual conversation in a communal discernment and once they make the decision of working the redemption, comes the Apostolic Planning sending Angel Gabriel to announce to Mary. So all the great discernment of God, depends on the answer of a wonderful little woman of Nazareth.

In the Contemplation on the Incarnation:
It is God who acts. We cannot place this action in space and time.
We don’t have the story of the incarnation in the Bible. 
That is why considering the three panels is very important, even if it is difficult to imagine the Trinity on its throne, we can imagine the world and the need of Salvation.

3. The Trinity of Mercy

Icon of the Trinity of Mercy. Terracotta sculpture made by the Dominican Sister Caritas Müller of Cazis in Switzerland.

God continue working redemption in the world and want us to enter in their merciful way to take care of each person of the world and of the planet itself.

In this representation of the trinity of mercy: the figure at the center is the wounded and dejected human being, like the poor man beaten in the parable of the Good Samaritan. (Lk. 10:25-37)

At the center, God looks at the suffering human being and comes to their help.
God is a God who is Community:
 

• God the Father embraces fallen humanity by holding it up, being its support and sustainer. 

 

• God the Son sets about washing the feet of suffering humanity. Jesus knows the paths we have walked. He has walked with us as one with us, not avoiding any of the feelings of the broken people and serving from below.

 

• God the Holy Spirit illuminates the work of the Father and the Son with their love. The presence of the Spirit is like the giver of life, of God's light and love for humanity and in every heart of the world.

 

4. The Gospel speaks about Incarnation

 

• Matthew presents Jesus as the heir of the messianic promises of the people of Israel: The expected Messiah
• Mark, the first of the Gospels, places Jesus as an adult announcing the Kingdom of God from the moment of his baptism: The Passione for the Kingdom of God, the bearer of the Good News
• Luke shows us the journey of Mary and Joseph so that Jesus, the son of God, could be born: The Son of Man
• John presents to us a timeless incarnation. God in Jesus goes from being Creator to becoming man. He came to his own, but his own did not receive him. And the contrast, a battle almost, between light and darkness, will be what shapes the life of Jesus, and our spiritual life as well.

Could be a good moment to read the beginning of John Gospel: John 1:1-14

In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God…
⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it…
¹⁰ He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. ¹¹ He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. ¹² But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God... ^{… 14} So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

John's gospel warns us: we can reject the word of God and remain in darkness
Or, like Our Lady did, we can accept the word of God, who is the light of the world

In our CLC document Projects 181 we are invited to reflect on:
How does the Contemplation of the Incarnation illuminate:

• My daily life?
• Our national community?
• Our apostolic initiatives?

 

5. Trends in our spiritual life

It seems to me, that one of the problems we have in our spiritual life and when we understand our life as a mission, is that we have the risk to ignored the middle panel in the tryptic of the Contemplation on the Incarnation.

In the text of the contemplation, Saint Ignatius asked for:

• The first prelude is to survey the story: as we have seen before this is the story of the Trinity of Mercy.
• The second prelude, is a composition, by imagining the place
• And the Third prelude is to ask for what I desire. The grace I want to receive from God.

In the second prelude the text says:
{103} The Second Prelude is a composition, by imagining the place:

• Here it will be to see the great extent of the circuit of the world, with peoples so many and so diverse;
• and then to see in particular the house and rooms of Our Lady, in the city of Nazareth in the province of Galilee.

So initially there is not a tryptic, but only two panels:
One the world, and the other the house of Our Lady

What would happen if we were to remain in this composition of place without moving forward in contemplation?

Instead of a triptych we would have a diptych. instead of three panels we would have two: the world and Mary's house. Would there be no room for God in the world?.

What could Mary do without God?
Surely we would not know her.
She would not have gone down in history.
What could a poor woman have done in the face of the misfortunes of the world?

Her house in Nazareth would no longer be important.
and the triptych would already be a diptych but not a Christian icon.
 

