Word of Life

July 2005

"The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down."
(Ps 145: 14 )

Living in the light of God’s care for us gives us amazing resources to overcome every difficulty we face.

The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down. (Ps 145: 14)

‘God is love.’ (1 John 4: 8) This is the most firm certainty that must guide our lives, even when we have doubts in the face of terrible natural disasters, of the violence human beings can inflict, of our own failures and shortcomings, and of the sufferings that touch us personally.

God himself has shown us and continues to show us that he is Love in a thousand different ways. He gives us creation, life (and all the good things that go with it), redemption through his Son, and the possibility of growing in holiness through the Holy Spirit.

God shows us his love always. He draws close to each of us, accompanying and supporting us step by step in the trials of life. The Psalm from which this Word of Life is taken assures us of this, speaking of the unfathomable greatness of God, of his splendour, his power and his tenderness together with his immense goodness. God is able to work marvels and is, at the same time, a most attentive father, more caring than a mother.

The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.

From time to time all of us have to face difficult and painful situations, either in our personal life or in our relationships with others, and sometimes we are acutely aware of our powerlessness.

We find ourselves faced with walls of indifference and selfishness, and we feel completely helpless in the face of events that seem to overwhelm us.

How many painful situations each of us has to face in life! How much we need Someone to step in and help us! In these moments this Word of Life can help.

Jesus allows us to feel our own limitations, not to discourage us but to help us experience the extraordinary power of his grace, which reveals itself in those very moments when we cannot manage on our own strength, so that we can understand his love better. There is one condition, however: that we have complete faith in him, as a small child does in his mother; a boundless surrender that makes us feel we are in the arms of a Father who loves us just as we are and for whom everything is possible.

We cannot be inhibited by an awareness of our faults because, since God is love, he picks us up each time we have fallen, as parents do with their children.

The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.

Strengthened by this certainty we can cast all our cares upon him, and every problem, as Scripture itself invites us to ‘Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.’ (1 Peter 5: 7)

For us too, in the early times of the Movement, when the Holy Spirit was teaching us how to take our first steps on the path of love, this ‘Cast all your anxiety on the Father’ was an every day thing and often happened several times a day.

I remember I used to say that just as you cannot hold a hot coal in your hand but drop it straightaway to avoid being burnt, so too with the same speed you should cast all your worries on to the Father. And I don’t recall any worry entrusted to him that he didn’t take care of.

But it is not always easy to believe, and to believe in his love. Let’s make the effort this month to do it in each case, even in the most complicated ones. Time after time we will witness the intervention of God who does not abandon us but who takes care of us. We will experience a new strength and discover resources within ourselves that we have never known before.

Chiara Lubich