Teaching from Don Marco: Humble and Generous Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord

From LuisaPiccarretaofficial.org

Dear brothers and sisters, Fiat!

In the Gospel, we are presented with these two sons: one who expresses himself with beautiful words but does not fulfill his duty; the other who, despite his struggle and his weakness, knows how to place himself in the right position and seeks to fulfill the will of the father and to build his life well.

There is a clear reference to the chief priests and the elders of the people—in essence, the Pharisees—who know how to speak well and know the precepts of the law of God, but who are closed to God and to their neighbor in their hearts and in their lives.

There is a first teaching, which is to consider ourselves humble and willing to serve in the work of the Lord’s vineyard; that is, in the commitment, with good will, to do good in our personal lives, in family life, in society, in the Church—that is, in the Christian community in which we are called to be active, participating, co-responsible, and good workers in the “vineyard.” How are we to carry out this work?

The Apostle Paul, in the Letter to the Philippians, in the passage proposed to us today, gives us some very precious and beautiful indications. He tells us to have sentiments of love and compassion, to bear fruits of charity, to have the same sentiments and the same charity, and to remain united and in agreement.

We can say that the first fruit of the work of the evangelical laborer is mutual love, continuous and profound union with others, experiencing ourselves as part of the one body, in which each person fulfills his or her part. Using a slogan, we might say: “to truly work as a team.”

Again, the Apostle tells us in the same letter: “Do nothing out of rivalry or vainglory; rather, in all humility, let each of you consider others as superior to yourself.” This is not something to be taken for granted, not even among the best of people, not even with the best of good intentions.

It is an ideal that is proposed to us: to consider others superior to ourselves and to esteem them; to seek to see and imitate the good qualities of others; to learn from them, because there is always a need to learn; and never to impose our own vision.

Again he tells us: “Let each one seek not his own interest, but that of others.” Our first concern should be for others—as I was saying, in the family, at work, at school, in society, and in the life of the Christian community.

Above all, we are struck by what he says; it does us good and becomes a magnificent goal: “Have in yourselves the same sentiments as Christ Jesus: though He was God, He did not regard this as a privilege, but emptied Himself, taking the condition of a servant, becoming in all things like us men.”

This is humility, and this is the self-abasement of Christ Jesus. All of this led Him to become the Lord, the Savior, in the greatest glory of Heaven.

With true humility, we must say that our path, the way of our life, our fulfillment, our salvation, is to have before God and before our neighbor the same sentiments as Christ Jesus.

In everything, then, we can ask ourselves: What does Jesus think? What does Jesus feel? How does Jesus act? What are the profound sentiments of His Heart?

And so our prayer and our commitment become: “Jesus, meek and humble of Heart, make our hearts like Yours.”

On January 12, 1900, Jesus tells Luisa, regarding the virtue of humility, that His Humanity was filled with opprobriums and humiliations, to the point of overflowing with them. This is why Heaven and earth tremble before His virtues, and the souls who love Him use His Humanity as a staircase by which to ascend and lap up a few little drops of His virtues.

Jesus, provocatively, asks Luisa where her humility is, where it stands when compared with that of Jesus. He alone can glory in possessing true humility.

The Divinity, united to His Humanity, could work prodigies at every step, word, and action; and yet He voluntarily restricted Himself within the circle of His Humanity. He showed Himself as the poorest and went so far as to mingle even with sinners.

He could have accomplished the work of Redemption in a very short time, even with a single word; but over the course of so many years, with so many hardships and sufferings, He wanted to make the miseries of man His own. He wanted to exercise Himself in so many different actions so that man might be completely renewed and divinized.

Even the smallest actions, because they were performed by Him, who was God and Man, received new splendor and remained imprinted with the character of divine works.

The Divinity, hidden within the Humanity of Jesus, descended to such lowliness as to subject Itself to the course of human actions, while with a single act of Will He could have created infinite worlds. He wanted to feel the miseries and weaknesses of others as though they were His own, to see Himself covered with all the sins of men before Divine Justice, and to have to pay the penalty at the price of unheard-of sufferings and with the shedding of all His Blood.

Thus Jesus exercised continuous acts of profound and heroic humility.

Here is the immense difference between the humility of Jesus and the humility of creatures, which, before His, is scarcely a shadow—even that of all the Saints—because the creature is always a creature and does not know how much sin weighs as Jesus knows it.

Even though heroic souls, following His example, have offered themselves to suffer the pains of others, these sufferings are not different from those of other creatures; they are not new things for them, because they are formed of the same clay.

Moreover, merely to think that those sufferings are the cause of new gains and that they glorify God is a great honor for them.

Furthermore, the creature is restricted within the circle in which God has placed her, nor can she go beyond those limits within which she has been circumscribed by God. If doing and undoing were within their power, everyone would reach the stars!

But the Humanity of Jesus had no limits, yet He voluntarily restricted Himself within Himself; and this was the intertwining of all His works with heroic humility.

This had been the cause of all the evils that inundate the earth: the lack of humility. And Jesus, through the exercise of this virtue, was to draw all goods from Divine Justice.

No decrees of grace proceed from the throne of God except by means of humility, nor can any note be received by Him unless it bears the signature of humility.

No prayer is heard by His ears or moves His Heart to compassion unless it is perfumed with the fragrance of humility.

If the creature does not reach the point of destroying that seed of honor and esteem—and this is destroyed by reaching the point of loving to be despised, humiliated, and confounded—she will feel an intertwining of thorns around her heart. She will feel a void in her heart that will always trouble her and will render her very dissimilar to His Most Holy Humanity.

And if she does not reach the point of loving humiliations, at most she will be able to know something of herself, but she will not shine before God, clothed in the beautiful and pleasing garment of humility

don Marco