6. A world without God

Unfortunately, this is the tendency of today's world. There is no room for God or sometimes we are leaving a small space for God. Or just, we have taken it for granted until God has become a bit superfluous or even forgotten.

If we say in a Diptych scheme and we go back to the original text of Saint Ignatius

On one side we see a world in need of salvation,

• in which many people have their physical life, their humanity, their dignity, their spiritual life and the meaning of their lives threatened...
• we look at the world and we see suffering, meaninglessness, pain, exploitation.... sin,
• we also see development, well-being, wealth, joy, marriages, births...
•  

But on the other side there is no longer Our lady’s room but our own home, more comfortable than Nazareth’s house. And we wonder from our rooms what we have to do for this world...

Let's think for a moment that we remove the panel from the center.
It would no longer be a Christian icon.
We would only have the world and the rooms of Nazareth.
In this way, Mary would not receive the Word of God.
Mary would not be on the way, she will not move ahead.
For Mary the needs of the world would be too much weight on her shoulders.
She would only be able to respond to the needs closest to her.
There would be no salvation for all.

On one side we see a world in need of salvation,

• in which many people have their physical life, their humanity, their dignity, their spiritual life and the meaning of their lives threatened...
• we look at the world and we see suffering, meaninglessness, pain, exploitation.... sin,
• we also see development, well-being, wealth, joy, marriages, births...

But on the other side there is no longer Our lady’s room but our own home, more comfortable than Nazareth’s house. And we wonder from our rooms what we have to do for this world...

Let's think for a moment that we remove the panel from the center.
It would no longer be a Christian icon.
We would only have the world and the rooms of Nazareth.
In this way, Mary would not receive the Word of God.
Mary would not be on the way, she will not move ahead.
For Mary the needs of the world would be too much weight on her shoulders.
She would only be able to respond to the needs closest to her.
There would be no salvation for all.

On one side we see a world in need of salvation,

• in which many people have their physical life, their humanity, their dignity, their spiritual life and the meaning of their lives threatened...
• we look at the world and we see suffering, meaninglessness, pain, exploitation.... sin,
• we also see development, well-being, wealth, joy, marriages, births...

But on the other side there is no longer Our lady’s room but our own home, more comfortable than Nazareth’s house. And we wonder from our rooms what we have to do for this world...

Something like this is what we tend to do according to the dominant secular ideology, which has become so ingrained in us that we do not perceive the difference between the two icons, the one with the three panels and the one with the two.

When we ask ourselves what to do, at first we take God for granted, that is, we assume we know what he wants (so we don't let his novelty break in, we look at the world and its needs, we look at our resources and get down to work).

In reality, we gradually lose touch with the source. We have taken its place. We have put ourselves in God's place.

In our prayer and in our reflection today,
If we want to see the incarnation with the lens of Mary
If we want to anchor our hope in Christ,
and make this journey with Mary’s hope:
- From Nazareth to Jerusalem
- From the Birth to the Cross and the Resurrection

We should follow the advice of Saint Ignatius when we feel that we are far from God, or we cannot contemplate God’s presence and action in the world.

It is time to go back to the Grace we initially asked for:
The Third Prelude will be to ask for what I desire. Here it will be:

• To ask for an interior knowledge of Our Lord, - LIKE MARY
• Who became human for me,  - THROUGH MARY
• that I may love him more intensely and follow him more closely. WITH MARY

Now we would be able to ask ourselves the questions for reflection of our Projects 181:
From Nazareth:
How does Mary's song resonate in me and in the life of my community (local, national, regional, worldwide)? What dissonances do I discover between the Magnificat and my/our songs of hope?
To Jerusalem:
Staying with Mary before Christ on the Cross, I ask myself, looking at Him in the suffering of creation and humanity.

• What have I done for Christ? / What has CLC done for Christ?
• What am I doing for Christ / What is CLC doing for Christ?
• What should I do for Christ? / What should CLC do for Christ?