Daily Thought for February 2, 2016
Bearers of Good News!
And it should be the same when we encounter the Lord: to communicate the joy of this encounter, of His mercy, of the Lord’s mercy. In fact, the concrete sign that we have truly encountered Jesus is the joy we experience in communicating it also to others. And this is not “engaging in proselytism,” this is to make a gift: I give you what gives me joy. Reading the Gospel, we see that this was the experience of the first disciples: after the first encounter with Jesus, Andrew went immediately to tell his brother Peter (Cf. John 1:40-42), and Philip did the same with Nathaniel (Cf. John 1:45-46). To encounter Jesus is the same as encountering His love. This love transforms us and enables us to transmit to others the strength that it gives us. In some way, we can say that from the day of Baptism each one of us was given a new name, in addition to the one already given by our mother and father, and this name is “Cristoforo”: we are all “Cristofori.” What does it mean? “Bearers of Christ.” It is the name of our attitude, an attitude of bearers of the joy of Christ, of the mercy of Christ. Every Christian is a “Cristoforo,” that is a bearer of Christ!
The mercy we receive from the Father is not given to us as a private consolation, but it makes us instruments, so that others can also receive the same gift. There is a stupendous circularity between mercy and mission. To live mercy makes us missionaries of mercy, and to be missionaries enables us to grow ever more in God’s mercy. Therefore, let us take seriously our being Christians, and commit ourselves to live as believers, because only thus can the Gospel touch the heart of persons and open it to receive the grace of love, to receive this great mercy of God who welcomes all.
Pope Francis excerpt from Jubilee Audience of February 1, 2016